The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) Board of Commissioners met on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at 4:12 PM in City Hall Room 301-B, adjourning at 6:31 PM. All six commissioners were present. Key actions included approval of the 2027 Public Housing Authority (PHA) Annual Plan, authorization to join the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), and awards of fire alarm replacement contracts for College Court and Mitchell Court. Board members also received reports on operational stability, occupancy, housing voucher programs, and public safety.
And at this time, we are asking only for public comments on this topic. A draft of the PHA annual plan and other documents are in the binder before you and have been available for review at the central office located at 809 North Broadway and on Hackham's website at HACOM.org. I will provide a brief overview of the annual plan and its documents and the public hearing process. And Paul Williams will speak on the comments from the resident advisory board and Hackham's responses. Next, members of the public will each be given two minutes to speak about the plan. We ask that everyone be respectful of the process and of all of the folks either speaking or here to listen. Since item B3 is the resolution regarding the plan, we ask that the commissioners defer their questions until that item after this public hearing. First, some information about the documents that are the subject of this hearing. The plan and its attachments are basically the document that makes Hackham a public housing authority, which HUD requires us to update and submit annually. This is a dialogue between Hackham and HUD. This is HUD's form, their framework and requirements. It is a jargon-heavy technical document for them to review and approve. Also of note, this is only applicable to HUD's public housing and Section A programs, not low-income housing tax credit developments or market rate units themselves, outside of any voucher holders residing there. There are also a number of related documents that HUD requests or are related to the process for the PHA annual plan. The largest of these are the admissions and continued occupancy policy, or ACOP, and the administrative plan. These are reference manuals for staff. The ACOP is used by public housing staff and the administrative plan for various voucher programs. They provide guidance on legislation, HUD requirements, and HACM policy to direct staff in their duties. The overall goal found the overall goals found in the annual and five-year plan include but are not limited to optimizing HACOM's organizational structure and procedures to attain resiliency and sustainability, maintaining optimal occupancy rates for Hackham's public and affordable housing developments, and optimal utilization rates for the housing choice voucher program while improving the HUD scoring for each program as HUD funding allows. Reviewing portfolio repositioning tools to preserve and improve existing housing resources, and enhancing resident quality of life and self-sufficiency opportunities. This year, most changes throughout the plans are related to the full implementation of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act, or HOTMA, which involves how HUD calculates things like income assets, eligibility, and interim income adjustments, for example. HUD activated some of the Act's rules a few years ago and now the balance has been implemented. Another group of changes are tied to the current administration's policy priorities. Specific to HACCOM's plan itself, one new action is related to the list of properties eligible for potential disposition. While there are no current plans for new disposition actions at this time, the board may in future wish to develop a plan for disposition and sale of select vacant lots or scattered sites. Adding the list of vacant lots and scattered sites into the PHA annual plan now means one less step if that would be pursued. Although they will be listed in the PHA plan as potentially for distribution, the scattered site units will remain in active status, housing residents, which is different from the last board discussion we had a couple of months ago about the previous list of units, which were categorized categorized as being in disposition status. The 2027 PHA annual plan and its associated documents are considered living documents, which means that changes can be made as the need arises with any significant amendment or modifications that are not regulatory, having a review and receiving feedback from the resident advisory board and presented to HACCOM's Board of Commissioners for review and approval. Hackham CNI coordinator Paul Williams will summarize the comments from the resident advisory board. And thank you. I'm mostly done. Thank you, Patty. Good afternoon, Commissioners and Paul Williams, the CNI coordinator and working with community services and programs. As you may know, the housing authority has a resident advisory board or a RAB, whose primary role is to provide advice to us regarding the PHA plan, and particularly comments and questions about changes to the plan. Um the process involves reviewing the plan with the RAB and taking their comments and answers. Hackham is not required to make changes based on those questions or comments, but we must provide a response that explains why we will or will not make a change to the plan based on the RAB comments. Uh this year, Mr. Barbo uh reviewed the entire PHA plan with the RAB over two dates, July 7th and 8th before his retirement. And we're very much appreciate that. The RAB comments and questions were then compiled along with the associated housing authority responses to those comments. I then reviewed that document with the RAB at their next meeting on August 26th, and additional comments were taken at that time. So you'll find, and this is included in the pan uh in the plan, you'll find a complete compilation of the RAB comments and Hackham's answers uh under Tab C one of the agency plan portion. So it's vital to us that we have this dialogue with the RAV as representatives of Hackham's public housing and housing choice voucher populations, and we want to express our deep appreciation to all of the RAB members uh for their participation in their process in that process. Any questions about that? Okay. All right. Okay. Persons who wish to speak about the PHA annual plan, if you have not already done so, should sign up at the sign in sheep located on the side table on your right. For those who have prepared written comments, those comments will be shared with the board. Any e-comments received by 11 a.m.