Here.

Today is the administrative service committee meeting.

Members on the committee with me today, Councilman Woods and Madam Vice President Gregory.

Members present, Councilman Reynolds, President Small, and Councilman Penn.

The purpose of our meeting today is to get an update on Mobile Housing Authority with a focus on the development, land use, policy alignment, and local priorities.

What's happening for our communities, policy changes, how those policy changes impacting our districts and our residents.

And then coordination and strategic planning are particularly in terms of the housing gaps, you know, what's happening there.

And I I want to emphasize again that coordination and strategic planning so that we can make sure that we're making others aware and the public aware of what's happening.

So based on that information, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the administrative team.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Usually nobody has any trouble hearing from me.

All right.

If you'll let me read a little bit, I hope to give you some background, and then I'll be happy to entertain any questions that you have.

But for those of you who don't know, the Mobile Housing Authority, along with housing authorities around the country, was created in 1935 and actually went into operation in 1937.

So we're very soon facing our 90th anniversary early next year.

But currently, the Mobile Housing Authority owns and operates 1,292 units of public housing and over 4,000 vouchers, otherwise, some people refer to as the Section 8 program.

Commissioner Kenneth Gloheim, Caitlin Fidella, and Mabel May, who is our resident member of the board.

Since 2018, Mobile Housing and Housing Authorities all across the country have been directed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who is our primary funder, to participate in a process known as repositioning.

As a result of this undertaking, the Housing Authority and these housing authorities all across the country have been converting traditional public housing to what they call the repositioning to tear down or rehabilitate traditional public housing and replacing it with project-based housing vouchers, which is why our voucher number is much higher than our public housing.

And that process is monitored by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And since its inception, the housing authority, our housing authority mobile has been has demolished a number of public housing units.

And we issued vouchers in what we call a one-for-one replacement.

So if we lose a unit of public housing, HUD gives us an additional voucher.

And Mobile Housing sold land formerly, the R.

V.

Taylor, Thomas James, and Boykin sites to the Mobile Airport Authority.

That was done prior to my coming.

The current Board of Commissioners have established some priorities for us on the staff in terms of our operations.

So we're supposed to we have the charge to continue the positive direction that the housing authority has since we recovered from our troubled status by HUD to a designated operating and qualified housing authority.

And to re-establish, and they've made this very clear to us, and we're very enthusiastic about this, to re-establish MHA's presence in the community to be achieved in several areas, which I'll mention.

This is not an exclusive list, but it's a um we have confirmed meetings with the city of Mobile at regular intervals, at least at the time of our board meetings, and then more frequently as good to discuss our common goals.

While we are two separate entities, we have a lot of goals that are uh in the area of affordable housing, which are complementary.

Resume contact with nonprofits and educational entities.

So we have stepped up that process to be a little more external facing than in the past.

And we are in the process right now, have been and are continuing to make some competitive funding applications that have not been made in in recent past that enhance our programs and services to residents, especially.

In that vein, we've uh successfully complete competed for funding to HUD for the family self-sufficiency program, and we have are waiting to hear for the resident opportunities for self-sufficiency grant application we made and the youth build grant.

Um those are pending with HUD, and those are competitive that we have not done recently until until this cycle.

Um, and then we are also have and are continuing to look at funding sources that beyond what HUD um offers, because as you know, uh federal budgets have been cut in a lot of places, and so we're looking to some more traditional, non-traditional sources, and we're exploring housing enhancements, including a renewal uh or establishment of pre-purchase housing counseling and home buyer education programs, which we had and then retracted and now are putting back out on the because of some reasons that I'll go into in a minute.

Beyond um the land that was sold to the airport authority, uh MHA had and the City of Mobile have discussed adaptive reuse of existing MHA properties.

Uh the MHA staff coordinate with local government to make sure compliance with the local zoning regulations, environmental compliance, and flood zone issues, of which we have several.

Additionally, HUD has restrictions or limitations on two very important categories.

One is the high concentration of poverty, and the other is the high concentration of minorities that may prohibit or restrict redevelopment of our sites.

These issues are uh we are working with the HUD to get determination, and even as as late as yesterday, got some update information that HUD may be thinking about relaxing some of those restrictions.

HUD continues to move away from public housing toward voucher funding, HUD funding per unit for housing choice vouchers is higher than it is for public housing.

So it actually we get less money for public housing maintenance than we do for um vouchers, and that process will continue.

It has been for a while, and it will be for the foreseeable future.

And the uh housing authority and the city have successfully collaborated on uh Maryville Place and Live Oak Trace developments with several more that are in process that we hope will um continue to address the need for replacement affordable housing in our communities.

While MHA is a separate entity from the city, there are shared goals and opportunities, and this is one of the things that uh council member Ingram wanted us to make sure that we were deeply aware of.

One is the voucher program that I really uh recently talked about.

Um we opened our waiting list for the voucher program, and it filled up dramatically within the matter of hours, and we closed it.

We held our opening for our public housing sites, all of them, and it they closed on April the 6th.

So we have a substantial number of families who are on the waiting list for public housing or vouchers, and that is pretty significant.

Um we don't we don't worry about not having any potential customers because we have all kinds of them.

Um then we also have um some very interesting areas, which I'll just allude to now and we can go on.

Um, and that is that we have families that entered a program that works with the city in housing counseling and completing housing counseling, and then when they're approved, they can participate in the city's program for home ownership, and they offer several attractive features.

So as we do our day-to-day operations, we make sure that the residents who are interested in in making that transition to home ownership are aware and we refer them to the city for that additional support and counseling because it's an imperative and it's a tremendous, tremendous plus for the residents.

Um we right now, the vision that was articulated by our board of commissioners has been translated in several areas.

One of them is the selection of the chief executive officer.

And out of the housing, most of you know this, but just as a refresher, out of the 147 authorities in the state of Alabama, housing authorities, Mobile Housing Authority is the only housing authority in the state of Alabama that's under the Mobile County Personnel Board.