All right.

Let's go ahead and get started.

All right.

This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee taking place at 4 p.m.

on Wednesday, May 20th, 2026.

Can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nelson.

Present.

Commissioner Pez Classen.

Present.

Chair Hazlitt.

Present.

Vice Chair Gotzler.

President.

Commissioner Snyder.

Present.

Commissioner Moore.

Item A is approval of the consent agenda.

Okay.

Would a commissioner like to move approval of all items within the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nelson.

Approved.

Thank you.

Aye.

I'm not sure.

I'm so sorry.

And so many different meetings.

This is the I meeting.

I like it.

Commissioner of Hes Classen.

Aye.

Chair Hazlitt.

Aye.

Vice Chair Gotzler.

Commissioner Snyder.

Aye.

Commissioner Moore.

Under B reports and discussion items, item number B1 is a communication regarding Hackham's eviction process and a quarterly update on Hackham's evictions.

Greg Cruz and Joseph Dobbs will speak on this item.

Good evening, everyone.

Greg Cruz with the City Attorney's Office.

Joining me is Joseph Dobbs.

Joseph, you want to introduce us?

Yes, good afternoon, everyone.

Joseph Dobbs, City Attorney's Office.

I am the attorney in charge of evictions for the Housing Authority.

Welcome.

Many of you probably recall about a year ago, Alex Carson from our office was here.

In the last few months, Alex has sort of transitioned Joseph into that role and trained him.

And within the last couple weeks, Joseph's been flying solo in court, and we've had great results.

So I wanted Joseph to show up.

He's not going to be here for all of these quarterly updates, but I thought it would be helpful for all of you to know who's the person that's actually in the courtroom talking to the commissioners and comments.

So the chair had asked me to uh put together moving forward a quarterly update about the status of evictions for the housing authority.

Because this is the first one that we're doing, I thought that it would be helpful first to just sort of talk more generally about evictions so that all of you understand what that process looks like, how long it takes, what are the different kinds of evictions we handle, all those sorts of things.

So if it's all right with you, I'm just oh lost my chair.

Um I'm just gonna go ahead and walk us through what sort of a typical eviction looks like and and um some some general concepts.

Feel free to stop me and ask questions along the way if you'd like.

So the housing authority has an evictions team that is of course Joseph and Alex, who are the attorneys, and they also have two legalists, paralegal and a legal assistant, Mike Miller and Megan Mindy, who do a lot of the uh a lot of the heavy lifting for us, all of the drafting and reviewing of all the documents and the sort.

Uh the two of them are actually physically located in the city attorney's office, but they are hackham employees.

Um, and so it's kind of a slightly different arrangement.

Um, but because they work so closely with us on a day-to-day basis, we thought it best that they'd be housed in our office.

Um evictions um ultimately are referred to us by property management and the staff of the housing authority.

Um, the determinations on when and whether to evict client uh tenants based on conduct or rent issues are made on a case-by-case basis, and they depend heavily on the individual circumstances involved, as well as an evaluation of the evidence we actually have that we can present to in court to support an eviction.

And that's especially true when it as it relates to conduct-based evictions, criminal acts, things like that.

Um, as I'll frequently say it's not what you know, but it's what you can prove in court, and that's especially true uh with the commissioners.

Um, as a general matter, residents facing potential eviction, because of conduct and rent issues are provided with either a five, 14-day, or 30-day notice to vacate, depending on the underlying reasons leading to their eviction.

Um these notices are sometimes curable, meaning uh we we issue a lot of 30-day curable notices for rent, for example.

Um, if they get caught up on rent, they have cured the notice and they don't have to vacate.

Some of the notices are non-curable, and that is to say, even if they change their behavior, we're it's too late and we're going to be moving forward with with the eviction.

Um rent notices, uh, at least the last six years, um, five or six years are always 30-day notices, and that is a result of the CARES Act.

Uh, federally assisted housing um eviction notices for rent are required to be 30-day curable notices.

Um, so the days of being able to issue shorter notices like a five-day notice for rent.

Um, Hackham does not have the ability to do that.

In the event that a notice is not or cannot be cured, and the tenant hasn't voluntarily vacated the premises by the end of that notice period, hackham is forced to file an eviction action in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court to evict them.

After an eviction is filed, an initial appearance takes place no more than 25 days after the filing of the case.

If the tenant doesn't appear or there and or there are no legitimate disputes about the cause for the eviction, um, often the judge or court commissioner will grant a default judgment or a judgment in favor of Hackham and issue what's known as a writ of restitution.

A writ of restitution, which we commonly just refer to as a writ, is the document that tells the sheriff's department to help uh the housing authority evict an individual.

Once we get that writ, we provide it to the sheriff's department, and they will come and assist with the eviction generally within 10 days.

Um if the tenant does appear at a first hearing, or there are potential factual issues that are raised, the court might set a contested hearing.

Um those generally take place within the next 30 days.

From there, however, often tenants will show up and say they're looking for an attorney or they just got an attorney and and the attorney needs time to get familiar.

So sometimes the court will grant additional extensions.

So occasionally with contested hearings, these matters can stretch on for months from time to time.

Same thing though, at the end of a contested hearing, assuming that the court does grant um an eviction, we get a writ, we send it to the sheriff, and then they um evict from there.

After the writ is acted upon, there's another stage of the eviction process, which we commonly refer to as seconds and thirds.

What that means is I saw that look, what that means is there are three causes of action in an eviction.

The first is a request for the writ, a judgment saying that we can evict the person.

The second cause of action is for uh rent that is owed, and the third cause of action is for costs and fees, damages, um, court costs, attorney's fees.

Those are all in the right bucket, right, Joseph?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh we commonly refer to it as seconds and thirds, but it's a follow-up hearing where we actually seek a money judgment against tenants who owe us either for rent or for damage to the property, or at a minimum, the filing fees and and legal time and and those sort of costs associated with the eviction.

Um the judgment that we get is ultimately valid and collectible for 20 years from the point it's issued.

So the housing authority is able to go ahead and collect those uh for two decades after after we get them.

Um after we get the judgment, our role is pretty much wrapped up.

We communicate all the information to the housing authority, um, and they will, you know, report the debts uh to HUD and take collection stats, all those sorts of things.

So that's kind of the very basics of an eviction from start to finish.

I did put together a written narrative and a little flowchart uh that you guys should have too, but I thought it'd be easier to just talk you through it.

So I wanted to stop and see if you all had any questions before I started talking a little bit about um eviction diversion and some of the other options we have to work with tenants, especially as it relates to rent.

But I wanted to see if I gave a lot of information.

So buy our way.

Commissioner Moore, thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Um, thank you so much for laying this out for us.

Um, really quick, uh, just just for process oriented for me.

Once the sheriff is involved, once you know we get to that process, who is clean to perform the eviction?

Uh who is clearing out that that tenants um space?

Is it our staff?

Is it hackham staff and the sheriff is there for seeing?

How does that work?

The sheriff's department works with Eagle Movers who assists in actually physically moving out all of the stuff.

So it's a moving company.

And ultimately the housing authority pays for that.

And then those costs would get, I believe, added into the third, the thirds, the seconds and thirds.

And the and that individual's items are put where?

I don't know the answer to that, Joseph.

Oh.

They're put in storage for 30 days.

That we oversee the storage, we oversee that storage.

I'm not sure here.

I think eagle movers.

Okay.

So Eagle Eagle Movers um stores the items for 30 days.

Yeah.

Um, and then let's say the the it doesn't work out and what then happens.

I'm just again trying to just process this, right?

And I'm gonna get and then please come up.

Or whoever come up.

Just so that I get really quick.

Yes.

I think I want us all to understand, you know, once a tenant is you know, their items are put in storage, they then have to they, you know, they they do have an opportunity for 30 days, but if that doesn't happen in 30 days, then what?

So I'm Jeannie Dawson.

I am uh hackham staff.

And I know this only because of my previous role working as a housing advocate with community advocates and doing um uh tenant advocacy.

So uh yeah, so the moving company that is uh the sheriff's company or the sheriffs have an arrangement with the moving company.

They give the writ to the moving company, they schedule the moves, they're usually have to be done, I think within 10 days.

And then um the tenants are notified, there's a notice put on the door.

So if the tenants are able to remove their own belongings, that's what everybody wants.

But if they can't, then the movers will go there with the sheriffs who are armed, and it's not pretty, but the movers will move their items out.

They will, if there's anything that they feel is um trash, it will get left on the on the side of the, you know, to be picked up by garbage people.

The other stuff is taken to storage, and then they will hold it and charge the tenant for storage fees that will continue to go up for however long they decide to do it.

Uh, if the tenants are able to reclaim their items, that's great.

They'll come and get them out.

Otherwise, eventually the the storage company will auction off or sell uh individual belongings.

Got it.

And then um, and the as far as the cost to the tenant, um they're charged a day a daily storage fee, so they just have to pay for storage.

They don't have to pay for back rent in order to retrieve their items.

The the judgment from the court that goes to the housing authority does not include a continuous storage fee for ongoing storage.

So that would be separate with the moving company.

Yeah, if I meant uh by the time that has happened, the seconds and thirds dates for the money judgment hearing is still usually a month or two in the future.

We don't want to have that money judgment process conclude until the move out has actually happened so that we can assess any damage that might have happened in the unit during the move out.

Um so at the point where the resident is trying to retrieve their belongings within that, especially within that initial 30 day window, there won't have been a money judgment against them at that point.

It'll just be the question of the writ and then the sheriffs and eagle movers coming.

Got it.

And last question are tenants aware of this sort of process when you know, if they're coming close or is being evicted, is there something that um outlines to them?

Like, hey, this is the process, Joseph?

I would defer to you since you interact with the attendance.

Um property management is always willing to talk to residents about active things.

There's kind of two buttons, there's kind of two big buckets here as far as the tenants who are engaged with the process and then the tenants who avoid the process.

And if they're trying to avoid it as much as possible, they're not going to take advantage of any opportunities to learn more about it.

And and this is speaking very broadly, of course, individuals are always unique and cases are always particular.

Uh, but people who want that information can ask for it.

Generally speaking, the we're serving notices that have a lot of information in them about and that will usually include stuff about eviction diversion.

But we generally don't, if we're saying, you know, pay your rent in 30 days, have a whole timeline of everything that could happen after that.

One of the things I do in court, and we'll probably get into this generally when we talk about eviction diversion in the next section, is go over these consequences and just the shape of the future events so that no one is um even if someone comes to court not understanding what's happening or what's about to happen, they have a sense of okay, this is what it's going to look like from here.

Here are your options in full.

And would you say that it's heavily the responsibility of the property managers to be able to forward some of this information?

Again, this is perhaps, hey, you're on the verge, right?

Um, of you know, moving toward an eviction.

Would you say it's the property manager's responsibility to be able to share that information?

And anybody can answer that question.

I would say that the property managers are not legal experts.

So there's things that yes, they can share and they often do share.

Sure.

But other things they can't share.

So I mean, if we know the address of where they can pick up their items, yes, we would be more than willing to share it.

Yeah.

So before this, um, Harold, this would be before this sort of before the process, you know, starts roll the ball starts rolling down the hill where you know where it's just like now we gotta go to court, right?

Before that, like, hey, you're 30 days behind, 60 days behind, 90 days.

We do share all that, we share the consequences of that's what that kind of thing.

Um we should be telling them I'm pretty sure we do tell them that it's gonna cost you, you know.

This it's not just that's what I mean.

You don't owe just the rent, but you owe the ATs and then you owe court costs, attorney fees, and then ultimately the eviction fee.

Gotcha.

Can you state your name for the record, please?

No.

In essence, junior secretary, executive director of the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee.

Thank you.

Oh, just one more point.

Ultimately, the notice that Joseph was talking about is something that we have served on them e personally, sir.

So then we know that they get it, posted on the door, we have process servers, sometimes public safety will serve, sometimes the property managers will serve.

Okay.

But those notices have to be served on the tenants.

So at a minimum, they know 30 days before they're expected to be out, you're behind on rent, this is how much you owe, you gotta get caught up now.

And what is being served?

Is served in hand, in person?

Is it slid under the door?

Is it taped to the door?

We do in person and on the door, correct, Joseph?

The attempt is always made at least three times to give it to somebody in person and charge at the residence before if we can if we make three attempts and we can't find anybody there on three, it's usually on three separate days, it's at least two separate days, different times of the day.

Sure.

If after all that you still can't hand it to somebody, it gets posted on the door and it gets mailed to them, I believe first-class mail.

Uh we can't do certified mail-only uh uh public housing.

Okay.

Some of the LLCs maybe.

Um, so those attempts have to be made.

If they're ducking or if they're out of town, you know, it could be innocent or not, as far as why they're not there, but it will be posted to the front door.

And is that documented?

Absolutely.

We have uh affidavits in every case at a minimum from the process service.

For court, um, to make sure that we have made our our proper service attempts.

Commissioner Yepis class.

Yes.

And uh Greg, you alluded to speaking to eviction diversion.

So maybe you're gonna get on to that, but I was just gonna ask about mediation and opportunities, etc., to avoid that.

We participate, for example, the Milwaukee mediation yeah program that I'm here they are now.

I used to volunteer there when it has to be.

It's now with the um the Milwaukee Justice Center okay yeah it used to be at the law school uh when I worked for them um but we don't have a formal participation in that I do think that we get requests to mediate from time to time but I haven't been too involved I don't know Joseph yes you're still relatively new I don't know if you've dealt with any mediations I haven't done any of it myself we get the requests occasionally our advice generally has been that if property management wants to participate in this process they can but that we have our own ability to work with people directly we're not slum lords trying to squeeze people for every you know thing every month right on time so we don't think it's a process that necessarily brings a whole lot to us when we're trying to do our best to keep people housed all on our own already to introduce a third party in the middle man.

So we have the option open but we don't make it a big process.

And the other thing to note that's maybe a little we're a little different than most landlords um because even from a repayment term standpoint we have specific roles we have to follow and so that sort of cooperative mediation approach doesn't always work well in the strict guidelines that the federal government has given us on repayment plans um and and so there's a little less flexibility but as Joseph noted we're always uh looking at being able to do those um those sorts of things whenever we can ultimately we don't want to have to file an eviction we just want the rent thank you for that response um important commissioner I'm sorry commissioner Snyder thank you madam chair um this probably doesn't happen very often but are vehicles part of an eviction I mean have you acquired and if somebody leaves you can't find them and there's a vehicle involved I've never addressed that exact question.

I assume if an if a vehicle is abandoned on the property it would be treated like an abandoned vehicle generally is and eventually uh towed impounded what have you as far as it being part of a particular person's I've never seen uh a damages line item for a band or a vehicle or uh a towing fee or anything like that so I think that would be handled separately.

Madam Chair in the case of an eviction where um law enforcement was involved that happens um and an an automobile was left on the premises would the automobile be taken down the toll if the person was incarcerated for some short period of time.

Do you mean during the the sheriff's coming and removing the process or someone who's incarcerated in the first place for five years and we have to evict no that's not what no what I meant was during the process.

So if there's a 30 or 60 day process and the eviction takes place and somebody comes eagle mover and they take the stuff out would they also take an automobile I don't think so okay I think that would have to be dealt with separately okay because that would seem to be unfair I would probably somebody can't get can't get the work if they're they don't have access to a vehicle thank you Mr.

ultimately if people are incarcerated we do have it come up sometimes where people have to you know they end up having to go to prison for a few years and they can't house them anymore.

Generally speaking we get a written release from them authorizing somebody else to come and collect their property.

So as long as they are on top of it and reaching out to property management arrangements can be made still avoid moving toes and all that.

Commissioner Nelson.

In this process and say um this to the point where eagle movers are now physically putting their hands on the property of a person being evicted.

Are these items recorded and itemized as to what is in storage?

And the reason I say that would have further down the line is a dispute from the renters say, Well, hey, I have more stuff than this.

I had two I have two televisions, but I only see one.

How do you deal with that?

How is that done?

I would think that would be a dispute between the moving company and uh the tenant.

And and we don't have a we're not the people who contract for the movers.

Okay.

That's the sheriff's department.

It's the only movers that are allowed to be used.

Uh so I don't know that we would even be involved.

I haven't heard of any disputes in my time.

I can only say that in my experience and other states, the share, there is an inventory taken so that uh people can't come back and say, I had a million dollars, not a press.

Okay.

Right.

Dallas, maybe they're just there.

Well, it does belong to us technically.

Okay, thank you then.

Thank you.

So if there's no other questions, I did want to talk a little bit about eviction avoidance, just so that the board's aware of a couple of the options that are out there.

Um before we go into those, though, it's worth noting um for all of you that HUD does not allow us to forgive any balance that's owed to the PHA.

So even if we wanted to forgive the rent and let them stay, we're just not allowed to.

Uh they have to pay it all back.

If they don't pay it back, um, even after they're evicted, they're not eligible for housing uh until the a past housing authority is made whole.

Um so that HUD's very strict about that.

That said, we do have repayment plans that we can we can look at.

Um, the the main form of rent repayment is an in-court rent stipulation.

Um and Joseph can maybe talk a little bit about how those are all calculated and everything, but generally speaking, um, we will after we file an eviction case, we'll be able to pretty easily determine okay, this case it's a manageable balance.

This is going to be eligible for a stipulation, and we can try to work something out, even though we've already filed that eviction.

Um, and as long as they stay up to date on both their ongoing rent and the payments under the stipulation, they can stay.

If they violate it, unfortunately, the consequence is that they're going to be evicted for violating that stipulation.

Joseph, do you want to talk a little bit about the 40% rule?

Absolutely.

So, as you I'm sure know have heard countless times, uh, tenants' rent is set at 30% of their income with certain deductions and uh calculations made there.

HUD guidance has been that their total payments to the housing authority, kind of in any form, but in particular looking at repayment plans, should never be above 40% of their adjusted income.

So that gives us roughly 10% of their adjusted income for a repayment plan for monthly payments.

So, what we've done in the past, and what we're continuing to do is to try and find a down payment size as a one-off payment, separate from that rule that allows us to pull their outstanding balance into that 10% over a reasonable period of months because not only is it impractical for us to administer a 10-year repayment plan, uh, the court will not uh accept it.

And court sign off is required for uh repayment plans done after uh things are filed.

So, with that as our sort of maximum threshold, we try and find something that works.

If someone is on minimum rent, our ACOP allows us to uh increase that 10% from what would be you know 10% of nothing is nothing to a $50 maximum a month, which doesn't necessarily get us very far, but that's if you're on minimum rent, $50 a month is what your rent is set at.

So in proportion, it's a reasonable amount of money, and it would make a start on a repayment plan, even if they've got a big balance, hopefully.

So it does it does behoove um tenants, though, to sort of work with us before the balance gets so out of hand that we some cases you look at and you say there's unless they've got five thousand dollars sitting around for that initial down payment, we're they're never gonna be able to get on to a stipulation.

And our hand is basically forced to seek the judgment because again, we can't let them stay there without paying rent, and we can't forget the balance.

Um, so that it it ties our hands a bit as far as what our options are.

Um, I think it's probably appropriate to talk about the source of balances because I think everybody just sort of thinks, well, these large balances are from years and years of non-payment of rent.

And sometimes that's true that you could have months or even uh years of non-payment rent, but it's also important to know that a lot of the large balance cases we see are actually a result of unreported income, what we call a retro charge, uh, where somebody hasn't told Mark Weta that they got a job, and then their annual recertification comes up and they've had eight, nine, ten months of this extra income that we didn't know about.

Well, they're gonna get a huge retroactive charge because they're responsible for paying 30% of that income for all of those months, and they probably didn't squirrel all that money away.

Um, and so a lot of times that's going to be a source of some of these balances as well.

And so it also behooves the tenants to stay up to date on reporting their income so that we don't end up with these large retro charges and thus difficulty working out a repayment plan.

Um, there is one workaround from the tenants' angle to the 40% rule that I did want to mention because we do see these from time to time, and that is a chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Um tenants are able to file a three to five year debt repayment plan through the bankruptcy court that allows them to get caught up on rent while making their ongoing rental payments.

And because it's through the federal court system, the 40% rule is not in play, and they would basically take whatever that big chunk is, add on a trustee's fee, which is like an administrative fee, and then they can spread that out to a maximum of five years and they can repay the rent back to us that way.

So that's another thing that we see from time to time.

But um, those are difficult cases to get all the way through and they're complicated, and the attorney's fees can be four or five thousand dollars, you know, it can be a little expensive, but it is one other option that we do see tenants take advantage of sometimes, madam chair, commissioner more really quick.

Where does tax interception come into play?

So that is after the move out.

Um tax intercept is for it, it wouldn't be like if we have a uh tenant that we know is $500 behind, let's put them into trip while they're still a current tenant.

We don't do it's for judgments and move out balances after the fact.

It is there a threshold for the amount like, oh, it has to be over this amount.

No, I don't believe so.

And then um, can tax interception be for multiple years until the the balance is paid?

Yeah, like I said before, the judgments that are owed to us are valid for 20 years.

So if they don't get much of a return and they or they have a large judgment out there, they could stay in trip for a long time.

However, we would have to put that in, we would have to activate that.

Correct.

We we have to affirmatively uh submit the debt to the state in order to enter it into the trip program.

And there's some other requirements of notice and things like that.

But thank you.

Generally are just part of the account wrap-up process at Hackham.

Madam Chair.

Yes, Vice Chair Gotzler and then Commissioner Snyder.

Hi, Chair.

Uh what you've just described obviously applies to public housing.

Is this uh to what extent do these same uh processes and procedures and regulations that you're describing apply to the um rental assistance demonstration projects that are using low-income housing tax credits and do have uh section eight vouchers?

Um, and how do they how do these rules get applied as it relates to what I call the Ben's properties?

For some reason they get called vets, which I still don't understand that, but it's the market, what we call market rate properties.

So I it's kind of step by step in that process.

There could be some differences.

A lot of the notice requirements and service requirements and how the judgments work, those are operations of state law.

So those wouldn't really change.

Uh, but there are some differences between public housing and the LLCs.

Generally speaking, though, they all get the 30-day notice of rent because they're all federally assisted housing.

So that's one thing that is uh the same.

I'm trying to think what are the main differences.

The 40% rule isn't there for market rates.

Uh, and that gives us a lot more flexibility.

At the same time, those are generally much higher rental amounts in the first place.

So you have the potential for much larger balances, but you also have the potential for if someone is making you know $50,000 a year instead of you know $10,000 a year, they've got a lot more flexibility potentially to make a large down payment and uh get on to repayment plan anyway.

Yeah.

So we definitely have more flexibility there with your payment plans.

Commissioner, thank you, manager.

Um are these are evictions adjudicated in um in uh um municipal court?

No, it's uh the county court, it's county court, yeah.

All of Milwaukee County Circuit Court uh in small claims, okay.

Even though there's a HUD component to it?

Correct, okay, or a city component.

So it's not we don't yeah, they don't do that.

Um yeah, landlord tenant law is governed um under chapter chapter 704 of state law.

So it's a a state law process that is and thus goes to the state court, which is the county court.

Thank you.

The way I think about it is kind of the people we tell to do something about it in the end are the sheriffs or the the county, but the sort of state agency versus uh the city employees or federal employees.

Thank you.

Do we have any other questions of the commissioners?

Okay.

Um I also, along with everything, we provided you guys with some spreadsheets that have very small type on them.

Apologies.

Um I I don't expect everybody to look at all of those, and and frankly, I don't that's really it's quarterly updates on the actual cases that we're taking and where they're at and how much the judgment is, if we got to that point, all that sort of stuff.

I I wouldn't expect you guys to review all of it ahead of time, and we probably won't be discussing individual cases as part of this update because that's inappropriate.

So privacy and and other reasons.

But feel free to reach out to me if there's a line like, well, this one looks weird.

What was this about?

If you want to reach out to me after the meetings, you're more than welcome to, and we can have a discussion about individual cases.

I'll probably just loop in Joseph though, because he knows better.

Chair?

Vice Chair Gotzla.

I just want to say even though other people may not have read them all, I actually did.

And I not not in this format, but on a very large screen.

And I appreciate seeing that detail because as a commissioner, it lets me know that you have those records and that someone is actually tracking them.

Now I can't tell obviously from that to what extent you're doing that, but at least I can see that you have it.

And that's and I really appreciate it.

Not that I ever doubted it, but you know, one of the challenges that we've had over the past couple years is the commission not getting enough information.

So this is this is really helpful, and it's a good um, it's a good model for us to follow.

So thank you very much.

I and I would also say um we we put this together kind of guessing at what you all would want to know about.

So if there's things you don't want on there or do want on there, um the city attorney's office got a relatively new record system, uh legal management system, and it actually is pretty flexible on what kind of record reports we can generate.

So we can make tweaks to it.

This was just kind of my guess at what you all would find interesting to know about.

And we definitely wanted to organize them by development so that you could kind of see what are the balances coming from the different developments and how many referrals are from which developments, that sort of thing.

So but we're happy to change it if anyone has any point.

Madam Chair, Commissioner Moore.

Um, I just had a quick question in regards, just that's sort of a blanket um question.

So just even if I pull out of number and you know, I did have an opportunity to review some of this material as well.

But let's let's say the balances that are over $10,000, because that could be associated with months.

I mean, you know, lots of months.

It could also be an insurance deductible for a fire at a unit and it's a one-time thing, and that's $10,000.

Yeah, there are different uh retro rent, right?

They didn't report their income, and now they have a charge right on it.

So it's not always months that causes the large balance.

That's actually that's good.

So that's why I said if you look at it and there's like you see a cluster of cases or a particular case that you're interested.

Where did this big balance come from?

You can always just email me, reach out after the meeting or even before it, and we can look into it and get back to you one on one, not in No, no, no, not at not at all.

I think that was that would be just really quick one of the basic things that I would be interested in because I get retro, like you know what, you didn't report your rent for 10 months.

Well, here's this balance, right?

Um, but I think more than anything, what I'm more so interested in is um back owed rent that has been several several several months past due.

And what you because that shows that we're not doing something right.

You know, we're not there's just something that we're not doing right, whether it's, you know, years compiled into something, or you know, I'm you know, the retro I get, but I'm more so interested in sort of what would those cases be.

You know what, you know, Charlotte, it's really not that bad because there's only you know 10% of it here.

I so that's something I would love to sort of you know connect one-on-one just so that I get an understanding because it all boils down to either it's a process thing for us, like what are we not doing, right?

Is it is it the housing managers that are not collecting rent or like what's going on?

So that that would be something for me, um, madam chair, that I would really be interested in just so that we get a handle on what do we need to do so this doesn't continue.

Yeah, thank you.

And we can think about if our if legal files is in a position to I don't know that we enter anything into related to the cause of the balance.

I'd be surprised, especially because it all ultimately gets entered as a lease violation for non-payment of rent, as a retro charge or monthly.

But let me think about it.

Okay, and maybe we'll just have a conversation too or you know, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

That would be something that will come from the next day.

And one of the things we can do is rents uncollected report, which does age rents, that's 30, 60, 90 days, and um that kind of report we can uh generate and then react names.

There we go.

And yeah, um, so we can do it by uh I I'm pretty sure that we can do it by unit um per development or development.

Yep, that would be what I would be interested in.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Snyder.

Madam Chair, thank you.

Um, well, since you brought it up, attorney Chris, um, the thing that I would be interested in would be eviction trends.

Um, you know, I I think of you know the COVID period as kind of an outlier.

At least you can explain, like whether it was high or low or whatever it was, but year over year, you know, 23, 24, 25, how many evictions there actually were.

I don't need the information now, but it I'm sure that you guys put that together.

We so we did transition to a new system in early 25.

So the very like the level of data that you're getting that is gonna be hard to get before 2025.

That said, our office always does a presentation to the counter council where we at least have sort of total eviction numbers uh annually, like what what we basically tell them what we did with our year.

Um one of the slides is always how many evictions and and files were referred, those sorts of things.

So I I know I can get you that very high level information, but it will not be broken down by development.

No, I wouldn't be looking for that.

Um I haven't seen that because I don't follow the common council um files, but um it would seem to me that it would be interesting to know you know what if anything is going on.

I don't know that it would mirror the rest of the city, um, and other rather large landlords who are you know in the newspaper a lot lately.

Um but um I would be interested in getting information like that.

Sure.

I will I'll put a note down to get that over um to you guys to get at least the last you know, couple of years of what we reported to the council.

Additionally, the plan moving forward is to do this update quarterly, um, and provide you guys with updated spreadsheets.

And uh we're gonna give you six quarters every time so that as we move you can kind of see that trend right at and you can compare the quarters with each other, and also some of the stuff from the first quarter of 26.

There's a lot of blanks on it because those are all still pending cases, or a lot of them are.

So those things will start to fill in for the quarters, and you'll be able to if you track it, you'll you'll kind of be able to see trends on which developments are sending, you know, more or less and what the balance uh sizes are from those developments as move along.

That's the goal at least.

Thank you, madam.

Thank you.

All right, so I would like to thank you all for joining us this afternoon, and we look forward to um continuing to work with you all.

I also want to acknowledge the way that you've been working with the team weekly on this.

So thank you so much for providing us with the data.

It was very palatable.

We can understand it, so thank you for that as well.

And we will reach out with any questions we may have after this, but great job.

Thank you so very much.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, all right, Patty.

Can we next item?

Item number two is a presentation regarding vacancies, unit turns, and an update regarding maintenance.

Dakisha Obi, Marquetta Treadway, Anisia Robertson, Derek Wheeler, and Mike Wellman will speak on this item.

I can pull up their own chairs.

One more chair.

There's one more wheel, but I do think.

Yeah, thank you, Mike.

But there is only two mics that you will have to share.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, team.

Before we get started, I would like to go um ask you all to introduce yourselves along with your title with um Hackham Treval.

Good evening, uh Madam Chair.

I'll speak up.

Okay.

Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners.

My name is Anisia Robertson, leading director of property management.

Good evening.

My name is Derek Weiler, and I'm the associate director of property management at West Lawn Gardens.

Good evening.

I'm Niki Showby, assistant director for the public housing portfolio.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Marquetta Trepway.

I am the director for leasing and compliance for public housing.

Good evening.

Uh Mike Wellman, maintenance director.

Welcome, team.

We will turn it over to.

Okay.

All right.

So we will turn it over to you, whichever one would like to report out first.

Okay.

Okay.

My name again is Marquetta Treadway.

So we're because we're recording this for basically for our minutes, but that way, oh, and we're live streaming too, so the folks can hear you.

So it's a little weird and a little awkward, but it makes a difference to us on the back end.

Thank you.

So again, my name is Marquetta Treadway.

And for the information that I have in front of me as of today, we have 26 Marquetta.

Would you want to show them what piece is your piece so that they can find that?

I am looking at the leasing and compliance update page.

This page here.

Okay.

So we have a total of 269 units for public housing.

Of those 199 units are on what we will call on whole or under unit modernization, which is when we are able to take the unit offline for any major rehabilitation or modernization, which uh requires something above site staff.

So contractors may have to come in and fix something in the unit or something of that nature.

So we take those units offline.

Umits and modernizations are not counted against our overall occupancy.

However, they're still a part of our vacancy um units, and site staff still work in those units, although we may wait for contractors to come into those units.

So those units, we have 199 of those units on hold or in modernization.

Also for applications, we are pulling applications for units.

So far, as of the end of April, we pulled 200 for one bedroom, 125 or two.

We have 30 new applications as we had previous applications for third uh three bedrooms.

However, they needed to go back on the wait list because we were pre prepping three bedroom units for those applicants, and you don't want to leave the applications open too long because then the information is outside of 120 days, which is outside of compliance for HUD.

So we put them back on the wait list, and then once the unit becomes available, we pull them and reprocess the income information because the application is good for 12 months.

So we have 30 new applications, including the previous ones that were placed back on the wait list for three bedrooms, and then for four bedrooms, we have six units that have been processed and we're just updating the income because the same thing took place.

We didn't have the bedrooms available at the time.

Now we have the units becoming available.

So we're gonna pull those and update the income information so those applicants can move into our four bedroom units.

Of the applicants pulled in process as of April 2026, 26 applications were approved.

11 of those applications leased, six declined, nine are waiting to lease.

Of those nine, three applications went to Hillside, two Riverview, one Arlington, one linking, and two at Parkline.

As of today, we have pulled an additional 1,200 units throughout the whole from one bedroom up to five, I believe.

We pulled an additional 1,200 units, and we will pull an additional 600 units as of Monday coming to make sure that I'm sorry, applications.

Yes, additional 600 applications as of this Monday coming because we want to make sure.

Absolutely.

I'm sorry, thank you.

It is a holiday.

Okay, so two, Sally.

Thank you.

And we are pulling so many applications because we want to have applicants ready to go as the units become available because we are in, we are turning units right away.

We want to make sure we're able to get those units filled right away.

So we don't want to wait till the last minute to pull an applicant.

We want to have them on hand ready to go.

But we also have a waiting list that needs to be purged.

Absolutely.

Purging the waiting list is notifying everybody on the waiting list and asking them to let us know if they're still interested and to update their information and everything.

So that one um market pulls uh applicants, we know that they're ready.

So at this point, they're pulling so many applicants, but then they don't hear from a large number.

So that's what we're waiting for, madam chair, commissioner Moore.

So is it so?

If we're pulling 1200, is it like first come first serve?

It's meaning if you it if you sent out the request, or you know, you're pulling those applicants.

I'm assuming they may get an email.

Or what, like how when you say pull it, what do you mean?

When we pull applicants, they do get an email.

There's an email that goes out.

They should keep their information updated within their portal.

That is how we communicate with them.

When we pull their application for processing, the email does go out.

The number of units we have available, we we still need to be mindful to make sure that we are following how they come off the wait list so that we're not out of compliance with HUT.

Is Mr.

N stated the we pull it numerically?

So whoever's at the top, it would go from one to twelve hundred in this example in this example.

And then uh they would send out the information.

So um, and and forgive me because I'm just trying to understand.

Um, so when we pull the the 1200, um it's for every it's for every whether you're waiting for a one-bedroom, two bedroom, three-bedroom, or four-bedroom.

Is that how I am hearing it or not necessarily?

Not necessarily.

So when we pull, we pull it's a total of 1200 apps that we're pulling.

Correct.

It could be uh, well, it is going to be 600 for one bedrooms because that's the highest number of vacancies we have at this moment, and then 300 for two.

Yep, and so on.

Got it.

So, but a total of six 1,200 applications will be pulled.

Got it.

And so again, uh, the only thing that goes out through the portal, they they get an email.

They receive an email and then we also send a follow-up email.

Uh sometimes we make phone calls if we see that they've started the process but they haven't responded.

We'll reach out to them and say, hey, how about go in and finish up your information with anything we need to assist you with?

So the email um transpires um within the portal.

Correct.

Mean so um it it hey if you want to continue your process, you know, or your application have been pulled, yay.

Um, if you want to continue your process, do this update your information.

All of that is happening within the portal.

Correct.

Got it.

And then once complete, then what?

Once the applicant has filled out all of their information, we start processing their um application doing the background check credit criminal and how long does that process take?

I asked my staff to keep it 30 days or less.

We have a total of a hundred a hundred and twenty days from the date of pulling the application to the date of housing them for that information to stay compliant, or else we have to update the information again.

What is best practices?

As you said, 30 days or less is best practices 14 days, is it 10?

You know, is it 20 days?

What's best practices?

Best practice is 30 days at this time.

Um, so what and then once that is done, right?

The the staff then they they do their background checks, you gotta, you know, check all these things.

They have, you know, they get they then uh email back the resident or reach back out to the resident.

Once the portal everything is probably done in the portal, so they may get an email to say, hey, everything is complete.

Once the applicant responds, we are in constant contact with them via email.

Sometimes via phone, depending on um if the applicant needs to speak with us, got it.

Sometimes they we speak with them, sure, but mostly through email, um, and we're communicating with them, letting them know what we have available, asking them where would they like to their application to go?

And then once everything is processed, if they are approved, we send their application to the manager, we let them know what their rent is going to be.

We let them know we we let them know the rules up front, um, processing uh income, things of that nature, or everything we try to be upfront with them.

We send the application over to the manager and let them know that the manager will be reaching out to them soon, and then the manager reaches out when they get the application uh to have them either come view a unit or move in.

Got it.

So once um 30 days are up, resident is then um uh here's our options.

What would you like?

Hey, I like this one, you know, option B.

Um, that then gets sent to the housing manager.

The housing manager then has how many days to once receiving that application, how many days does the housing manager have to then come?

I'm assuming we're we're now working on completing the process of having that individual move in.

We asked the managers to reach out to them immediately so they'll there's some type of communication so that the applicant knows we, you know, what's the process?

Do we have a unit ready for you right now?

When would you like to move in?

So we're asking the managers to reach out immediately as soon as they receive the application.

Uh some applicants need to give a 30-day notice to vacate.

Sure.

So if they need to give that 30-day notice, then we assign them to a unit, uh, have them come in and put down a security deposit if they want, and we assign them to a unit so they'll know that we understand your situation.

Sure, sure.

And then typically housing managers comply.

We we know that housing managers are complying with that process.

Once they then get the application, we know that housing managers are yeah, they're immediately reaching out to that resident and getting them getting finishing up the process.

Yes, I have my staff reach out to for every application we send over to a development.

I have my staff reach out to that manager and say, Hey, what's the process with this applicant?

We don't want any applicant to sit, so we reach out within the week of sending it over to the manager.

We'll reach out within the next week saying, What's this?

What's the process with this?

Are they going to house?

Because if they don't want the unit, send it back.

Let's offer something different.

So we do make sure that we reach back out to the manager and say, give us an update, what's going on with this applicant?

And in your level of experience, um, have we had any issues with managers just not being able to sort of or or taking too long to complete this final step?

Actually, not now, no, before everything was being organized, yes.

But as of now, the manager, and then you say as of now are we talking about as of last week, as of the past, I want to say two years.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Commissioner, yep, it's glass.

It this is really quick, and I think you sort of answered this question, but I was gonna ask if you have um waiting list based on for each of like the bedroom sizes you have available, so folks are in line for the unit that best matches their family size, and then you can very more expeditiously, you know, connect them to an available unit.

So we have a public housing waiting list.

Um, it is several different waiting lists, but for me, there is a public housing wait list, and in within that public housing weight list wait list, there is one, two, three, four, or five.

So when they sign up, they sign up for their bedroom size.

Okay, that's what I was hoping that you would do.

And then when you mention in terms of timelines for soon, do you have like a definition of that?

Like 24 hours, 48 hours.

I just find like just are you attaching um more definitive timelines to soon versus so versus soon, like 24 hours, 48 hours.

For the managers to return, yep.

Because I think I heard you say soon or immediate, but like what does that mean?

Um, and so I I just find like when you're clear and you are provide very specific time frames, people are more apt to stay in line with those response times then in terms of records, and then you can better coach your team members to make sure that they're staying on top of response times.

Absolutely.

So we do ask the managers to reach out to the applicants as soon as they receive the application, and then according to our ACOP, the applicant has three days to let us know whether or not they're interested in the unit, and then after the three days, we can set a time where if they have to give the 30-day notice to the landlord, things like that, then that's understandable, but we try to keep that.

We don't want to let it get away from us and yeah.

Thank you.

I think you're doing a really great job, and I love the system that you were reporting out um on earlier, too.

But just when I heard this soon, I just thought maybe you might want to attach some on the actual timeline, but thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Nelson.

Thank you for this report.

One of my concerns, of course, everyone knows I'm a resident at Arlington Court.

So I'm interested in quality living or the residents.

And then we all have friends and relatives and people we know.

And they said, Mr.

Nelson, I'm on the waiting list.

What the heck is going on?

No one's contacting me.

So looking at this report, I could see that there's a plan in place.

You probably always have had a plan in place.

You know, I don't mean no disrespect, but seemed like it was clogged up.

So the way my mind thinks is sort of practical.

I said one of our major issues is money, cash, you know.

I said, how do we make money?

We rent out the places, you know.

If we're not renting out the places, then we are our worst enemies.

And then I'm thinking looking at a report that crews and the people before you uh submitted, I think on there.

These may not be the same words, but it's like a million dollars in rent is owed to us.

I'm saying, we reach that grand amount.

That's a lot of money to me.

Maybe someone else is not, but that's a lot of money.

So I'm trying to think uh, are we progressing?

We've got a new executive director, but it looks from this here report that you got a pretty good plan together.

Action is taking place, so we need you to continue to provide us with this type of information.

This is the information we could look at and make sense to us and we could comprehend it.

But do they understand you know what they what they've got?

So I I could speak personally, I could understand what's going on now.

Yes, sir.

So I just really said all that to say thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner Nelson.

Do we have any other questions before we continue?

All right.

We'll turn it back over to you.

I will turn it over to one of the other directors.

All right.

Okay, well, that's portfolio.

Once again, my name is Diki Show B.

With the public housing, we do have the vacant the union vacancy where we are actually focusing on the four top developments who have the highest vacancy rates at the moment, which is Hillside, Locust Court, College, and Parkland.

We do have a plan where we are accessing to.

Do you want to just show them which uh form you're looking at?

Then it's got the PHA in the upper right.

Okay.

Planning action to attack the units.

We are also uh one of our plans is to have some contractors come in and help us turn some of the units, especially at Hillside.

We will be starting with them first because that is the one with the most vacants right now, which is the 75 units that we do have vacant.

So we are working to get the contractors out so that they can actually assist us with turning those units sooner than later.

Then we will also be deploying for college, locusts and parkland so that we can get those units turned.

We I will be also having a unit of maintenance that will be going to.

I'm I think I'm gonna start with uh locus and college where we're gonna go there and we're gonna start working on vacant units there so that we can get the ball rolling with getting these vacants turned to assist with getting these units turned so that we can get them leased versus having them still sitting out.

And we do have three um contractors that are interested in helping us, which is intake, ICD, and lakeside Remodeling.

So once we we should have that finalized, hopefully by Friday, so they can start at least Tuesday, Wednesday of next week.

Okay, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Moore, thank you so much.

Um, let's start out with some basic questions.

How did we get to so many units being vacant at these the let's look at the four?

Most of them were vacuum, most of them were evictions, and then some of them could have just been um people moved out.

And then there were some that was just lingering due to the units that were on hold because they had been in place for a while.

So and then we had to wait, and then as we evict people, the number kept rising.

Got it.

Okay.

And then um when I think about because you know, it was shared to me like some units have to be put on hold because uh the damage, you know, depending on the what is being, you know, needing for that space that may be, you know, more high level, like this is expensive to repair.

So we're just gonna put this on hold as an example.

Um is it the housing manager's responsibility to sort of triage?

So for example, if I take Hillside that has 75 units, is it maintenance or is it the housing manager's responsibility to sort of say, well, this is low-hanging fruit.

This need a little paint, you know, um, this just need a little clean out, carpet needs to be cleaned, boom, we're good to go.

But you know, so that's sort of low-hanging fruit.

We can get somebody in there, this unit can be turned in the next five days, right?

Is that the housing manager's responsibility, or is that maintenance where somebody moves out?

Hey, maintenance, you come triage and figure out what needs to be done.

How does that um explain to me that process?

It starts with the management.

So it always start with the housing manager to do the move out inspection.

So once they turn their keys in, the managers have to go out and do the move out inspection.

That right there will say, hey, we can get this unit turned faster because they may have left the unit in really good condition where we can go in, do a paint, good minor repairs, clean it, and we can put it back out so it can be leased.

But it always starts with the management before it goes to maintenance.

Got it.

And so um, again, just using the example of just trying to be really basic here of um Hillside Terrace of the 75.

Do we then know how to treat out?

And I know that there are some contractors that are coming in, but prior to that, yes, right, because this is, I mean, I've been here since and December 2024.

Um, and I think our list may have grown.

We have never really gotten this sort of this level of information if I'm not mistaken.

Um, but in regards to just what I'm seeing now in regards to the 75, do we have that as sort of um is that something housing managers were already doing to to sort of triage it?

Right.

So let me take your example.

Like, let me take your example.

I'm let me I'm trying to be really clear.

Let me take your example.

Oh, you know what?

This one, low-hanging fruit could be a little paint, could be a little of this.

Hey, we can get this turned over really quickly.

Did that exist?

And if so, why wasn't it?

What what was the reason as to why those low-hanging fruit wasn't taken care of?

Well, some of them did get taken care of right away.

So we were able to lease those units quicker, but then some of the other ones, because of the days that they have been vacant, we wanted to put more emphasis on it because we do want to get the longer dates that the vacants have been sitting.

We do want to try to do our best to get those off of the wait list so that we can get them turned versus always going to the quick turns, which has only been probably like maybe 10 or 12 days that we know we can turn it in five, which give us a total of 17.

But then we have to think when we get, say if we had just an example, if we have four units that we can probably turn into five days, sure, but we have another um six units that's been sitting for like maybe 120.

We can probably change, we can repair, get the unit ready, maybe three of them for the low-hanging fruit as you call it, but then we want to still focus on those ones that's been sitting out for 120 because we don't want them to keep escalating in days versus the ones that still that just came in, say two days ago.

After so many days being vacant, we start losing subsidy.

I was gonna ask them.

So it becomes an issue of uh getting units that have been sitting because there have been some that are long term and we haven't gotten subsidy on them.

What will happen is we occupy it, but we may not get subsidy on the unit again for the following year, and then the year after that, it will pick in because it was vacant for so long.

Harold, is that a ding on us?

Um so when we have a unit that is um vacant for so long, we're you're saying we're losing money.

Yes.

Yes, correct.

So yes, it is a ding.

I'll come back.

Thank you, madam chair.

I'll let my colleagues uh jump in.

I want to also let the board know the process is this, yeah.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

I just want the board to also know that that same process pertains to the LLC and tax credits and the markets when it comes to the property manager.

Um looking at the unit, putting in the work order and the inspection and giving it to maintenance.

We all aren't on the same process.

Thank you.

I have a question for Miss O B.

I noticed in the report, the average days of vacancy is not listed for Hillside.

Is there a reason why?

When I had pulled the when I pulled the report for the average days for heelside, I got like three different numbers, the three different times I pulled the report, so I didn't want to put that number in there just yet until I actually had a uh accurate number of the average days for it.

Okay.

So do you do you have a ballpark figure of what the average days are for Hillside?

I do have it, but I left it, I left that part of the report, but I can get it to you offline.

Okay, thank you.

Do we have any other questions?

I'm sorry, Commissioner Snyder.

Yeah, uh thank you, madam chair.

Of all the things that I've been here for deliberately a year, of all the things that I've heard and experienced and know a little bit about with regard to day-to-day housing issues, this is the most frustrating of all of them.

A hundred I don't think that there's one thing I lose I don't lose a lot of sleep over this either.

But if I'm waking up at night not understanding why stuff happens or doesn't happen, this is it right here.

I have a really hard time understanding why stuff takes so long.

It I was in the um real estate business as a nonprofit, and if I had a contract with a uh um with somebody that had to, whether it was janitory or maintenance or whatever it was, if it didn't get done, then first of all it was always on me, not on my staff, it was always on me.

Um, and I I went out and dealt with it, and I know that most of the at least the nonprofits that and a lot of the for-profits, because we were in tax credit development, they just mean you're just losing and hemorrhaging so much money, and you hear so many times, well, this isn't happening, I don't get called back, and 30 days, 60 days, 90 days it all just like becomes mush in your brain when you're a board member.

You know what I mean by that?

Um I just don't get it.

And I if you have a contract, you have people who you're working with, you like them, you trust them, they're doing a good job, but it doesn't get done.

And there's people that are out there that are lingering, that's the word I think I heard the word lingering, and the turns and all that to me is just unacceptable.

Uh and I'm not saying that any of you are doing a bad job.

I just don't get it.

Maybe I'm not that smart, but you know, I just don't understand why this process takes so long.

Um, that's probably unfair, but that's the way I feel.

It's not up there.

No, no, that's not a fair.

Thank you, Commissioner Snyder.

Vice Chair Gotzler.

Well that was me.

Oh, Commissioner Moore.

Yes.

Um, thank you.

Uh and I'm hoping that I remember uh so engulfed in your comments your comments that I'm just like, I think I I I forgot my um forgot my question.

Um in reference really quick in reference to the three.

If you all can talk to how we got to this point where it's just like, oh, we can hire contractors to help us.

Um describe how that process came about now, why it didn't come about before, and um where the funds are coming from to be able to take care of it.

And that might be a Harold Preston or a U all question, but I would love to know that answer.

Yep.

Um I'm going to ask Ken to help, but part of it is we had two uh point five million dollars that you were going to hear about later.

Got it.

Um that needed to be obligated.

And uh we obligated it, and part of the obligation was to do vacant units.

Got it.

And that's how the money became available prior to that.

I don't know if there was money in the budget, the comp grant budget to uh do vacant units.

I would love Ken to talk a little bit.

Thank you.

I would love Ken to talk a little bit more about that timeline.

So um introduce yourself.

Yes.

Sorry, Ken Barbo, I'm the chief operating officer for program services for the Housing Authority.

Um we just recently uh in obligating funds, uh, we created a number of work items for this work.

Uh normally a unit turn can't be done through the capital funds.

However, uh because of the level of work that has been done and the amount of deferred maintenance, we are allowed to put non-routine maintenance into the capital fund.

And so uh we work closely with HUD uh to on that uh to make sure that we were doing it correctly, and we were able to allocate to each of the public housing developments uh uh num an amount of dollars from the uh 2024 capital funds to uh to be able to do this deferred maintenance work.

So we have uh amount different amounts for each development.

Arlington has an amount, uh college has an amount, high uh Hillside has an amount, uh out of the capital funds.

Got it.

And then um a couple things um for the three contractors.

How do we go about choosing those three contractors?

There are actually four contractors.

I think one couldn't couldn't do the work, you know, uh in the short amount of time that we had for Hillside.

Got it.

So we've cut we've asked the other three to work on it.

Um but out of the four, they were previously selected through an RFP that we did for scattered sites.

Got it.

And so we were able to piggyback on that RFP and use them uh since we had already done a competitive process, use them for these as well.

Perfect.

And then just last really um really quickly, are all four contractors going to be simultaneously working on one side at a time, or are they gonna be dispersed through the different four?

What was what's the plan for the four contractors?

Uh well, let uh takisha.

Yes.

So for the four contractors, they will be dispersed.

We will have at least two of them at heelside because we of course we want to focus on heelside or we will put one at college and we'll put one at locus.

So that's the starting point.

That's the starting point for them.

Got it.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Gotsler.

Uh thank you, Chair.

I uh I guess my question is really about with the use of the capital funds.

Then, Ken, would that mean that Allison would be managing that work or that would be managed by the maintenance department, or how will that how will that work be supervised?

Or will that be Takisha that will do it?

Right.

Um in some ways it'll be it it will be uh combination.

I mean, it'll be managed by the property managers because normally if you're bringing a contractor in to work on those units, it's done through the property managers.

However, Alison will have a role and her staff will have a role in that as well.

Um, but right now I believe it's managed through Dakisha, uh, just like any any maintenance in the development.

And then Alison would manage the drawdown of the funds or the or the disbursement of the funds.

Uh yes, Alison or and uh counting.

Yeah.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, Commissioner Moore.

Um, so then what would be the role?

And this is probably your um question teeing up for you, Mike.

What would be the role then of maintenance during this process?

Uh to stock their units with parts um and overseeing how the work is going.

So the whole maintenance department will be overseeing the contractors and how the work will be doing, and it'll be it'll be shared between management and maintenance, but it won't be the whole maintenance department.

Right, no.

They will still be doing work orders, they will still be doing banking units.

I'm gonna designate two guys to keep filling their units and just stay with the contractors and do work orders around.

So if the contractors need something, the maintenance guys will be on site.

Perfect.

Um, and then the other the other staff is the other um your our other maintenance staff will be keeping up with they'll be really focusing on work orders, work orders, um, and then we are gonna put a couple guys at college court to get the ball rolling there, um, until we can get a contractor also going there.

Got it.

Um, and then how are you prioritizing the work orders because I know with some developments there will be strictly emergencies for right now until we can get a handle on a number of vacants and then we're gonna go back and do the non-emergency work orders.

So when you say emergency work orders, as they're cut the because the emergency work orders have to be, you know, responded to whether it's 24 hours, 48 hours, but so whatever non-emergencies that's in the hopper, those won't be addressed.

Not right away, no.

We have to get through emergencies and vacance, and then we'll start moving forward with doing non-emergency work orders.

On average, how many emergency work orders are we getting?

I'm just trying to get a sense of volume.

You can get anywhere from 15 to 30 a day.

Okay.

I'm just trying to um Harold, I'm just trying to think through um the stockpile of um work orders for some of the developments that are there's there's quite a bit in particular developments, and so if we're only handling emergencies for right now, do we then communicate back out to our residents to say, yeah, you know, we know that the you know, and again, there may be some triage in here, but it but just whatever's in the hopper, I'm just there should be some communication that that's what we're handling, but that will be um a plan on handling the non-emergency work orders, and um while they're not handling the non-emergency work orders, um my staff is just finding out that they will be going through to find out where they're duplicates and all like we go the other day to clean that up, yep, so we get an accurate number of work orders, and then uh we will then go through and start doing work orders.

But while um maintenance is doing an emergency work order, if there is a work order needed in that unit, they should just bang that out as well.

Perfect.

And then if we because of that, and I know we talked about some of the duplicates.

If we can have a report on work orders, just so that we have a sense, is the is it getting worse?

Are we are we going getting through some of them unless unless I don't think that's the is there work on it?

There is one on top.

We're gonna get down there, okay.

But right now, I can't say it's a clean report.

Correct.

Yep.

But at least you're seeing the worst.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

You're not getting uh that we only have a hundred and twenty work orders.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay.

But there are no other it's just yes, yes.

I'm sorry.

No, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Um, we're talking about public housing, but I just want to know let you guys know that it's the same with the LLCs and the markets right now, because they're the most of the work is focused on public housing, which is hillside and college.

And then I sent out an email, we're going to be working on a park line in Locus that the LLC says also we're trying to outsource to get the vacancy completed.

And you'll see that note on the affordable housing vacant unit summary.

So we're no we're not ignoring you.

We're getting to the because we're answered one.

And for an isia for the public's um education around LLCs, can you call out example development so they know what you're speaking to?

Lapham Carver, Holton, Beecher, Merrill, Highland, and then the markets areland, North Lawn, South Line.

And I heard the question as to why we call the Bearland North Lawn and South Line vets, because back when they first became built, they were built, they were originally built for veterans coming back home from the war.

Thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Snyder.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, yeah, I started working on the Northwest side at Northland and knew lots and lots of people.

They were all vets, and uh um and the same in Berryland, so um so I appreciate you were clarifying that.

Um, I don't know that this conversation has made me feel any better.

Um again, you know, people are in charge of their own feelings, and you don't have to own how I feel about anything.

Um but I mean sometimes these stories just write themselves, you know, and most of the public doesn't understand like what this is all about, and I guess maybe this is a Ken question.

Um I do you think can had there been a C O O, I mean sometimes it's you know like lines of authority, and you could have said whatever it was that you wanted to say, but if you couldn't get out every day during the time, like say the last year, and said the CFO, which we didn't have, said to you here's the amount of money that we're losing, and this is what we're projected to lose this year, and it's because of this reason, and so that the COO would know that and then go out and deal with the people who are out there online, um, because you're the one that we're gonna fire at right now because you're there.

Do you think the fact that we didn't have a COO going out and making it clear what was going on out there and then come back and tell us was that an issue as far as you were concerned?

I think the lack of executive leadership uh, you know, was felt, you know, since late 2024.

Um I think the fact that we now have a CEO, uh, we will be um, and and I'll let the executive director talk about future future uh hires, but soon we'll be having hopefully a CFO and COO will be helpful because uh it does help in terms of uh supervision and uh and just holding staff accountable.

To piggyback on what um Ken said, uh definitely not having the leadership was an issue um with the the staff because the staff was trying to do the best they could, and it they didn't have anybody to plan or work with them to create the plan.

And um, so there was a loss there.

Uh and speaking of a CFO, when the CFO does come on, there will be a conversation about having a vacancy loss, so everybody can see what we're losing.

And things haven't, you know, things aren't getting better or they're getting worse, but how bad can they be when I can check my bank account and the money's there?

It's when it starts hitting you that it you start really understanding what the issue is.

So uh we will have a vacancy loss on each one of our programs to show what we are losing, and it will be tied to how it affects what's going on with the housing commission or Trouvaux, um, and uh that hopefully will help with getting things back on track, um, you know, and keeping things on track, uh, because again, you know, I went through the interviewing process, and the board was as transparent as they could be, but a statement I made at the interview was you didn't tell me everything, right?

And I found out more after I started, yeah.

So it it the staff is the same way, they don't know everything, they know their silo, and we have to break that down as well, but they know their silo.

They don't know how their silo fits with 809 silo, right?

Or how it fits with uh the tax credit silo and vice versa.

So it we will be making that information more available to all the staff.

Um, eventually, uh, and I know you don't like that, it's I did put a date, but eventually you will have a completely new board report that will have the information that is required for you as commissioners to understand what's going on at the housing authority, where we stand financially, uh the vacancies, uh turnaround time.

Umce we are standard performer, that goes away, but it's still important because we need to know how long it takes to get a vacant unit from the time it's vacated to the time it's leased, and um the last time I was in YARTI, which was a few years ago, uh they did have it where it was broken down, so how long when it became vacant, how long it sat before maintenance went into it, how long it took maintenance to uh repair the unit, and then it goes to leasing how long it takes to lease.

Um, we will also have there were some systemic problems here in terms of the waiting list not being purged, that is causing the staff to overwork.

I mean they're wasting their time, wasting money, get trying to get people ready to get in units, and you don't have responses, you don't have people have moved, they're no longer interested.

Um so doing that, and then as we get staffed up again, um, there will be a reorganization, and with that we will right size the staff so that we have staff at every site that can do the job so that we are moving in the right direction.

Thank you.

Um just one moment.

So we I I just want to be respectful of time, and just remind everybody this is the presentation regarding vacancies, unit terms, and the update regarding maintenance.

So, what I will ask my fellow commissioners to do, because this is topic number two, we're only at the top of the agenda.

So I've respectfully ask that each of you present your portions.

And then if we can hold our questions until everyone has had an opportunity to present, then we can we can move forward with those questions.

So let's and I'm sorry, but if um you have questions after, just send them.

We will make sure you get the answers.

If they can't answer them in the section, but respectfully, I would like for each of you to present out on where you are, provide us with an update.

Uh chair, do you want to have do we want to look at all of the vacant unit summaries altogether for the different components?

So those kind of similar questions, similar structure, or do you want to have each portfolio go separately?

I think we'll have each portfolio to go separately.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

So who did we leave off with?

I'm sorry, was it Miss Okee Miss Obi?

Yes.

So you were on the vacant unit summary, and then I guess you have the uncollected rent and some other.

Um rent collection that was.

If you can show us what it looks like, please, thank you.

This is small.

You got black and white.

We got color printers.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

So it will is it'll say pH on.

It should be colorful and it should say pH on it.

Perfect.

Yes, yeah.

All right.

We get it.

I think it's correct.

This is the I, this one.

And this is the rent collection uh versus what was billed from January 26 all the way to April 2026.

The top number is what was billed, the bottom number is what we collected for each development.

The bottom has uh the total percentage, and then it also shows the deficit between each development.

Some of the uh, sorry, some of the um collections there are most developments are actually doing pretty well.

Um, hillside with their vacancy, of course, we have a lower percentage with the rent collections, but as we continue to lease the units, those rent collections we are hoping will continue to grow even with the other developments that are at 87%.

We want to try to the goal is to get everybody up at least over 95%.

Um it will be great to have them at 99 and 100.

That's the ultimate goal, but until then we would like to at least get them up to 95% so that it shows the growth from each development in the public housing portfolio.

Also, with rent build, um, and the attorneys spoke on it a little bit, also a lot of those rents come from unreported income.

So there was a big difference.

We're finding a lot of unreported income.

So then that drove a gap between what was billed versus what was collected.

So we just want to make you all aware of that as well.

So just just for the public to understand what we're asking of each um housing professional here is to speak on their vacant units, the rent collections as well as um rent, well, rent collections versus rent bill, and then the work order report.

Okay, so I believe you're still on rent collections versus rent field.

Yes, I'll be yes.

I was actually going to wrap up with that one, because with the uh regards to if there was any questions, you can definitely direct them to me.

But once again, our goal is to get our lower uh rent collection portfolios to get them up to 95% to eventually get them up to the 99 100% rent collections.

Then we have a work order, all work orders for public housing.

And this is the one that's um these numbers come from January to May 16th.

We do have the emergency work orders that was answered in here also to show like how many work orders were answered for the month.

Um, where it comes to emergencies, how many were open and how many were closed for that particular month?

Then it also shows how many work orders works were created, regulars, routine work orders, vacant work orders, how many was created for each development, how many was closed, and what was the balance as of May 16th, Madam Chair?

Commissioner, I'm a more brief.

Um just really quick.

In regards to the um just the work orders just for something that was shared before.

Um there's some duplicates that are in here.

How do we avoid um because I think we get for canceling a work order?

I think we get dinged or there's something negative that happens when we have to cancel so many.

Um it is definitely looked at negatively by okay.

So how do we moving forward not have so many duplicates work orders?

There will be new procedures put in place um for staff to follow.

Uh so that when uh residents calls, they don't just put in the work order there to look it up.

Um, but then residents also put in work orders and like all of us, they get impatient and then they put in another one.

So we have to go in and check that as well.

Yeah, and when they do that, we put a no why we're canceling one.

Got it.

Okay, okay.

And please, please write write your question.

No, if I do because it's on the topics right to us to talk about other things, and it's just like, well, what were you talking about?

So no, that was um, and did you want me to wait for my rent collection question?

Okay, all right.

Uh, because we have the other I know, I know, I know it's painful, but we will get to it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, yes, Commissioner Moore.

And and turning it back over to you, Ms.

OB.

Okay.

With the creative with this report, I did not put the cancel work orders in here.

I only put the open ones and uh uh and it's completed, and we didn't have any of the cancelled in in this process, this work order.

Um, but we do have the balance in for a lot of them.

So just to show the even though they did have a lot of workers that were entered, most majority of them did get closed out.

We do have some of them that still have a bunch of work orders that are still open that they are still in the process of either closing out or have been closed out previously to today.

But once again, this information was pre- was printed you know days prior to.

And then we also have the average days of how long it's taken to either create it, is it and what is still being open in each development.

And that's it for public housing.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll go next for West Latam Derek Boyler, and boy, did I interit a mess.

Um, I am relatively new to the housing authority, and I am relatively new to being higher up the round of leadership for this agency, and uh West Lawn is a challenge.

How long have you been here?

I've been with the agency since May of 23.

Uh when we looked at the vacant unit summary out at West Lawn, when I got there, we had 75 documented vacant units in Yardie within 60 days.

That number had climbed to well over a hundred because I discovered dozens of vacant units that were not recorded because property management did not know that they were vacant.

I'm continuing to find that, I suspect when I look at the letters.

I'll get to that.

Speak into the mic, please.

I'm sorry.

Yes, what was a question that I didn't hear you, Madam Chair.

I asked him to speak into the microphone so he can be heard by all.

So the way things stand right now with the vacant units, we're gonna look at Victory Manor.

Those are all one-bedroom units, and I've got one unit ready there.

It's a market rate unit, so I can't lease it till all the tax credit units are leased.

Um, that is what is driving the average days of vacancy for that property to be so high.

Uh, we look at the market rate units, and those are a hundred percent occupied uh that will be changing in very short order because they're not all paying the rent.

Uh with you can go across here.

I've got a waiting list of applicants that were sent to the property a year or more ago that still had not been processed that I'm in the middle of processing right now.

Um I've got names assigned to all of these vacant units that are ready, and as soon as we can get them through the compliance approval, get them through the CVR process, it's scheduled lease date.

I will have 37 units across the portfolio lease.

That still leaves a significant number of vacant units to work through.

I am working on getting bad habits trained out of staff and training good practical habits that I've learned over the 14 years I've been doing this.

I know I I know it's painful.

I just I know it's painful.

Everyone, we just just we will yield to uh Derek Weiler Wheeler.

Sorry, it's Derek Wilder.

Okay.

I am not going to go over rent collected versus build because it is not in the agenda.

Um yes, sir, it is in the agenda.

Um it's the West Lawn is on the LLC page though.

Okay.

It's on the right.

It's on the LLC page.

It's on the presentation.

LC.

So I don't know if I have the presentation.

I just didn't see the top part of the agenda.

So uh just like the vacancy rate with the units out at Westland, the rec collections are not great as well.

Um training bad habits out of the staff.

I learned that the ledger balances were not necessarily reflecting accurate balances, and we have been working through those to get the balances to be accurate so that I could start working on getting residents out of the property that were not trying to pay the rent.

Um, the city attorney would not take a rent case to court for us for any West Lawn property because these discrepancies kept getting brought up in court with the previous judge that did not want to deal with us.

Um we believe that we've made enough of a dent in getting these ledgers cleaned up that I am sending cases to the city attorney for eviction, and so far I'm up to nine 30-day notices going out across the property, and this is for balances that are well in excess of ten thousand dollars.

Um there's another issue that we're running into where people have become non-compliant because they failed to recertify, and we are we've got a couple cases for that that we've sent up, and we're gonna see how it goes because it's gonna be I did try to recertify, but rent assistants lost it, and it's all that back and forth stuff that we don't have access to records for anymore.

Um when we look at the subsidy collected on this report, you're gonna see a lot of blank spaces.

Nobody at the property knew how to enter our collected subsidy.

The director was the only person at the property that knew how to do it.

So I am working with the property manager.

We have done some remedial training for her.

Um it's still a struggle, so now we're looking at some time management skills to get this done because we are getting the subsidy, we're just not reflecting it, and it's making it look like we're not collecting when we pull this report.

Um, but we are collecting, are we not collecting?

We are collecting.

Yes, we are collecting, we're just not recording.

If you look at my report on the LLCs, it's the notes at the bottom, it pertains to West Lawn as well.

There are notes at the bottom of my report, it says LLCs at the top.

Mine's my notes are like really tiny.

I'm not sure how I'm not sure how I'm not sure how yours is have come out.

Thank you.

And we we will get to that.

You can read it out loud or however you want to, but I would really ask that um he finishes his version of the report, because then we have to continue moving so the commissioners can ask the questions of you all collectively.

Okay, so it is my goal by the end of the year.

The year, the year of the year to what?

To have every tenant who has gone without paying their rent for six or more months out of the property.

I I've seen I've seen ledgers that there have not been a rent payment collected in four years.

I'm surprised that PNC hasn't asked for the keys back.

Okay.

Um, I'm gonna go over to the work orders, and uh this report is run from January first to May 16th of the year 2026.

Are you doing the routine or the um these are the routine work orders?

Um the load is very heavy.

When we look at West Lawn revitalization, which is the top development on the page.

Uh we ended this period with 327 work orders open, and during these five months, we created 640 work orders.

It's a very high volume property.

Uh some of it was construction issues that are not in warranty anymore.

A lot of it is tenant abuse.

I have been in some units, and I have looked at the property manager and said, Why is this person still here?

And nobody knew how to do evictions.

Amy was the only one that knew how to do evictions.

Um, I'm very good with evictions.

I've never lost the case that we've taken in an eviction action.

They are going back doing inspections, taking pictures, writing up lease violations because I'm building paper trails so that all these high work order balances that are damaged, we're gonna be getting these residents out as well.

I would rather have that unit set empty, be vacant and collect no rent on it than have a non-paying tenant in it tearing it up.

Yeah, um, so West Lawn is gonna go through a reckoning this summer, and uh I'm hearing that word is already spread that the new director is not blamed.

So I can't you're about it.

We we've been asked that you speak into the mic and speak louder for okay.

Is there something wrong with the microphone?

I am rejecting my voice.

Can you move it close?

Yeah, you it's it's it's it's just you have to be right closer than comfortable when you're in talking to the mic.

Um, because there's yeah, it's not said very loud.

The record levels okay and it's kind of set for the room, but it takes every person when they're they're new to the front table, takes a while to get used to having to be that close.

Yeah, okay.

Um, is this volume better?

Thank you.

I really need to say this.

That was a part when you were talking, and this is nothing personal.

Once again, it's probably the equipment.

Sound like sound like I heard you say you were the only one who knew how to do uh eviction orders at this property, yeah.

Yeah, Westland, yes.

So I wasn't sure.

So I said, Well, I want to be sure of what I'm hearing.

I'm not gonna sit in a meeting, yes.

At what I'm hearing, right?

So I thought it was proper for me to bring that to the chairwoman's attention, no harm intended, but we want to be clear.

Yeah, and I um I did ask the I did ask Greg Cruz if he would forward me that flow chart because I intend to use it as a training aid with my staff.

Okay, to teach them from start to finish how the eviction process goes, and thank you, Commissioner Nelson, for bringing that to our attention.

Um, does that conclude your report or um I've got the vacant unit workers go through?

Um, so you will notice that the balance forward for all of these properties was low coming into January of 2026.

That coincides with not a lot of units known to be vacant that I started finding in the winter when the pipe started freezing and bursting.

Um we found a lot of vacant units then because we were taken indoors because water flooding filling up buildings.

Um you can see that we started creating a high number of work orders to get the vacant units ready to go, and we have because of this managed to turn 36 units since I've been there, and I will conclude my report in the interest of expedience, thank you.

Start with the vacant is at Holton Terrace, Highland Park, Highland Park is actually under renovations.

So we'll be having our uh initial research, which is 37 units, so they're under rehab right now, and that um initial sub is due June 30th of this year to make sure we have 100% lease up.

Is also high with vacancies.

I am working with CBR to get us more applications with which they have been giving us applications, and as you see at the bottom again, we are looking to outsource for three at least three companies to get these units ready and ready to lease.

And rent build for the LLCs or for the market, right?

LLCs I'm doing LC for the LLCs you see at some developments again.

You will if you look at where it says subsidy collected, there are some blanks like for Beecher Court, Merrill Park.

Those will be put in May.

I'm actually working on those now.

I do not have managers there, so I'm working on those, as well as I have another manager assisting to put those in for hot and tears.

Hot and tears is three months behind right now with putting in their subsidy payments.

So you will see blanks as well.

I'm gonna have to put my glasses on to read the bottom.

You want to make a point?

Uh no, not I think I can read.

I just want to make sure you guys can see it.

I'm not sure how it looks on your form.

That's a small.

Oh, just as small.

So some of the reasons why the rent collection and rent guild is different, it could be numerous of things.

One, it could be that the unit is under abatement, which means that.

Which means that the unit didn't pass three inspection.

My plan for that is to have the managers inspect the units once they get the notice that an inspector is coming out.

So at least the repairs could be done before the actual inspector comes.

Also, it could be for late recertifications where a resident did not re-certify and they could be terminated.

What I worked with CVR is to try not to terminate anyone to try and reinitiate the recertifications.

Um staff members that's going to be assisting with CBR recertifications.

We're going to start with Westline first.

Move ins, um, I'm developing a process because it appears to me that some of the managers are not aware of this process that they have to get paperwork to C VR.

So I'm going to inform them again that it's very important that they get the move in paperwork to C VR to start our payments.

As I look at their the it's called the GPR, which is a gross potential report.

It appears that some of the move ins were not initiated.

Like I've had two of them that moved in in January of last year, and we did not receive payment.

Oh.

Yes.

Because of paperwork?

Because of paperwork.

Also, I'm going to reinforce uh information, the managers, that it is very important that these units have to be turned timely and inspected because with CVR, when the units are inspected, it only lasts 60 days, and it appears that when the inspected unit has expired, they are still moving in the residence, and they cannot do that.

What happens is when they do that, we do not get payments from CVR, and we have to reinitiate them as a move in with C VR and get the unit inspected.

Madam Chair, I can't.

Madam Chair, please.

Before you go there, um Commissioner Moore.

Before you go there, yes, ma'am.

I'm hoping to let you know that those employees are no longer here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um work orders, it's this form here.

I did not put the emergency work orders open and close on it.

These are only routine.

We are working diligently with maintenance to try and get a process completed to get the work orders closed.

Like we um stated before in regards to the duplicates.

We are trying to.

I think I believe what's happening is like uh our SED, Mr.

Ant said, is that when a resident calls in, they put in the management is putting in the work orders a week later, the work order isn't completed.

They call back, and management is putting the work order in again instead of looking for.

We're going to develop a process that they have to at least look under that unit to see if the work order was already entered.

I believe market is doing real good.

There is in regards to the vacancies.

There's a hold right now because of the maintenance.

Staff is working on Hillside and college, so the market appears to be on standby.

They are ready to lease, but we just got to get the units ready.

Their collection is pretty good.

Um I'm trying to read this.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, their collection is pretty good.

Um I see Surgeon Quarters is on here.

I am working with surgeon court.

There's only five units out of 13 single-room occupancies that are occupied right now.

But I've been out of the um the realm of working with C um CBR and getting those surgeon quarter units occupied.

It's been many years since I did that, but I did get an email from I believe someone from the vet.

So hopefully we can get the other nine occupied.

Okay, who's who's next?

Does that conclude your report?

I'm sorry.

Yes, okay.

Is Mike?

Are you the number all?

Um do you have a report on or yes, please?

Um we have three inspire inspections scheduled for park one, cherry courts, get sites, and locust.

Um, we will be taking a few more guys and doing the inspections for each of those developments and doing the work orders as we do the inspections.

That concludes your update.

All right, thank you so much, team.

I will ask that you remain here.

I am going to turn to my fellow commissioners.

Who would like to go or ask questions?

I'm sure you've been notating.

Uh Commissioner Nelson, did you okay?

Well, um Commissioner Moore.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Yes.

We really trying hard to just not have these long meetings, and um I I appreciate the new process.

Uh, but I think you all have to understand there's a lot of things that wasn't shared with us, and so we're now learning, you know, about them.

Um, and it's becoming, you know, a little challenging to swallow some of the information because we have people in positions that it's well, should we blame a CEO?

Yeah, we can, yeah, sure.

Right.

No, no, no, um, no, but what I'm alluding to is that we shouldn't have to have a CEO for people that are specialing director roles to be able to keep people accountable, to be able to do their jobs.

I thought that housing managers, you know, collected rent.

Clearly, that's not the case.

I thought housing managers, you know, um, you know, leased out properties, and you know, and again, there's some things that are tied to that, which is hey, we still need maintenance to come.

I get that, right?

But you know, to have somebody in place that didn't have the proper paperwork, and somebody lived here for two years that the housing manager didn't know I'm glad they're gone, but I'm challenged with people being able to do their job.

So that's what I'm challenged with because as Harold said, these folks every other Thursday got a paycheck, and I'm seeing stuff that is just like, oh, but we're just not collecting rent, or we're not leasing up the place, and in order to for us to pay our vendors who email me also every day, um, that hey, you know, we uh you owe us some money, and I'm like, yeah, we owe you and a lot of other people some money, but guess what?

We ain't collecting rent, so we're we're working on it, and I'm hoping that you so I say all that, and I'm not trying to cry over spilled milk, but I'm crying over spilled milk because it doesn't seem like even before we had a CEO in place that we were moving in the right direction, you know, that that people were taking their jobs seriously, and maybe simply because we just don't have some people in the positions that there are now that's not that don't have the skill sets to do what they need to do.

Maybe that's it, but I will end there and say, um, because I I did have some, I did have a few questions.

Um, Derek, you talked about, you know, you know, training bad habits, your quote, not mine, training bad habits out of staff, and you want to have until the end of the year to be able to do that.

I just want to know how do we how do we do that?

How do we how do we now?

Because apparently something different has happened now that we are gonna whip people into shape and what is gonna be our metric or our rubrics.

Um, are we going to have um, you know, like, hey, this is now your job, and there's some sort of rubric.

Yes, we want to train people and coach people, absolutely, but if we're not getting the results that we need, what do we then do?

So, how long is it gonna take to train folks out of bad habits?

Because a lot of bad habits has gotten us into where we are right now, right?

So the the item that was gonna take to the end of the year was getting all the people that are comfortable not paying their rent out of the development.

Um, when it comes to training bad habits out of the staff, uh that process has begun, and I am utilizing documentation with the staff.

Um, there are disciplinary actions that are taking place just to remind like this is not tolerated, this is your job.

You're expected to do it.

I I get pushback about well, 445 and I'm up.

Uh no, that's not the case.

You got a laptop for a reason with that salary.

So I'm pushing things like that, and I we're working on it.

And then um, so I hear you go ahead.

Go ahead with that.

Go ahead.

Yep.

One reiteration.

To the end of the year, we are under a recovery agreement within the doctor.

And sustaining, I mean, a sustainability plan that expires December 31st of 2026.

We are now in year two of this recovery plan.

Month five going in to six, which we're moving expeditiously through this year, and the sense of urgency is is not displayed.

And actually, I I will yield back to Commissioner Moore for you to complete your your questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I just I'm struggling.

I'm just I'm I'm really really, really, really struggling.

Um, and you know, every time we do this, it's you know, everybody is like pointing the finger.

Well, it really wasn't me, it was somebody else, and that's my really wasn't me, it was somebody else.

And we have a system that I know that we're getting on track.

I'm just looking at the sense of earth the the sense of urgency, the sense of who's gonna be doing what.

Um, what do we need to do?

Um, I know Anisa, you know, you're over three developments, and when are we gonna get you some help?

Because you can't clearly keep up with you know what I mean.

It's it's just we're asking you a lot, it's a it's a lot that we're asking you.

Um, so I think there's some things that we definitely have to figure out in the meantime while getting our CFO and our C A C O O, you know, getting those people in place.

I just want people to know that we we need to do some work now.

The people that you have working under you, we need to do some stuff right now.

Um, the end of the year, I don't think we we don't got to end it here.

Um, for people to learn their job and do their job and you know, do some.

I mean, this was just some basic things.

If I i if I just if I need to do anything else, I gotta collect rent.

Just and you know what I mean.

There were just some basic things for me.

If I needed to do anything else, I at least knew that I had to collect the rent because I know at least who the people that live here, I should be getting a report.

I should know, right?

So those are the things that I'm just trying to get a handle on.

Um, and the last thing that I would say, particularly um work orders, if you couldn't make sure because this is balance for it, really quick.

What does that mean?

Like balance forwarded from what, like last year, last month.

When I ran the report, the parameters that I put into it were to run it from January 1st to May 16th of 2026.

So it started reporting everything added January 1st forward.

That balance forward column is stuff that came from prior months.

It was starting the year up.

It was open work orders as of December 2025.

Okay, and so any reports that you all give us, if you can please be so kind, um, and just make sure dates um are on there so we know what this because if I go back and look at a month, a month from now or next year, I'm not I'm gonna have no clue or have a point of reference.

So if you can be so kind, any reports um that you give us dictate the the dates with them or you know, this is for board meeting and the date at the bottom, whatever.

Just something so that we have a point of um a point of reference and how data is being pulled.

Madam Chair, I yield my time.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Do we have any other questions, comments of the commissioners?

Yeah, sure.

Vice Chair Gotsley.

You all heard what I had to say last month, so I'm not gonna say it again, and um I concur with all the issues that have been raised.

I'm um ecstatic that Mr.

Ints is moving us in the direction of uh better reporting of accurate reporting of timely reporting and of a sense of urgency, and uh so I'm really hopeful that you all will participate with him to the extent that you can, and not just doing your own job, but helping your peers do theirs too, because you're all in this together the same way that we're all in this together too.

So, if there's anything, Mr.

Inst that commissioners can do to support you or the rest of the staff, please let us know.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay, do we have any other questions comments?

Um madam chair, commissioner Snyder.

I saw the look on your face.

Okay.

Does um summer in Maine start to look pretty good to you then?

Um I thought that I had sort of hit rock bottom at Merrill when we were at was it Merrill Court.

Merri Park.

And listening to the people who live there, not the people who work there, but the people who live there.

And I thought to me, I've heard, I've heard now I now I know.

Um, because I I mean I I know a lot of the the public housing uh um developments.

I still want to call them projects, but I know that that's wrong.

No, I'm not doing that.

Um but that was that was a nightmare, and it was difficult to listen to, it was painful to listen to, especially not to be able to say anything.

I mean, I didn't even want to go talk to people afterwards.

I know Karen did.

But I'm going like if I can't do anything about it, what am I supposed to say?

Uh yeah, we're gonna work on it.

Well, I'm sure that they've heard that before from pretty much everybody at every level of this organization and probably a lot of other organizations.

I mean, all the person who represents that district is probably knew that years ago.

Yeah, so when I said I was frustrated, I mean I was not just frustrated, I was really really angry after that meeting, but and I had steam coming out of my ears because people shouldn't have to live like that.

Um and I just don't get it.

Um, you know, I mean this is almost worse in some ways because it's systems.

It I mean, you guys don't live there, and so you know, um, I don't blame you at all, but there's a systems issue within this organization that always that never gets fixed, and I don't know whether it's people at the now i wanted to ask you how you felt about it but the chair said not to so i won't and it seems to me that it would be unfair to ask how you felt about the lack of leadership until now and that's nothing on Mr.

Barbo nothing but I mean some really bad stuff happened I mean but you know we we can't continue to you know beat a dead horse this is on us now that's right this isn't you this isn't about people who've been gone for two or three years this is us oh and I know that when I did my um my interview with Common Ground um I got a couple of emails that said we're really happy that you're doing this because you're gonna do something to help I have done nothing to help and I feel just as bad as I did when I went through that interview and I heard all the stuff and I thought that it was not uninformed but it wasn't like the day-to-day stuff that we hear um and now I feel responsible because I ain't done nothing you know and it in my job I always had I always had a job I always worked I would if there was a problem I tried to fix it now we're sitting up here with my colleagues and there's nothing we can do other than you know make impassioned speeches you guys are the ones that are gonna have to fix this now we need leadership but you're the ones that are out there every day and I admire that I do I admire that um because I I mean when you said something I can't remember you said a couple of things that I really liked hearing but you know I mean and I don't know madam chair whether we have seven months to get this thing turned around or not and I'm not sure how are we gonna turn anything around in two three four months when you know when when Merrill Park and all these systems issue don't ever get fixed.

I will say that uh we do listen the staff does listen at the listening sessions and that things have started to be worked out at Merrill Park.

Chief Davis is uh working with the police and with his staff to go through Merrill Park I'm sorry I can't remember your last name but Anisha has changed her hours so that she can go in at different times to try to throw the people off.

There we're looking for the Anisia sorry thank you.

Um is looking for the residents that are letting people in these people are not walking in off the street they're being let in.

And so between the chief the city police and Anisia um we should be making a difference very shortly.

I just like to jump in and I'm I'm gonna keep this as short as I possibly can um commissioner Snyder said well there's nothing we can do other than you know make comment oh there's a lot more we can do this is this is on our watch and we take our job serious around this table which you all have heard me behind scenes address a lot of these issues that we're having and to see us move backwards after the first quarter of 2025 the second quarter of 2025 we're picking up momentum we now have a full board that hasn't happened in a decade or so I don't I don't know how long it's been but we've done everything we could possibly do in this moment.

We've hired the best secretary executive director.

We've opened it up for the community to weigh in on a lot of these choices that we're making.

And I've never been in a in a position where I was not held accountable for my actions I I just I don't know.

And I'm not going to excuse anybody.

Agency-wise, because I'm not excused.

When I go before Hood on your behalf, I am not excused.

So the sense of urgency that I'm looking for is absent.

It's not there.

And I don't understand how we how we're here.

I understand we don't have the COO, the CFO, but regardless of if those people are in place, we have individual responsibilities to our positions.

Uncollected rent.

I don't know anywhere where you can just live rent-free and it goes unaddressed to the point of barely here.

But I just I need the sense of urgency.

This is deplorable.

And I really didn't want to say it, but I'm if we had vendors sitting here, we had anybody sitting here, you are paid for service.

If you paid somebody to come into your house and they did not perform and they took your money, how would you feel?

We have payroll to meet every two weeks.

We're paying for services that we are not getting, at least at the level in which we're expecting it.

So I won't continue on because we're only on item two out of nine for this meeting.

Do better.

If you're at your bandwidth, so be it.

But this agency is under fire, it's been under fire.

We've brought in our resources.

I'm there over 40 hours a week as a volunteer.

Wow.

Over 40.

I work more on this than anything else.

That's a lot of hours.

And I can't take this more serious than you all that's compensated to come in here who are the subject matter experts where you all are.

We have to show up.

We don't have seven months.

We don't have seven months.

In essence, there's probably three months to get this turned around under the HUD rules and what we've promised to deliver on.

So I am really asking you all and begging you all to pull it together by any means necessary.

You have a resource in all seven of us.

We don't mind helping wherever we need to.

You have the best secretary, executive director that this agency has seen in a very long time.

So our expectation is that we can turn this around.

And this is a beautiful opportunity to turn it around, but you have to take it serious and start executing on the things.

You have a blueprint, you have a sustainability plan.

You have all of these different resources, draw from it, and let's do better.

And that it's all I got to say on this.

But next month, when you come before us, please don't come before us with with what we see.

Please don't.

So I am going to stop talking right now so we can get through the rest of our meeting for the sake of time.

Thank you all for working with me through this, because you all know how passionate I become, you know.

But team, team, team.

And I really I'm I'm expecting greatness out of you all.

I've watched you all individually.

Show up.

Please show up.

Because decisions will be made.

We won't have a decision.

We won't have an option unless you want HUD to come in and just take it all away and then we've got please um do better.

I I will not yield for any other questions or comments at this time.

If you all have any other questions, please commissioners direct them to Secretary Executive Director Pence and team continue to to pull it, pull it out and pull it over.

Okay, thank you all so much.

Patty, can you please read the next item on the agenda, please?

Item number three is a resolution approving a request to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for the reallocation of 25 veterans' veterans' affairs supportive housing vouchers from the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee to the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority removing them from Hackham's Consolidated Annual Contributions contract with the goal of increased utilization.

Ken Barbo will speak on this item.

Good evening, Commissioner.

Um we have been uh requested.

Um we have uh 347.

Could you get a little closer to the mic, please, sir?

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

Uh Ken Barbo, I'm the chief operating officer for program services.

Uh, we've been requested by HUD.

Uh we have 347 Bash vouchers.

They are not completely utilized.

We hover around 80% plus or minus in utilization of the VASH vouchers in terms of what are actually currently utilized at any one point in time.

Um we have been requested by HUD, who is working with the VA, uh, to uh consider a uh reallocation of 25 vouchers from Hackham to WEDA.

Uh we uh part of it is because of the utilization, part of it is because of the length of time it uh has taken at least in through early 2026 for us to uh lease the vouchers.

Uh we're behind the statewide average.

And so uh WEDA uh has only 124 vouchers and they're highly utilized, so they have the capacity to take it on.

Uh in addition, uh veterans have the ability to use the voucher in a larger geographic area because we're geographic area for the Milwaukee metropolitan area is larger, and so there are more options for uh homeless veterans.

Uh we did this once last year.

Um, HUD has reminded us uh that we do have the ability in the future when we have uh higher capacity and and have things a little better together uh to request more bash vouchers.

Uh HUD puts out on a regular basis uh the ability for housing authorities to request VASH vouchers.

Uh and so uh but right now uh the local office and uh the VA have requested that we uh approve a reallocation of 25 Ash vouchers.

So what this would do is allow us to start the paperwork uh to make that happen.

Uh with that I'll take any questions.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Moore and then Commissioner Yepes Class.

Um, just for clarity, um, Ken.

So we have a total of 347 of that 347.

I know it says 79% of it is being of the 347 is utilized roughly.

I think I think it's more, I mean, that was at one point, I think it's now a little over 80, but still, yes.

Do we have any numbers as to what that what 80 something or 280 or so?

Okay.

Um, okay, thank you.

So uh so going back to the 347, we would just reduce that number to um we're just taking it to three, it would just go to 322 that we would then be over.

Correct.

Which would make our utilization better percentage higher.

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes.

Uh Commissioner Yep, it's class.

Oh, you well, Ken, you mentioned that we could go back to HUD to request additional vouchers in the future.

Would these return back to us also in the future or once once they're transferred to WEDA?

Does is that theirs?

We would be transferred to WEDA uh permanently, permanently.

So we would use that.

But we could request additional vouchers.

We don't have any veterans that are requesting housing at this time.

Um we do we do.

Um it has taken um we are uh under the statewide average in terms of our the length of time it has taken to uh for them to be issued a voucher and uh as well as to lease a unit.

Is it well we have the vouchers to issue?

So is it the issue on our side or is it their area their ability to find a location that will accept the voucher?

It is that I mean I I did the calculation, we have a 48 remaining vouchers, and if we give 25 to WEDA, that would leave us with 23.

Do we have enough to meet the demand that we have?

Um I know that I think C VR has shown us numbers that things are looking better recently, however, given the historical um, you know, uh performance, uh WEDA uh and and the VA and HUD have strongly urged us to approve this reallocation.

Part of it is because we have taken too long to issue a voucher and taken too long, uh and the the participants have taken too long to find a place.

Now part of that is not totally on us part of but in terms of finding a place.

Uh because the VA uh case managers also assist in the location, but because those we're behind the uh statewide average, uh they're asking that these be turned over to WEDA because they have they're fully utilized, they have this capacity to turn these around fast.

They would be outside of the city and and serve veterans faster at this time.

Do you have the numbers can as far as the national average that they're referring to and where we are in meeting?

Um the VA uh and these are I I don't remember when these are of if they're from 2025 or if they're from early 2026.

The average number of days statewide average is 17 for to issue a bash voucher, and uh Hackham's average is 50 days.

Uh and the uh average number of days for the veteran to lease up once the voucher is issued is 76 days, and the average statewide is 55 days, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Moore.

Thank you.

Is there a reason why they didn't ask for more?

Why so we we they asked for it was to um HUD was recommended 25.

It was there a reason why, because if there's a partner, we that could utilize these vouchers on a much quicker basis.

I was just curious as to is there a reason why?

We do have some people in process, so they're not currently out uh, you know, uh utilized, but they are in pro they are in either the search process, you know, they have a voucher and they're searching for a unit or in some other capacity.

So they felt that 25 was a workable number that would a increase our utilization uh and in and overall increase the number for uh state.

This is a separate system.

So when we talk about the vets, is that a separate vouchers, yes?

Okay, so a vet would so we have, let's say we end up with we we end up with the 322 vouchers, only you know, only X number, we got X number left.

How does a veteran are are they coming to hack them?

Are they going to a port?

How are they?

How are we getting these people?

In the in the VASH program, it's a very defined program between the VA and HUD.

Got it.

Uh the VA refers people who are homeless veterans.

So they they do the eligibility.

Right.

And they have to actually case manage these folks as well.

That's part of the requirement for the program.

And so they then refer them over to us.

Uh-huh.

And we then start to process paperwork.

Okay.

Uh for to issue a voucher.

Okay.

And this.

Wait a second.

So so we process the paperwork to issue them a voucher.

Does that mean that we're saying, okay, yep, yeah.

Based on everything, yeah, you're approved.

Go find somewhere.

Is that typically how it works?

Um well then do we have housing in-house for veterans?

Well, we do have uh veterans preference housing at Victory Manor.

We also, um, now some of these vouchers are project based and tied to the National Soldiers' home.

So those as well cannot be, you know, we can't transfer those ones.

And so uh at any point in time, we may have out of the hundred units that uh at National Soldiers Home, there may be 20 or 15 that are uh still not filled.

So that is also part of it.

Um and those can't be transferred over to WEDA.

Got it.

And Madam Chair, the only thing I would ask her, I I think I just need her a report on veterans housing because if there's um this number that I I would just love to know where we where we are on veterans housing since it's now sort of this difference or separate component.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

And I think if you uh sorry, Chair, uh if you uh once you do see the the CBR report, I believe they are also doing a special section on veterans housing in that report as well.

Perfect.

Okay, um Commissioner Yepiskless.

I was gonna ask if if C VR is also managing the um the Vash vouchers and if we have a separate pipeline or someone that's dedicated specifically for for these programs because there's a partnership involved and you know could be expedited.

I can answer that, but I'll I'll let CBR come up too.

I mean, the quick answer though is is yes, they do have a special person, but you can't Tracy Sheffield CBR Associates.

Um yes, we do have a dedicated specialist that now um handles the the veterans paperwork from the date that we get the referral determining eligibility, um, requesting the inspection of our inspections department, and then moving through to leasing process.

So they handle everything essentially other than doing the actual inspection of the and is that taking them the 56 days to do so.

I did a targeted analysis of our VASH uh lease up process.

Um I think it's on like page 13.

Um, but I did an analysis of our leasing activity in 2025 versus all of the um enhancements that we've made thus far in 2026.

So our Vasher our VASH voucher issuance in 2025 was averaging 50 days, it's now down to 14 days, which is actually under the statewide average of 70 days, so even with that reduction in time are still being recommended by HUD to on all parties to reallocate funds to vouchers.

Okay.

And then do we do we have you mentioned that the vouchers that we're retaining, those are already like encumbered, so they're already set aside for applicants.

Uh yeah, they they do uh they do have people who are in the process already, whether they've been issued a voucher or being considered or being uh processed for the voucher or been issued the voucher and are searching for housing.

So uh and in addition, there's a small portion of the units that are tied to the national Soldiers' home.

And then just one last question, I'm sorry.

Um, and vet's manner as well.

So, yeah.

Um, when once this happens and how soon can we go back to HUD to request additional vouchers once we are back on.

Um HUD puts out HUD puts out a uh request, uh, usually about once a year, but sometimes more frequently, uh saying that they have they're taking uh applications for bash vouchers from housing authorities, and it's an easy process to request them.

But when typically is it any time of the year?

Is it typically in the summer, September?

Like at that point, I think it is changed.

I don't know off the top of my head.

Like in the last quarter of the calendar year.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

We'll look at it.

I might be as you know Michael Tonovitz from C VR.

Um it the NOFAs do vary from year to year.

No, you'd be honest.

Yeah, notice of funding availability, they do it's really each administration based on their timing.

I've seen them as early as June.

I've seen them as late as August.

Um so I there's there's some other context I was here.

I want to be honest, we're disappo we're equally disappointed by this request, but there is I have our team has told me that currently we're the stream of referrals we're getting is really only enough to fill what's turning over, so that we're not you know, I obviously there's always two sides to every story, and yes, we had opportunities to improve, which we did, but right now the stream is not coming through.

But I also wanted to give a little HUD is doing this nationwide.

Um in communities where the statewide agency can access more communities, more resources.

They could take those 25, spread them out through the whole state, one or two in each community.

They're doing that.

It's not this is not a unique hackham situation.

They're trying to redistribute bash vouchers to get them to where the veterans who need them are.

Yeah.

And we're disappointed, and I do would say with um emphatically, if we can get 100% of them lease, we would want to ask for more, but it's it's been a struggle, and I can tell you it's been every place at CBR manages vouchers, keeping the bash program 100% least is a struggle.

It's it's not again, it's not a unique Milwaukee challenge.

And I'm I'm sorry, Commissioner Moore.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong.

The vouchers that we that we are about to approve, they were taken due to underperformance, right?

Because we didn't meet the requirements that they were looking for.

All right.

That there was something that was not there for them to see the need.

And it's not per se being parsed over rural areas.

Wita is right here in our community.

So it's technically being transferred to someone who's more capable of fulfilling these vouchers.

And we don't disagree, I just want to make it clear the underlying issue has already been fixed.

So thank you.

Commissioner Moore.

Um, no, thank you so much, madam chair.

Um for for me, obviously I wouldn't give us something that we haven't been like I don't I don't like vouchers to be sitting right where it can be utilized, and if there's an agency right here in the city that is doing a much better job, I'd rather that's why I was asking about the number because there's a need.

I know that I see them in my community, so I know that there's a need.

Um, and if there's an agency that is supporting this population, I'd rather those numbers go to go to them until we can it shows that we can get our act together to fill whatever we got left.

Right.

You know, so that's what I would want to see.

I want to ask for no more if we're not even doing our due diligence to feel what we already have.

Um so um I I I don't have a disagreement with the with the direction that we're moving forward.

I would just love to see us figure out, you know, if if this is our thing, can we do it?

And if not, let's offload it to WETA so that they can, you know, that they can do what they need to do with it.

Thank you so much, madam chair.

Thank you.

Do we have any other questions or comments from the commission?

Commissioner Snyder.

Um, are you suggesting tabling this motion?

No, I'm not suggested absolutely not.

No, no.

No, I'm not suggesting tabling this motion at all.

I would just love to see um you know um in the next quarter like how we're doing to fill what we have address you know like address the vacancies yes you know that we have or the number of vouchers um that we'll end up having on hand that's available how are we going to make sure that those are being utilized that's what I'm saying.

Yes Madam Chair I would move approval of the motion.

I'll second it so we can move along all right with a second.

Thank you.

Okay.

So um the roll call vote Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Pez Classen aye.

Chair Hazlet aye.

Vice Chair Gotzler aye.

Commissioner Snyder aye.

Commissioner Moore aye motion passes.

Item number four is a resolution approving the submission by the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee to the Department of Housing and Urban Development of a disposition application for the sale of vacant land at 2856 North 34th Street and 3125 North 26th Street at fair market value.

Jeannie Dawson will speak on this item gotta get a little closer Jeannie oh we can hear you.

Is that working?

No Jeannie Dawson Hackenstaff there we go.

This is a request to submit a disposition application to HUD to sell vacant land we have two parcels that have been um requested uh by neighbors adjacent neighbors who want to purchase their the lot next to them um I did provide some supplemental information uh regarding the state of vacant lots in general for the city uh the city owns 3300 vacant lots um about six thousand vacant lots are in the entire city we own over 70 vacant lots and um there's some discussion about what to do with those vacant lots but because we do have two people that want to buy them I thought it might we might as well go forward with those two requests I have since had another request from another neighbor and we also have five lots that the city wants to buy so I'll be coming forward to this board with another request shortly about submitting a disposition application.

Does anyone have any questions about the two lot sales that we are proposing chair vice chair got I just have a um just a clarification on um are these lots that we are anticipating selling to the neighbors are they adjacent to other lots that could be buildable for us or are these lots we really should be disposing of both of these lots are in fill and I the supplemental photos I handed out or were handed out earlier they show you how they're situated in the city and the basically you can see a lot of vacant lots around them.

So no these lots are not combinable with other vacant lots the ones that I will be coming to you for in the future the city does have some adjacent property to those so that makes sense for them these two are just one neighbor wants to build playground equipment because she has seven kids and another one wants to just fence off the yard because there's a lot of activity around 27th and Burleigh and people just walk through his yard all the time or rock through the property all the time leaving trash.

So he wants to just acquire it and put up a fence um there's the total value for both these lots is about $15,000 and what we spend annually on these lots is about a hundred thousand dollars last year however it was a little bit less which I contribute to the low uh snowfall so it sort of you know depends how much snowfall there is every year but we we do uh incur um expenses for grass snow and insurance on these lots madam chair commissioner more and then commissioner yeah is class I just wanted to be sure I heard correctly on on two both of these lots we've spent about a hundred thousand dollars no no no on the collection of vacant lots oh okay no no no just in general yes okay on all of them yes yeah yeah that makes sense thank you so much commissioner yepes glass and Jeannie I just had a question I wasn't sure um I the residents that are requesting them at their they own the home yes they own the property right adjacent to it so they would be expanding their okay footprint and then just another question I think we just because we asked this last time I don't know if you've talked to folks that are there's this collective affordable housing plan right in there.

I don't know if you've reached out to like habitat I think is sort of building in that area too and some other developers are developing and because of just the proximity of other vacant lots to that I mean they would be clustered new development and so I was just curious if you've had an opportunity to reach out to them and they've declined um so this is a reactive um request request because we have yet as an agency come up with a comprehensive plan for the vacant lots as um I've said often this is has been a back burner and issue what to do with these vacant lots.

So no we have not reached out to anybody this is in response to somebody asking us.

So if the board wants to consider that type of activity I think that's something that would have to be we'd have to set aside time and energy and effort to decide what to do.

I one of the reasons we haven't um the executive director asked me this the other day why haven't we just sold all these lots already and this is actually one of the reasons why is because every year there are different opportunities that come up for infill new construction that sort of thing and there's an ebb and flow with these kind of processes.

So every year it our decide our desire to do things changes.

For example we still have lots of vacant lots at Highland homes because our intention was to build spec homes and just sell them one after the other well that we can't do that right now.

So I decided to just respond to this request by let's just do something.

Let's just sell two madam chair start.

So this is kind of my decision to bring it forward okay I just because I well um I thought we did actually ask at that last board meeting when we about it's develop starting to develop a process so that we can reach out to our housing developer network and nonprofits um because they are looking for spaces and giving them the first right to to decide I mean obviously um and that would add to the tax role and you know and just be a good thing for developing new housing and and just because again the the size of the lots and the proximity to other vacant lots that's usually what developers are looking for is an opportunity to cluster vacant lots so that they can build together so I mean that would be my recommendation to kind of start working on that if I move that is a great recommendation we will take that under consideration and um work with the board to come up with a comprehensive plan on how to get rid of the lots because we are hemorrhaging a hundred thousand dollars a year, taking care of lots that aren't bringing income in.

So we're hurting our residents.

Um we I'm not sure like highland homes, we may have enough land there that we keep those, and then use that as adding two Highland homes.

But you know, single families, we and we don't manage them well, and because housing authorities are not set up to manage single families.

And for us to keep them or to think that we can build on it and make a profit, we're not because in the long run, the property gets damaged.

We find out during our annual inspection or during um a HUD inspection, so or an a city inspection, whichever, you know, yeah.

Um so it doesn't make sense for us to hold lots, you know, and uh in my opinion.

And I mean, this has to come from the board.

It's that's the policy, what we do to the lots.

Um, but it is a thing, in my opinion, that I would get rid of as many of the scattered lots as we can.

Um, you don't tend to get tax credits unless you control the neighborhood.

And um we, as far as I know, don't control any of the neighborhoods.

So that would be my suggestion.

And Jeannie, hopefully you also shared with Mr.

Ints the the one, I think it was one or maybe two meetings that we did have where we did start talking about this a little bit.

So there's already it's already clear that there are some commissioners who are interested in this and having a policy suit.

Yeah, okay.

Um just to answer if I may answer um commissioner, um, we did you were absolutely right.

We did talk about this, but it was in relationship to the scattered site houses um that are for sale, and we did not specifically talk about the lots.

So let me add both lots and scattered sites properties.

Yeah.

So um I yeah, I I think it makes sense to have a comprehensive discussion about all this, um, and to move forward with the discussion on the vacant lots.

And the list that I provided for you are sort of broken up by color.

If you want to just review them again.

Um, there are five lots that the city does want.

One of the questions was how it how does our position align with the mayor's uh housing plan, etc.

And I did a little research into that.

I actually have a call into the mayor's office to speak with Luke, their policy person, but I haven't heard back.

But um, but I have uh spoken with uh the real estate people and um they are only interested in in five lots at the present time.

So if there's any additional, you know, I I'm not aware of it yet.

So um it's kind of up to the board how you want to proceed.

I'm just trying to push these two lots so that we can at least chip away at this big iceberg that we have.

Um and that's kind of where we are.

Sure.

Okay Commissioner Moore, thank you so much.

Um I do want to um um kind of just respond to commissioner Yep S Class and in regards to the to the lots because you know we have res the illegal dumping, it's just when when we talk about having so we have the Hackham lots and we also have City of Milwaukee lots, and so we have citywide, thousands of empty lots, some can be built, some can't, but when we're talking about single family homes, the cost to build one has gotten so astronomical, like the average build, the average person is not even touching it.

So a lot of our developers are looking for, hey, do I have three or four lots together that I can do, you know, right row housing, doing something multiple, you know, three story, whatever, doing multiple housing units to keep the cost down because there's no one if you build it, you know, that's gonna pay 350, 400,000 thousand dollars um for a home in particular neighborhoods, right?

And so the more opportunity that we can to look at, okay, where are they situated?

Yep, let's ask the neighbor.

That's where I would um talk to first.

Um, that's what I've asked our city staff to do particularly in my district hey the lots that we that's too small to build on or you know um we can offload to you know provide to a neighbor let's do that offer first before we you know provide it to you know other developers but that would be the route and I would agree that will be the route I would take just so that public safety wise and getting just rid of and putting it in the hands of residents that actually live there with approval when the time comes yes in Detroit what they did uh where we there were lots that they wanted to get rid of yeah they did a side lot program where they split a lot in half so no resident could buy it and say I'm gonna sell it and have somebody building um a split in in half and the two uh houses adjacent to it could buy the lot very interesting it also um should be known that HUD does not want us to do that to give lots away for a dollar like the city does absolutely they want us market value oh okay oh great okay just it made it more affordable because instead of a seven thousand dollar lot it was thirty five hundred I see yeah but the city does do the dollar lot and uh HUD is has not given us that we have to sell for our market value but if it's less than market value it has to benefit our residents.

I mean that cost seem really reasonable even at the market rate yeah for a developer you know like if if that were their route they would go okay um are there any other questions for Jeannie okay hearing none would a commissioner like to move adoption of the resolution second roll call please commissioner nelson commissioner Paz Classen.

Aye.

Chair Hazel Vice Chair Gotzler Commissioner Snyder Aye Commissioner Moore.

Motion passes the next item for today's meeting next item for today's meeting is a general public listening session this listening session is agenda item number B five part of the 4 pm Wednesday May 20th 2026 meeting of the Hackham Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301A.

The purpose of the session is to give interested persons a reasonable opportunity to present their views to Hackham's board of commissioners each speaker will have two minutes to speak this listening session does not have a specific topic persons who wish to speak if they have not already done so should sign up at the sign in sheet located at the side table and you're right for those who have prepared written comments those comments will be shared with the board any e-comments received by 11 a.m today have been distributed to the commissioners.

Yeah uh per open meetings law at a listening session the commissioners do not engage in a dialogue with the speakers but we'll be listening to all comments so they may receive input from the public.

We ask that everyone be respectful of the process and of all of the folks either speaking as well as those who are here to listen.

After you provide your comment property management staff may reach out to you here at this meeting or afterward to learn more from you or to provide you with information related to your comment or question.

It is critical that speakers respect the two minute time limit in place for all speakers so signs will be held up to let people know when they have 30 seconds left and let people know when their two minutes are up we also ask that the audience be respectful of the speakers while they are offering their comments whether you agree or disagree with what they have to say.

A few more points please everyone mute your phones if you haven't already all comments should be addressed to the commissioners any member of the public is welcome to share their input if you are a hackham tenant voucher program participant, landlord or staff and are willing to share that information the board would find that information helpful but neither being a resident or participant nor sharing that information is required to speak.

Speakers may be asked to return their seat or leave the meeting if they do not follow the instructions in order to ensure all of us in the room can hear unruly or disruptive behavior from either speakers or the audience is prohibited.

Sawyer, would you like to come up?

Thanks.

Hello, can y'all hear me good?

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Well, let me get started on my two minutes.

Um as everybody knows, I've been around for a while.

I've uh been privy to understand the rules and regulations on uh a lot of things because I just pay attention when somebody's teaching me some, I might as well be able to go back and deal with it.

Um issue that to real is brought up in the past is we'll go to a RAV meeting and we'll learn the new rules and regulations.

Rab.

Resident advisory board.

And we'll go in, learn something, and we'll go back and tell a manager, hey, you're not supposed to be doing it.

They just sit there and look at you, ignore you.

You'll say, Hey, you supposed to do this, it says this in the handbook.

We have a sign parking.

You got to go through a six-blunt argument because they say, uh, let's go find an excuse not to do what's in the handbook.

It's some of this stuff is outrageous.

It it's some of the stuff I've said about certain employees and stuff.

Uh none of that stuff is personal.

This is from education, this is from learning, this is from the fact.

My study field of study is supervisory management.

When I say an employee is breaking rules and they're becoming uh uh um insurance liability, I know what I'm talking about.

Nobody should pay rent and get called a B by an employee, and then that employee doesn't get in trouble, which is what happened at the meeting we had at Lincoln, and then that same employee keeps their job and they proceed to do the same thing two or three more times.

They have to go.

If you want to establish a culture, that you guys are trying to reach, you can't keep those kind of employees.

You can't have systems in place where every single manager has to get asked, uh, can you turn on the air because it's 85 degrees in our apartment?

Mr.

Sawyer, just on.

Thank you.

And uh, anybody wants to talk to me?

I'm always available.

Um, some of the fields of study, like you guys talked to other people.

Mr.

Sawyer, you're out there.

Talk to us.

Thank you.

And then are there anybody else that signed up?

So um the public also had the opportunity to provide written comments and e-comments.

None were received before 11 a.m.

today.

Uh, as there seems no one else is wishing to provide comment today.

Uh this concludes the public listing session, which was part of the 4 p.m.

Wednesday, May 20th, 2026 meeting of the Hackham Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301A.

I would like to share the thanks of the Board of Commissioners for those who took time out to provide their comments today.

They appreciate hearing from you and value your opinion.

The next item, item number six is a presentation of a summary of Hackham's public housing capital fund program.

Ken Barbeau willing will speak on this item.

Welcome back, Ken.

Good evening, commissioners.

Ken Barbo, Chief Operations Officer for Program Services.

Um, could you speak into the microphone?

Sorry.

Thank you.

Um, I'm presenting in place of Alison Luzniki uh tonight.

This is a summary of capital or capital funds.

Uh I believed I thought this had a date on it at one point.

This is these numbers are as of May 5th.

So, what I'm going to talk about is the numbers as of today, because I think uh they'll be a little more uh beneficial.

So the last time we spoke, uh you know that the capital funds for 2020 and 2021 were fully uh fully done, fully expended for uh the next deadline that we had coming up.

Uh, and then for 2023, uh those had been obligated.

They had met the 90% obligation rate as of February 2025.

So those are in the process of being expended.

We have to expend those by next year, next February, actually.

The 2024, we were facing a deadline date to uh obligated of May 5th of 2026.

And we uh had to meet a 90% obligation by May 5th of 2026.

I want to thank Allison, uh, was Nikki and uh Cassie Rebro uh and the rest of the team.

Uh we worked together, we came up with a plan.

We talked a little bit about it earlier.

A lot of those were the uh contractors that we were setting aside to work in our various public housing developments to do uh uh deferred maintenance, basically non-routine maintenance, things that have been deferred for so long that it becomes a real issue, and uh HUD has a definition for that.

And I want to really thank the HUD team, our local HUD team has been superstars in assisting us.

Uh we uh because they came up with good ideas on a number of the things I'm talking about right here tonight.

Is that Luke and Matt?

That would be Luke and especially Matt on this issue.

Um, so we we did make the 92%.

We actually uh by doing some of the obligations in the contracts that we did, uh, we were actually at about 92%.

So uh and that 640,000 that you see uh on the on the far side, um, that's that difference uh between the seven seven point seven million obligated and the eight.4 million uh of the budget.

So uh we met the obligation.

Now we just have to spend it, and we'll have until 2028 to spend that.

Uh the next deadline that we had was for the capital funds for 2022.

That deadline was May 11th of 2026, and we had to well, we had to spend all of the funding.

Uh it turns out in that grant we had two different line items that had funding available.

One had to do with uh general capital activity.

Uh and the other, which is almost anything that we we do, but we also were limited a little bit in terms of what we could spend it on.

Uh, and then the other was items uh that had been obligated to RAD investment, and that was for West Lawn.

Uh and so uh we and that was 1.2 million.

Uh so that's 1.7 million total that we had to spend, and that was when in April uh when we started.

Um as of the date uh of this uh it doesn't look it looks like it hadn't been fully spent.

We did spend it all.

Thank God.

Oh, sorry.

Um, so uh Cassie and uh we we found items A, there were uh items in CFP payments that were in process.

So we got those made.

Uh that was about 300,000.

Uh that left about 184,000 and between Matt from HUD and uh Allison and Cassie, they figured out how that was going to be spent, and we spent that down uh on the uh amount for the RAD.

We had we wanted to confirm this with HUD, but we were able to fund because they had not yet been funded.

We were able to fund the uh the replacement reserve and the operating reserve for West Lawn 5, West Lawn RSS 5, and West Lawn Renaissance 7.

And we actually funded them above the amounts that uh were set aside in the operating agreement because they were very small.

They set aside 27 or 30,000 thousand dollars for the replacement reserve for for, you know, for 90 97 units in one case and 44 in another.

It's it's it's a very small number.

So we were able to set aside a significant amount in the replacement reserve and the operating reserve and use those and HUD has had told us that that was allowable before we did it.

So um so those were spent down so we met the deadlines on those.

So now we just have to meet you know our our upcoming deadlines are in 2027.

We have to spend all of the uh 2023 and we have to uh obligate uh the 2025 as well and make sure we meet the at least 90% obligation by May of 2027.

Any questions Madam Chair Commissioner Moore um thank you so much um thank you for that report out can I think just the only thing that I just want to be really clear on and just for our listening audience that these funds can't just be spent on anything.

Correct.

So if you can just explain just real briefly that um based on you know because I think all of the funds can only be spent on very specific things whether it's equipment or um appliances or whatnot um just do a just a brief recap for us like you know what these funds can only be spent in this this area.

So these are basically funds for a for public housing.

Although the when I talked about West Lawn that was an exception and that was only because it was going through a rad conversion process.

So that was one exception we will not have that exception in any of these others.

Sure.

They have to be spent on capital repairs capital repairs are major repairs uh that are done.

Now HUD does define and that was the I I don't want to say loophole that was the definition that we used HUD does define nonroutine maintenance and they define nonroutine maintenance I want to read it because it's a very good uh definition non-routine maintenance is work items that would be performed on a regular basis in the course of maintenance of property but have become substantial in scope because they have been postponed and involve expenditures that would otherwise materially materially distort the level trend of maintenance expenses that's a definition of what has happened in our development and a lot of public housing developments nationwide but in our developments and so um we're utilizing that we're using it for the elevator repairs and and elevator replacements we're using it for building of fences we're using it for uh the redoing of parking lots we're using it for roofs we're using it for replacement of uh say a uh I'm trying to think of what else uh an HVAC system if we need to facade the facade repairs that we're doing these are all major capital items and so those are the kinds of things that are built into this.

Excellent thank you so much for clarifying that and the good news is we did not we would have been dinged by HUD pretty badly had we not expended and obligated those funds so we met those deadlines.

I would ding us too if we have money and not spending exactly I'm just saying yes vice chair guys I know what a heavy lift it was to get us allocated and obligated on time and um I we could go go back and try to figure out why it happened and who should have done what and but it's not worth it but you got it done and I'm really grateful because we certainly did not need another um you know negative from HUD on this on not spending money that we do have available.

I will echo on that Ken was the only one who seemed to feel that urgency when uh we found out about it and he worked through the entire weekend.

So I do appreciate all that Ken has done to make sure it worked and I appreciate HUD's input and help yeah to make sure that we did not have a well the only department that didn't have anything wrong go wrong and then um you know I at that point we probably could have just given the keys to wow.

Yes, yeah, thank you, Ken.

Thank you.

So that's concludes my presentation.

Great work.

Thank you so much.

Um I guess we can read the next item.

Item number seven is a presentation of the April documents from the Trevor board meetings.

Ken Barbo will speak on this item.

Um so uh the Travault board meeting, uh, we went over uh Alison was Nikki went over all the Travaux projects that we were doing.

We talked a little bit about all of those.

Um if you have questions on anything specific, uh please ask.

But the Travaux board did ask questions on each of them, um, including the facade repairs, the elevator repairs, and the status of Highland Gardens uh work uh remodeling, which is getting close to completion.

Uh in addition, they also uh Alison also presented reports on all the capital fund uh budgets uh to Trevo as well.

Uh so with that I'll take any questions on the Trevo minutes.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Moore.

Um, just for some clarification, Ken, um what we just discussed in regards to some of the capital dollars that have been that needed to be spent.

Is this tied into that?

Are these sort of the details of it or this is something completely different?

No, these are tied into the details, however, these were done before those those final changes that we did were uh occurred in the CF in the capital fund.

So these are for uh all these budgets are for uh 2023 through 2027, I believe.

Um, and uh, but they don't reflect what I talked about just a little while ago in terms of how we spent the red dollars in 2022 and some of the allocations we made in 2024.

So this would have been presented at Trevo's April board meeting.

So the data would have had to have been done by early mid-April.

Yeah, so it it it's the same amount of money, but it was coming from a different time frame, right?

Okay.

Um so I get, you know, tax dollars, you know, these are projects that sort of are taking place in the hopper.

Um, I think my question is like moving forward, like what is going to be the responsibility of Travaux?

I mean, are they supposed to bring in money or is you know what I mean?

Are is it that are they supposed to be the developers?

I mean, I know we can't develop much now, like I'm just trying to understand their role right now because seeing that we're hemorrhaging dollars and I'm thinking about resources like what is the purpose of Travot now.

Currently, um true will remain the same, but there will be a look at the entire housing authority and its uh um instrumentalities and affiliates, and then uh there will be a complete reorganization, and there will be uh new responsibilities um within the guidelines of our organizations, um, so that right now they are still doing the same thing, but in the future they could be looking very different.

Yeah, I'm I'm definitely interested in that because if they're supposed to benefit us, I just haven't seen the benefit as of right.

I just haven't seen the benefit since I've been sitting here.

I have not seen the benefit of Travaux.

I just from my understanding, they are not in the position to benefit the housing authority except for looking at except for some of the employees doing work on our properties.

Okay.

Um, and so it it is a thing where um that is a big concern of mine.

And it was pointed out um shortly after I got here, that uh we had to look at them to see what is going on, but uh we also need to look at the entire housing authority um as well, because as we know, HUD's funding is changing and we're getting less and less.

Yeah, so we have to look at how we can provide the services to our residents and keep up the assets, and um and but be a business, we really need to look at it as a business.

And just for clarification, um the staffing structure as far as uh budgetary-wise, does that come from Hackham's budget or is that a separate pool of dollars that are are paying them to do their work?

Ultimately, you should the LLCs run on their own budgets, so they each have their own separate budget for Trevo.

If you're talking about Travot and this the staff that are under Trevo, some of them are assigned to the LLC, so they get paid by the LLC, some of them are assigned, actually, some of them are signed to public housing.

So they so they are charged to where they are working.

If you're talking about the modernization and development kind of uh side of it and the uh accounting side, they are charged to Trevo.

Um and ultimately, because they are an instrumentality of Hackham, if Travot is not bringing in enough developer fees and other types of income to pay some of it is being paid for, for example, by um by high by the work at Highland Gardens, because we can charge some of our time there for for their work time.

Yeah, uh, but if we can't bring in enough income to pay for it, Hackham is on the hook to pay the rest of the bills for Trevo.

So where does that lie then?

So if we are looking at where Trevo is right now, based on exactly what you just said, um and come on up, um where does where does that um maybe the percentage, like, oh, you know, every every pay period hackham picks up three percent, whatever, right?

Like, how can you explain that to me?

So um I just want to remind the board that the item in front of it is presentation of the April documents of the triple board meeting.

Um it's not we're not really noticed to have a broad discussion about the structure of the advisability of it, right?

Gotcha.

We can table it for the next meeting.

No, I appreciate that.

Yeah, I can I can table that for the the next meeting, but that would be something that that I would like to request that if we're covering those dollars, what is that what is that gap?

So um I would love that to be discussed at the next meeting.

Thank you so much and thanks for their feet.

Thank you.

Excuse me, even though I know we're not supposed to talk to you.

Clarification on your question.

You want to know the percentage.

So what I think Hackham pays Travot.

Correct, because uh again, I know that we're not, you know, it whatever isn't coming in because if they're not making, if they're not breaking even to pay their bills, and we have to take, we have to help support those dollars.

I'm curious, I would like to know how much of that are we covering.

Is it 50%?

Is it 10%?

Like, I'm curious as to where that bottom line would be.

Yeah, I just want a clarification so that we can give you the correct answer.

Sure.

Um, and I think that I guess on the next board meeting, or if we have uh another special meeting, so um the logs would even be then um, you know, it would just be on Travot.

Yes, please.

I think it would be important to say, though, too, that it's Vice Chair Gotzlow.

I'm sorry.

It's important to say that it's more than just a matter of a percentage, because over time, what has happened is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ken and Todd, is that the agency has started putting its new employees, regardless of what their job description was under Travot.

And so they're their employer is Travot.

Correct.

But they're not necessarily working only for the Housing Authority.

So, but they're but they could be only working for the housing authority.

So it's not as simple as Travot has these six employees over here, and we're paying for all of that or half of that.

It's like the majority, a hundred and I don't know how much I'm looking at Todd, but 140, let's say, people work for Travot.

Most of our employees work for Trevo.

And we can talk about that.

Yeah, but thank you.

So definitely.

All right.

Thank you so very much.

Oh, were you done with your presentation?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Attorney Cruz.

Can you read the next item, please?

Yeah, um, item number eight is a discussion regarding the potential participation by a single board member in staff meetings in advance of board meetings to assist staff and preparing for their regular board meeting presentations.

Sorry.

As well as the value for all board members to review board materials and submit questions to staff ahead of board meetings.

Greg Cruz and myself will speak on this item briefly.

Um, you saw me filling up your email boxes with invites for a pre-meeting to for the commissioners to ask questions in an informal setting, more like a dialogue, and so that the speakers can come to this meeting with the information that the commissioners are interested in, with the goal of hopefully resulting in the commissioners being as informed as possible and also allowing a little dry run for the staff.

Unfortunately, our initial structure with regularly scheduled recurring meetings with the same commissioners, even in a non-forum setting, would still require the formality of the board meeting, which kind of defeated the purpose of the dialogue.

So we did a little brainstorming with council and wanted to share a couple of options that would maybe still provide some of what we wanted to do.

These will allow you a way to get questions to staff, and uh so that they can provide that information to you either before or at the meeting, and then possibly hear directly from um so the staff can hear directly from you and the staff uh no, so they possibly can so sorry, so staff can hear from you in a less formal, more dialogue-driven format.

The staff sees the value in still doing a dry run, so I think we're gonna still proceed with having a similarly structured meeting for ourselves, so we can uh do a rehearsal kind of a thing, receive feedback amongst ourselves, and so we're gonna still do that.

But the attachment included with you uh includes a couple main options.

So before we go into the option, go ahead.

I will say that having Commissioner Moore at the first one was um accidentally uh with our arm being twisted, but um she it was very helpful because we got to see what uh the board that interaction would be looking for and the interaction and the feedback on um what was presented before Commissioner Moore had to leave.

Thank you for allowing me there.

Um so one option is we could kind of set a hard time limit probably about Monday at noon.

Um usually the emails with all of the agenda information goes out on Friday at late Friday afternoon.

Um, and if you can look that over and get us questions, then during this pre-meeting, uh, we could uh wrestle with those and get uh information out to you after that.

Um, another option, we could do kind of a first come first serve with the commissioners.

Uh we are allowed to do one commissioner, different commissioners, uh, rotating through in a basis, probably because uh one person it cannot be a committee, and probably again it would be a different commissioners, depending on who has interest.

If you look at a particular agenda and say, Oh, I've got a lot of questions about that, raise your hand, you and then whoever would be first to do that would be able to then attend the meeting like you did, and really uh let us know what you're thinking about the particular topics and give us a chance to hear from you.

We could do some combination of that, you know, give us your questions, and if you really are interested, let us know.

Or we could, you know, we don't have to do anything with this right now, and the staff can keep doing the pre-meeting, and of course you always have been and always will be, you know, absolutely welcome to get us questions, of course, and in any kind of a time frame.

So we wanted to present those as ways we could still try and incorporate uh once you review the material what you're looking at as a way that I think our staff would really appreciate and hopefully would result in a more uh dynamic board meeting for you too here.

So we'd like to open it up to the commissioners to share your thoughts around these different options.

Correct.

So I don't frankly, I don't see the big deal.

Um Greg Cruz, Austin City Attorney.

Um the issue is really that the set nature of it, um, and the mandated nature of of it.

Uh effectively, when the board chair or the secretary-executive director mandates that a set number of specific individuals on this body attend a meeting at a set time regularly, you've effectively created a committee, so now you have a new quorum of two of those three people being a quorum of that committee that was accidentally created effectively.

Um, even if the board itself hasn't passed a resolution saying we're creating these committees, the attorney general has said that somebody in a position of authority simply directing the meeting take place with those set members is enough to trigger the application of the open meetings law.

And the and it's you know, three commissioners and two, and that that it's never the same that's what we were three people.

So one time it's the three of us, and then the next time it's three people down there, and you know that we so that we're rotating and there's no opportunity to actually make a decision, um, and our whole point is to understand more clearly what it is that Mr.

Ints and his team are wanting to present and to avoid having four-hour long commission meetings.

Um, so I would say that that will those were not the facts that I was dealing with when we opined on not being able to do that.

So I could certainly bring that back to our uh resident uh expert um on meetings.

The the as a general rule, I would say that the less formal it is and the more sort of ad hoc it is, the less likely it is that we're going to trigger the application of the law.

Now the decision making piece isn't necessarily dispositive, and what I mean by that is any function of the board is the board taking action.

One of the functions of the board is to get information in.

So simply by members of the board taking in that information and listening, that's effectively the same as exercising authority as a board under state law.

At all.

Um that we uh attend it's the staff reviewing the board agenda.

Am I am I missing something?

We're we're going over the board agenda, and then we are giving us Greg knows some information about the what we're the staff will be presenting presenting, correct?

And then we get questions back, yeah.

Um for uh and then we try to answer the question then, so it's addressed before the board meeting, yeah, or if we can't answer it, it's either an email or addressed at the board meeting.

Um that that is the purpose of it is also the purpose of what my idea was so that the board understands what we are talking about, and I'll use utilization as an example.

I mean, it was brought up, but how many of the board actually know it means least in a unit?

That's what the utilization means.

So it you know, those are the things that I wanted to make sure that the board knew.

Um, so and and I also want the staff to understand how, and I guess it doesn't affect the staff as much, but how the other departments work and how they intertwine, even though they may never touch each other directly, but um they need to know how each department affects their department.

Um so that that was the purpose of the the meaning.

Now I just wanna clarify something that you said, so if we had the meaning and it's just the staff and three board members show up, without a directive from anyone to show up, right?

Show up.

Yeah, we don't even put an invite out, they just know that it happens the Monday before the board meeting or the Thursday before the board meeting or whatever.

It's a regularly scheduled meeting for the staff and the board members show up.

Does that cause an issue?

Not initially, but I think that there's a fact scenario where the same three people are showing up every week.

I'm I'm just saying hypothetically, no, it wouldn't be.

Uh well, we wouldn't we wouldn't know that.

To be clear, we wouldn't know that until we had the facts in front of us and they randomly happened.

But the problem is that let's say we have three months in a row where the same three people show up.

I get that it's gonna look to people who are on the outside looking in who bring these sorts of lawsuits.

It's going to look like that, yes.

The way you said it made it sound like it.

They just showed up.

No big deal.

Yeah.

I think that's right.

I think the other issue there is if we if we did that and said anyone who wants to show up can show up.

I I'm almost certain that four of you would show up one week and we have a meeting.

Yeah, one so um so it is dangerous to proceed that way, which is why we thought that having one commissioner would limit the the likelihood that that we would accidentally trigger the application of the open meetings law.

That was the reasoning behind that that specific recommendation.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Uh Commissioner Snyder.

Um, I think I heard the chair say that she's been working 40 hours a week.

Hack and plus, and if this is something that takes something off her plate, then I think that's a good idea.

If it adds more to what she has Scott to do, I'm really opposed to it.

I understand what you're trying to say, what you're trying to do.

And we have a limited amount of time, and I think our understanding of what's going on after tonight may be a little bit better, but I don't know that that this is at the moment that this has been completely thought through, and I'd rather have something where there's agreement between senior staff and and our legal counsel and then bring it back to the board as to something that the chair agrees is good for her, and not just adds more stuff to what she has to deal with on a monthly basis.

Well, honestly, we're trying to take that part off the chair.

That was the whole thing.

But if she's honest, I don't want to wait another month.

There is a discussion between the chair and the executive director and appropriate staff, you know, depending on the items before this meeting, before we send out that Friday email.

So the chair has usually seen the list of agenda items already.

And the original and if she needs clarification, she has then so that's all done before the agenda goes out.

The original plan actually had uh two groups of three commissioners, not including the chair participating in these meetings.

So the intent was always, you know, generally that this was for other commissioners because the chair had an opportunity to let us know her feedback.

Just say it.

Commissioner, Commissioner Yep.

And then Commissioner Nelson.

Well, one I for one would be in favor of option three to have a combination of and sending in questions by email, and then for a random number of commissioners to show up at the at uh the pre-planning meeting.

Pre-meeting staff.

A staff pre-board meeting, planning meeting.

Um I'm sure we can co- is it okay?

I mean, we could probably coordinate ahead of time, um, so that we are not all showing up at the same time outside, and if we're communicating, you know, not in a group of four, but if we can coordinate, I would imagine that that would be okay.

I will link it to that.

Uh only plan that I have definitely cleared and researched and ran past.

People I need to run it by is the single commissioner plan.

Um, I can look into the other one if needed, but there it certainly increases the risk, I would say, to have more than one.

Chair.

Commissioner Nelson.

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Commissioner Nelson.

Oh, okay.

I agree with uh Commissioner uh Snyder, our I don't think we've shaped this up to the point where me, I'm speaking for myself personally would make a decision tonight on which direction to go.

I think we're still trying to figure out in a discussion.

So we're we're in a discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, and that isn't the agenda.

I don't feel comfortable making a decision tonight.

I just don't, and I won't make a decision.

Yeah, I just want to share that.

But anything we could do, looking at the clock, is almost eight o'clock.

And I have to be serious.

I'm not as good as help as a lot of y'all.

I just suffered uh a stroke a few months ago yesterday.

I had a hard monitoring implant placed in my body.

Uh I'm a diabetic.

So I don't need to be here for no four hours.

It's just it's just not worth it.

Yeah.

I don't even get paid.

There's no the only benefit I have is one of humanity where I care about others.

So I can't continue to do this.

We have to cut this down.

It's getting ridiculous to me.

A lot of people don't feel comfortable saying that, but I want to be transparent and frank.

We're meeting too much, and the results I'm seeing do not add up to the value of all these hours.

And then, you know, it's just ridiculous that uh miss uh, you know, chairwoman Aisley has worked 40 hours a week, you know, voluntarily.

We don't get paid as commissioners, and I'm not advocating that we do, but we're putting in a whole lot.

And and for me personally, I don't see the balance, seem like we're putting we're saying let's cut down on the time.

This week.

Right now, we're going beyond the normal three or four hours we work doing this.

You know, I got here at four o'clock.

So I'm gonna say that'll be four hours and a few more minutes.

That's too much for me.

I didn't sign up for this.

We could get uh our business taken care of.

We need to come cut back on our hours and maximize our discussions, questions, answers.

You know, we're here to help each other.

Uh we got a new executive director.

So uh I agree with our the three visitors, come back with a more fine tune.

Make a decision from there.

I cannot, I will not make a decision tonight.

I don't feel ready to.

No, and that's fine, it wasn't uh gonna be up for a vote.

Um, but the whole premise behind it, which triggered uh attorney cruise um to get involved was when I was in Flint.

Well, first you all asked about a board development at the interview.

When I was in Flint, uh they used to have four and five-hour board meetings regularly.

Um I came up with the services, which reduced the board meeting to an hour, hour and a half, um, because the board knew everything that was in the packet, knew how it affected the housing authority, how it affected the staff, how it affected the budget.

Um, they understood the issues, the more complex issues were spelled out ahead of time, uh-huh so that again, and to ask the question not in front of cameras, and not in front of an audience, the board felt more comfortable so they could ask it and get the answer they needed, and if they needed to ask again and again, they could do that.

Uh-huh.

Um, and that that's where it hold it started.

It was to reduce the board meaning, but also to have the answers when we're here.

Sure.

And um, so that's where it started.

I guess what is being said by two of the board members, and I see some other nods, that we should um let this go and come back with one plan, no options, and work it that way.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Well, Greg is gonna do some more research too, into the the random number of questions, commission.

Well, yeah, that that's behind that's fine.

See, that's what we will be doing, right?

But um, the board, what are you asking?

Come back with one plan saying this is what you want, or will you accept this, or come back with options?

That's what we want.

No, thank you, Harold.

And I just like to add for me, it was a matter of educating you all before we got around the table because I am so immersed in the operations, or you know, meeting with Harold on a regular basis.

And of course, we have our structured one-on-ones, but when you all receive the packet and you're reading the data and everything else, it's different than being before the individuals to hear and to, you know, sort of immerse yourself into their particular departments and worlds to understand the data that's listed.

So for me, I I thought it would be a great idea to have you all in front of staff to ask those questions.

But attorney Cruz, I I'll let you do your due diligence to keep us out of trouble.

I don't want to be sued.

None of us do.

So um, but I would certainly want to ensure that my fellow commissioners can can meet and go over this this information however we can that's safer because it's left up to interpretation, like we learned here today that there are some deficiencies or inefficiencies with the numbers presented.

If I'm at home and I'm reading this for the first time, how would I know that?

You know, so it's great if we can exercise some type of of educational component for us, especially for our newest board members, the two newest.

I mean, we've been around now for two years, um, at least five, well, four of us would Irma be in here the longest, but I I would strongly um recommend that that we pull together a component just so they know because right now we are in turbulent times, and this isn't the forum to sort of air out everything.

It would be great if we could you know meet in advance and then come back.

Yeah, and uh to be clear, I'm not saying you can't have these meetings, I'm saying that if you're going to have these meetings, they need to comply with the open meetings law.

Absolutely.

So you're more than welcome to, and they don't have to be televised, but they do have to be reasonably accessible to the public, i.e., the public needs to know about them in advance, at least 24 hours in advance, and they need an opportunity to attend if they want to.

For the you're talking about Greg, for the staff, what we're doing.

If you're having multiple commissioners meet with the staff to go over the materials that are going to be presented at the board, if it two days, or if it doesn't meet forum.

If it's if a body is created by rule or order, including the directive of people who are in charge of the organization, i.e., if you're mandated to be there at a certain time, there's no direct, but that's what I tried to guess by.

You're right.

He said it's even with no directive.

If the same people show up or that's the basic group of the like there was a same thing.

I get I completely get it.

Madam Chair.

Yes, Commissioner Snyder.

Uh city government in Milwaukee is efficient, it's well run.

We have a history of clean government and of efficient government, and we have potholes, but that's about it.

Um I don't think that there's and leaves.

We don't have a lot of complaints as as residents and voters, and that's because of a background of you know 200 and some odd years of the people uh the people who were here, the people who came here saying that we're gonna run the city in an efficient way, and we always have.

This isn't like a lot of other places, and this ain't a random town.

Random, I think that random goes to die in Milwaukee because if you want three people, three people are gonna show up or four people, and it he's gonna be spending all this time trying to figure out are we in are we in trouble?

And I don't think we want to be in trouble.

But I don't trust random, not in Milwaukee.

I've never seen it work, and um, and I think that this is a really good idea and needs to be refined about and we are I we agree wholeheartedly, random is not gonna work.

You know, we will run into problems.

So we will come back with a plan that makes sense or if we can't work a something that meets the open meanings act, we'll just be here.

We'll have to do it here.

Great.

Do we have any other questions or comments related to item number nine?

Commissioner Steiner.

On item 10.

Madam Chair.

I think we mentioned this in our one-on-one.

Um we've been at this for four hours, and I would make a suggestion that unless the executive director has a problem with it that we table CBR tonight.

I know that they have come a long way, um, and we ask a lot of them, but the but their discussions can take easily 25 30 minutes.

Um if you want to, and I've heard enough tonight, bad news that I don't need any more.

Um, and I would make a motion that we table this discussion and maybe get May's in writing, and we can read it because I want to sleep tonight.

And would prefer not having to go into the fifth hour.

We will schedule a special meeting, unfortunately.

Two people came from out of town.

Um I understand uh do a special meeting around the HCV program with CVR.

Um and so we can handle it that way.

So it's up to the chair, it's not up to me whether we table it or not.

Okay.

And this is what I was saying at the top of the hour.

We certainly want to allow everyone to present as scheduled.

So unfortunately, we're running into overtime on this.

Um there will be some components that we're going to hold over for a special meeting, but um with respect to the report that's been repaired, I mean, prepared, we will allow them to present good, bad or indifferent, out of respect.

Um and then moving forward, you know, the these are some considerations for us to be mindful as a body to be more mindful of the time that we have, and that's why we're encouraging everyone to look at the information, submit your questions in advance.

So this isn't the forum for the questions to be aired out for the first time.

Um, chair, yes, Commissioner Snyder.

I made a motion now.

If you want them to present, then I have to pull my motion off the table.

No, it just doesn't get a second.

Right.

So okay, then it dies for lack of a segment.

Okay, just want to be official and not run afoul of uh anything.

But we we appreciate you, um, Commissioner Schneider for the expression.

And what I would like to do is go into our final um item.

If you can certainly read off item number nine, Patty.

Item number nine is a report from the Secretary Executive Director.

All right.

Before you go in, I've been waiting for this because he is finally here.

No, we're about to fall over, but Mr.

Harold and Junior has I mean, I what else can I say?

There's been articles already, and and I just I I can't thank him enough as well as our residents, our community for showing up, the staff for putting together everything to make this possible.

Um so thank you all for just working with this body, this commission to bring forth the um best talent we can find and some in a secretary executive director, and I will allow him to share with you just in these three weeks.

Yeah, three weeks.

Three weeks.

I cannot wait for him to share the results of his three weeks, but we couldn't have made a better decision around the leader of this agency.

So thank you, Harold, for answering the call because you know, many are called but few are chosen.

Is that is that is that the right claim?

Many are called but you are chosen.

But thank you so much for continuing to commit to this process.

It was a grueling process, something I heard was the first for many of you.

But it was it was uh important for us to get this right because that's what we committed to to this agency, the um residents and the community as a whole.

So thank you so much for your commitment to the organization, even three weeks in.

Now you're tied in, you can never leave but tomorrow uh but I I won't um belabor this.

I will turn it over to you for your first report.

Uh during, well, I'm coming up on 30 days.

It'll be next uh Wednesday, I think it is.

Um, and I want to share a brief uh progress report on uh positive stuff that is happened in the three weeks really um during my first week uh we nearly eliminated a million dollars in debt which has shored uh our that which has made us a little less in debt which was there was an article coming out in the paper saying that we were gonna be four million dollars in debt instead of 3.1 so we um helped with the press uh and we did not get a lot of um negative press as a result of it um i'd like to thank Amy for uh putting it all together and making sure that the comments got in that the press got what they were looking for um we were able to uh uh obligate 2.5 million dollars in uh capital fund so we wouldn't lose 700 thousand dollars on the capital fund next year um I thank Ken before I will thank all the staff that was involved but um Ken led that and made sure that we could uh keep that 700 thousand dollars um the staff also in the uh COMP grants uh expended 500 thousand dollars approximately uh before the deadline and it was a tough deadline they only had two weeks and they had to find what that money could be spent on and uh they did it uh they did it um we also preserved 1.2 million dollars uh rad funds at again we only had a week to obligate and um pen working with HUD uh was able to find how we could do it and we uh shored up what uh West lawn two of their um uh phases um with operation and reserve for replacement um we have hired a new financial uh chief financial officer who will begin June first um uh next week we are conducting uh second interviews for three finalists for chief operating officer and a final decision will be made shortly after uh looking ahead I remain focused on strength accountability improving operational consistency and enhancing communication across the organization with these early steps we have established a strong foundation for continued improvements that will benefit the staff our board and the community we serve thank you welcome thank you uh we will move on to uh call up C VR for the monthly report welcome CBR if you can please state your name and titles for the record please good evening uh Tracy Sheffield CBR senior vice president Tina Royalty HCV director Michael Tunnit's CBR co-president I only have one more CBR attendee in the audience oh great so welcome welcome good evening again, Commissioners, thank you um for allowing us to present tonight um I will try to, I know my report is long, it's 37 pages, but I do each month try to be as comprehensive as possible and trying to provide you with the information um across the entire program, the things that we are doing to uh improve operations, steps, additional steps that we are taking um I'm not going to go through all thirty seven pages, but I am going to focus on um some certain points.

And of course, if you have any questions on anything else, I'm happy to answer those.

I'll start off with our call center and customer service.

This results in just under 100 people per day in our lobby with Wednesdays being the most voluminous of those days because we continue to offer the applicants and participants the opportunity to come into our computer lab if they need assistance in completing their applications.

We make staff available each week on Wednesdays to assist with those applications.

We are preparing for a lottery process with the housing choice voucher waiting list.

There are currently just over 8,800 people that are on the waiting list.

The proper next step of that was supposed to be to conduct a lottery to get that list down to 5,000 applicants that would uh create the official out housing trust voucher waiting list.

Um this did not occur, and so we are working to get that into compliance now.

Uh we are working with uh YARDI, the system of record.

We've sent over messages that will go out to the applicants depending on if they were selected or not selected through the lottery process so that they know any next steps.

So if they weren't selected, you know, pointing them to the website so that they can monitor when the waiting list will be open again.

For applicants who were selected, this doesn't mean that you're going to get a voucher and you determine eligible or ineligible right away.

The applicants will still need to update their contact information on uh the portal so that we can continue to reach out to them once we actually start issuing vouchers again, as we're not currently doing that being in shortfall at this time.

So we anticipate this process being done in no later than early June.

We are uh coordinating with the RD to uh get those messages in their system so that when we do the rank selection, that information goes out to all of the applicants.

I've also prepared information that will uh go on to Hackham's website so that if anyone goes there, they can see what's going on.

We are also modifying our call center uh IVR so that if an applicant calls in to see if they were selected or not, they can enter their social security number and receive that information on if they were on the list or not on the list.

Once that's done, we are gonna continue coordinating with public housing as in the already all of the waiting lists.

Um, if you're wanting to do what's called a purge or get an update to a waiting list to try to weed out anyone who may not need assistance anymore, those all have to be done at the same time.

So we're coordinating with public housing once that is done so that we can update the public housing waiting list, the project-based waiting list, and the voucher waiting list further, so that our efforts as we're trying to lease up available units, um, result in a higher success rate of reaching families who are still in need.

As you've heard from uh the earlier presentation and from our presentations in the past, we are pulling a significant number of families also on the project-based side to try to lease up available units.

We're not getting a high success rate of reaching applicants, so typically a housing authority will use this method to try to increase that success rate to be able to reach families who are interested in getting housing.

We are continuing to make measurable and sustained progress in reducing our backlog of recertifications.

If we look back to the end of 2025, we were at 1,279 late recertifications.

Um, that number is down to 882.

So we are still making uh significant progress on getting current and getting caught up.

One of the biggest challenges that we have is participant cooperation with the process and getting the documents that we need to recertify the families.

So we're kind of teaching them like this is something that you're going to have to do each year.

This is required.

And so that's been a bit of a learning process for the families as we move into compliance.

So we are giving them extended opportunities and outreach to try to comply rather than doing a full sweep of a ton of terminations of families.

We are trying to preserve and stabilize their housing at the same time.

We've also been, I think for approximately the past six weeks, we've coordinated with Anisia and her team with regularly scheduled meetings for the project-based voucher tenants who have not recertified.

So we have coordinated meetings so that we can work together to try to eliminate any barriers the participant may have in recertifying.

We began sending lists each week to Anisia and her team of the app, the participants who had not logged into their portal to complete their recertification, and we've seen some success with that.

Since then, we've also added additional calling attempts through a robocall system to say, hey, we still haven't got your recertification application.

As a reminder, we are open every Wednesday to assist people in our lab with their application process, and we've also seen positive results from that outreach too.

We see more participants that are coming in on Wednesdays to get help if they need help.

So we are continuing to add on additional measures to try to help the families, try to stay in communication with them so that they get their piece of the process done.

And I think overall that's going to help us continue to get that number down.

And we are seeing positive progress with that.

I know we spoke a bit earlier about the VASH numbers.

I do want to call, if I may, uh to page 13 of our board report where I did an analysis of our leasing, our specifically VASH leasing data.

I compared 2025 numbers to so far in 2026.

So prior our voucher issuance for VASH vouchers were at 50 days.

We're at approximately 14 days average now, which is under the statewide average of 17.

So we have made significant progress in this area and getting our numbers down.

Our lease up numbers were 76 days.

So from the time the referral was received by the VA through the family actually leasing up in the process in their unit, it was 76 days before we are currently somewhere between 70, 50 and 70 days.

So that number is coming down as well.

We've seen a 75% improvement in the point where we get the referral from the VA through the voucher issued.

We have seen the numbers, so something that's external is the amount of time that the family takes to find a unit that they want to rent.

In 2025, that average was 43 days.

Currently, we're still seeing it pretty high at 38 days.

So we have seen a little bit of improvement there, but that is an external factor that they're working with their VA case managers to try to find landlords that are open to leasing to them.

We've also decreased our RFTA, which is the request for tenancy approval.

It's the form that the family submits saying, I want to lease this unit, I would like you to schedule inspection.

We do an affordability test to make sure the unit is affordable for them, and we do a rent reasonableness test and then we request the inspection.

In 2025, that average was 19 days.

We have now got that down to five days.

So we've seen another 75% increase or decrease, excuse me, in the amount of time that that's taken.

So I'm actually really proud of our team and the efforts that we've made to decrease that time.

We now have a dedicated VASH specialist who handles, as I stated earlier, every piece of the process except for doing the inspection itself.

And that we've seen tremendous success with that model.

And we're continuing to take tweaks.

We improved our inspection when we the amount of time it takes for us to do the inspection once it's scheduled.

We've targeted our outreach to Bash first above all other voucher families.

So we expedite them through that scheduling process as well.

So I'm very proud of the team and the measures that we have taken and the success that we've seen and putting these actions in place.

So as I scroll down further on to page 14, I also did an analysis of January and February data versus March data to further show we have decreased our times even just since the beginning of this year.

So we're an average of 20 days it was taking us to determine eligibility in January February.

In March, that was down to seven days.

So I'm very, very proud of our team and the efforts that we've made.

We've taken huge strides in this area to serve our veteran our veterans better and provide them with expedited processing of their paperwork.

We've also done an analysis of our CMAP scores so far for the first quarter of this year.

I am proud to say that we are receiving full points for every indicator other than three, and I will explain what those indicators are.

The first indicator is those late recertifications that we're continuing to get down.

That's indicator nine.

And now we're finishing the briefing packet that those maps go into.

Those are in their final stages.

I anticipate those being done no later than the end of June.

So we will be compliant with that indicator and no more than a month.

I think it'll take less than that.

That includes not only a briefing packet, which will be provided to the family, but also a video that they will watch that explains the program, their responsibilities, their rights, and the processes as they go through either leasing or continued occupancy.

This is based on the number of families that we have mandatory family self-sufficiency slots.

Family self-sufficiency is a kind of sidecar program to the housing choice voucher program or families who want to take extra steps in self-sufficiency.

They can participate in this program, they can get credit counseling, homeownership counseling, get their GED, help get help getting a better job.

We are not seeing the number of slots that we have available being filled.

So we have established monthly meetings with PACM's FSS coordinator so that we can do more targeted outreach to families.

So the FSS coordinator has initiated targeted outreach to families who may be good candidates for this program.

That could be families who recently got a job who received temporary assistance for needy family benefit benefits and so forth.

So she's looking for candidates that could possibly be successful.

And along those lines, we have also received her brochure that she uses to kind of advertise the program and we place those in our lobby at 5011 West Lisbon, and we've trained our customer service staff so that if someone that shows interest in that program, they can explain these uh what it is and help them get in contact with the coordinator to see if they would qualify.

So with that, we are well into standard performer status at 86.2 percent um to achieve high standard or high performer status, it takes a minimum score of 90.

So we are not far off.

So I'm also really, really proud of the team on how far um we've gone this year uh to increase those processes and we continue to monitor those things each month uh next are inspections we conducted just over 1100 inspections uh we were a hundred percent on time for inspection compliance uh we are still despite the extra efforts that we've taken to inform landlords of the the inspire inspection uh requirements we are still seeing a high number of um emergency 24 hour fails and it's for those same reasons that we've discussed in prior meetings smoke detectors in bedrooms uh gcfi near uh outlets uh near uh water um so we're continuing to uh provide additional support outreach and trying to um get those we're trying to get the owners to a point where they don't just use our inspection as a punch list of like okay this is what I have to do but they're being proactive and going out inspecting their unit themselves we give them a self inspection checklist that they can use so that they can go to the property before we do and hopefully pass the first time so we have taken um tremendous strides um I'm very proud of our team and the the things that we've done to um improve our operations for improve our communications and improve the service that we provide uh to the participants um I'm not gonna go into too much detail but we are still experiencing some barriers um that are hindering us from some things um we are still working with the already on some configuration issues that we're seeing in the system uh one of those is how hot contracts are generated it's not pulling the data over correctly um another is where we do the change of ownership so if the property ownership changes it's not always reflecting appropriately in the system um and so we're continuing to have weekly meetings with YARTI uh to try to resolve uh those issues um I've already kind of touched on the landlord uh landlord compliance requirements and and what we're seeing with the increase um the elevated levels of of uh emergency 24 hour fields but um I'm I'm really proud of the team I'm proud of how far we've come and we are continuing to push forward um and fully dedicated to making this program great um it's it's growing late but I would like to thank you for listening to this commission and bringing forth a better report something that that I mean you we see that you've made continuous strides in these areas and we certainly appreciate you and your team for doing that.

One thing that we do ask for as a commission is consistency.

So thank you for being transparent that there are other areas that you are working on.

However we can continue to support certainly let us know continue to work with staff and the team but I I thank you for bringing these um improvements before the body and I know it wasn't easy we've we've sort of laid in heavy on you and and that's our job we will continue to do so no matter who comes before us we have to hold everybody accountable right so absolutely so I just want to thank you for the improvements that we see.

All right do we have any other questions or comments from commissioners?

Yes, Commissioner Moore and then Commissioner Yepis classes Class.

I just wanted to know if we would have because thank you.

I do have to um echo the sentiments of my colleague here.

Um thank you for you know just putting more information and again listening to us.

Will we have an opportunity to perhaps maybe do a special or because you know I wouldn't have an opportunity to dig in.

I don't think right now was the time for it, but okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No, we will be doing it.

To just dig in a little bit deeper, but thank you all so much.

If you have questions, um you can send them to us uh as well, and we can make sure that we prepare.

Oh, that's gotcha.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Um, my only question I again wanted to echo echo and thank you for the updated reports and um and your work really to really um push getting um more of those vouchers and and residents served.

Um I did have one question because I noticed the report is for March and we're in May.

Is there a reason why we don't have April's report?

You have consistently um I think it was because of the dates and can maybe able to echo this, but we've consistently reported on the structure because the the um timing of the travaux meetings, so this has always been how we have uh we've reported and the timeline and we've reported.

Oh, but could you could you be more?

I mean, could we get more timely reports then?

I mean, is it possible to have like the May report at the June meeting?

Okay, even if we have two months reports just to kind of catch up.

I think because everything else I think we get for the month prior, it's yeah, this was just because I think we we've just you know what yes, and it probably was because we I think used to have the meetings on the second yes of the month, and now we're in the third Wednesday of the month.

So it's it's possible that's why.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

If there are no other questions or comments, um thank you so much for your presentation and for traveling in.

We look forward to seeing you next month.

Thank you.

Our next will uh presentation will be from public safety.

Um, good evening.

Good evening.

Please state your name and title for the record, please.

Pretty soon we're going for breakfast.

Well, then I let us have to do before for April 7th, May 12th weekend, since the online uh the thing that public safety has been doing the passing.

Maybe um the two events that are still not public, and responding to that time period, we responded to I'm going to call the service and have officer initiated events 800 and 83.

So increase officer, well, 67%.

That we can attribute to some of the candidates are going to send the weather to the school increase of officer initiated activity 30 side.

Relative to that 39% increase of the initiated activity.

Most of that was the volume to being proactive in there.

Oh, good.

I'm thinking the public listening session that occurred in May 5.

Did go to a resident organization meeting around April 14th.

During that meeting, these things were expressed.

We also had the police department there at that meeting.

We had already started deploying our resources.

You know, to look at some change in the uh we got in with the property management.

Resident organization feedback and then law enforcement, and then we approached Merrill Park as a deployment type.

And we believe we've affected some change uh through property management holds individual residents accountable, lease violence, and then law enforcement coming in and up to walks and sleeps, plus my department can have a vigilant scene and reporting things that are in the environment, as well as the uh conduct behavior, so there's an attack report out specifically for Merrill that is in your package.

We didn't have any questions, of course, we're always when they asking those questions, as clear as possible.

Um that's important.

Um then I'll just go to our initiatives.

Uh the only thing that we have as a as a department have been working on is what the first group of leaders discussing as far as it relates to getting these lease up to the turnaround.

We're providing leadership support to those teams.

Thank you.

We're attending some of those meetings, taking some of those notes, helping shape what the response would be in lieu of having a CEO, the CO, vice president of operations, but we have all been able to work collectively with our partner and develop some plans, and I think we heard some of those things that came out of those planning uh meetings, and uh we're doing our part and then at this agency of the morning, one band one style.

Thank you, Chief Davis.

Do we have any other questions or comments for Chief Davis Public Safety?

Madam Chair, yes, Commissioner Snyder.

Uh I for one really appreciate your effort at Merrill.

Because that was a tough 30 minutes that we sat all sat through and had to had to end.

So hopefully it's on the way to ending.

Well, and it's great that you brought so many of your team there too for that meeting.

So that I mean, right off the bat, it was pretty obvious that you had already been doing some work there.

Okay.

Well, thank you and your team once again, Chief, for rising to the occasion and answering the call that's been put out.

Thank you and your team.

Thank you.

Uh, Commissioner Nelson.

Yeah, I want to thank you for always having someone from your team representing at the RO meetings.

That's important to the residents.

They get a chance to uh, you know, there's a lot of complaining, but you guys stand there, you absorb it, and you try and uh correct whatever may be wrong.

Uh it's important that the residents see someone in person too that gives them a sense of comfort, and that's just uh the human nature of people.

Sometimes they need other people physically there to communicate whatever the uh message is.

So you have consistently, and that's a very important word.

We're looking for consistency, and you've given it in that form and fashion of having a representative.

So thank you for that and keep it keep it up, please.

All right, thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All right, um, I guess we can we can move to adjourn.

Thank you all for um, well, do wait.

Carol, this is do you have anything else before we go?

All right.

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

A second.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Any no's or opposition, no abstentions.

Okay, the eyes have it.

I'm I'm done.

I'm losing my voice.

Meeting adjourned.