Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

If everyone can please make their way to their seats, the time is now 2 06 p.m.

on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 in the City of San Antonio B session is called the order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Here.

Councilmember Aldorete Gavito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Mayor Pro Tim, we have quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So we're going to start off with a quick tip.

I notice that it is raining and we would like for everyone to be safe outside.

And so the tip of the day is if you must exit the highway, please be in the appropriate lane prior to attempting set exit.

We have one item today and no executive sessions.

This meeting we have a pre-solicitation briefing on the courtesy contractor list for the neighborhood and housing services department's major and minor home repair programs.

Veronica Gonzalez.

The floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm Veronica Gonzalez, Assistant Director with NHSD.

Today I'm presenting a pre-solicitation briefing for a courtesy contractor list to support our home rehab programs.

Affordable housing remains a top priority for San Antonio, and home preservation is a key part of that commitment.

In alignment with our strategic housing implementation plan or SHIP, we focus on serving families earning up to 30% of the area median income, ensuring those with the greatest need can remain safely housed.

With support from the Affordable Housing Bond, our repair programs are reaching more families than ever.

In fiscal year 2026 alone, the city allocated approximately $18 million in federal bond and general funds to support over 500 homes.

This investment reflects both the scale of need and our commitment to meet it with funding to support repairs for over 500 homes in San Antonio.

To meet this high volume and demand, we utilize a pool of licensed and insured contractors to deliver home repair services.

These independent contractors are essential to delivering quality repairs at preserve homes.

This item today sets the stage to support this work.

Today's presentation will cover a brief overview of our home rehab programs, a look at the project and solicitation process.

We'll also preview the new contractor scorecard, go over RFQ requirements, and share the expected timeline for the solicitation process.

These programs address health and safety concerns, improve accessibility, and support long-term sustainability.

They cover everything from installing white Shasta roof shingles to repairing major systems like electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and foundations, and even in some cases, fully rebuilding homes.

Each council district here receives a share of repair slots based on factors like home age, condition, income levels, and community need.

Overall, these programs help maintain San Antonio's existing housing stock, often the most affordable housing available.

To support our home rehab programs, participating homeowners rely on a pool of licensed and insured contractors.

Currently, today we're working with 15 independent contractors.

Homeowners themselves play an active role by selecting their own contractor using the courtesy list as a resource.

This list includes contractors who meet key qualifications such as professional experience, proper licensing, permitting, and insurance requirements.

Homeowners may also choose a contractor not on the courtesy list as long as they obtain multiple bids and the contractor meets our program standards.

While homeowners have the freedom to choose their own contractor, whether from our courtesy list or independently, it's important to note that these contractors are hired directly by the homeowner.

That said, our department, NHSD, plays a critical role in ensuring strong oversight, strong oversight measures that help maintain high standards and protect public investment.

This includes city staff visiting project sites to review the work and making sure it follows program guidelines.

Third party inspectors also check the work to confirm it meets safety and quality standards.

Before any work begins, we verify that all required permits are in place.

No payments are made until the work is confirmed both by the homeowner and the city staff.

All completed work comes with a one-year warranty.

Customer care and support continue to be our top priority.

At the end of each project, we ask homeowners to complete a survey about their experience.

We're proud to share that last year, 95% of homeowners expressed high satisfaction with the program.

Lastly, we're committed to maintaining high quality service.

To support this, we plan to conduct annual reviews of all participating contractors.

These reviews help ensure that contractors continue to meet our standards and deliver strong performance year after year.

To support the demand for home repair services, the city is issuing this RFQ to establish an updated list of licensed and insured residential rehab contractors.

This list will be used as a courtesy resource for homeowners, but does not guarantee contractors a minimum amount of projects.

Contractors selected through this solicitation will be eligible to remain on the list for five years.

The home rehab programs have an estimated value of 20 million annually and 100 million over the five-year period.

As I mentioned, these programs are funded through a variety of sources, including general, federal, and affordable housing bond funds.

Our current list of contracts for your awareness will expire in spring 2026.

To support continuous improvement, we're also creating a contractor scorecard.

This new tool will help us strengthen accountability across our programs.

The scorecard will evaluate contractor performance in several key areas.

First, schedule performance.

How well do these contractors meet project timelines for homeowners?

Second, budget adherence.

Are they staying within approved budget limits?

Third, quality of workmanship, ensuring high standards in completed work.

We will also look at responsiveness during and after construction.

And finally, homeowner satisfaction.

We'll continue to gather feedback directly from homeowners about their experience.

The results from this new scorecard will be used to support annual contractor reviews and help guide future decisions in the contractor selection process.

The evaluation panel includes voting members from several key city departments, including the city manager's office, NHSD, OHP, Development Services, Capital Delivery, and Workforce Development Office.

In addition, advisory members supporting the process include staff from the City Attorney's Office and NHSD.

Here there are three main categories we'll be looking at through this solicitation, starting with experience, background and qualifications worth 60 points.

Also proposed plan worth 35 points, and the veteran-owned small business preference program worth up to five points.

I'll go into more detail on each of these categories on the next slide, but for your awareness, federal regulate regulations do not allow us to apply local preference points since we're using grant federal grant funded solicitors.

We're using federal grant funds for the solicitation.

So Sabata and the local preference program do not apply for this RFQ.

As I mentioned, the first evaluation category is experience, background, and qualifications.

In this section to your left, we're looking at a strong record of completing similar residential rehab projects and delivering them on time and within budget.

The company's structure, staffing levels, and how well they manage subcontractors.

Also looking at any required trade licenses and professional certifications.

To your right, the proposed plan with 35 points, we'll evaluate how contractors plan to deliver their services.

We consider their ability to complete projects and scale up during busy periods, their warranty and dispute resolution processes, job site safety and cleaning cleanliness, oversight of subcontractors, and fair workforce practices.

Also cost estimating, financial stability, and lastly, their approach to communication and overall project execution.

We anticipate releasing the solicit the solicitation by next month with a closing date in February.

The recommendations from the evaluation committee will be considered during the post-solicitation briefing at B session in June and slated for city council consideration as well in June.

That concludes the presentation, and we're available to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're doing something a little different.

We're gonna get out of here early.

We're gonna do one round of seven minutes and a follow-up round of five minutes today.

Um I'm gonna start off with just a quick point and question.

Um homeowners are given a courtesy list or they must obtain their own bids.

Um I worry two things, and so I'm wondering you know, are there alternatives to this strategy and is it the best path forward?

One, it feels I worry because one, it feels like we're placing a pretty large burden on homeowners for a program that we administer uh in the work that it takes to find contractors or to sift through our list of 15 or so.

And so I'm and then second to that is I'm wondering are we opening folk up for conflict if they end up contracting with uh a neighbor or a family member or a friend, even if it's a distant family member.

Uh that happens, and I worry about uh that element of it if folk were to choose their own contractors, and so what safeguards are there in place, and then um the last one was just on slide five in terms of oversight provided by the department.

We get a number of calls at our office, I'm sure other council offices receive the same concern about uh work that's not being done well, and they're met with well, you you're the you know, you're the um they're responsible to you, and so legal action is yours to take if you so choose.

Is there an opportunity for us to provide some sort of legal assistance, whether through one of the uh partners that we uh partner with or through the city attorney's office?

So two big so two points.

One was the um that requirement, the possibility of burden placed on residents for choosing a contractor, and the second was related to um legal assistance.

Sure.

Um so I'll start with the legal assistance.

Uh the city attorney's office often provides our team guidance, and uh we've been pretty consistent in then not being able to provide direct legal assistance to homeowners who are not city staff.

Um, but what we do have is agreements with legal partners.

Um, so we have legal agreements where we can help them or the partner, the legal partner can help them when things such as title clearance services.

Um we've just started a new agreement with another legal partner.

Um, think of it like um legal on retainer kind of situation, uh, where we can refer homeowners if they need help beyond maybe clearing title assistance.

Um, so that's a brand new resources we just started last month.

Um, we haven't yet uh looked at offering uh what that would take for them to offer services for as far as maybe like suing a contractor, um, but they are there to provide them guidance on what their ownership structures and and other things they may need assistance with.

To add to that, uh Mayor Pro Tam, it's a charter issue in terms of why we can't provide legal advice directly to other parties under the charter.

We can only provide legal advice to the city, and which including council staff, et cetera.

Gotcha.

That makes sense.

Well, I look forward to uh the rest of my colleagues' thoughts and feedback on on this item, uh, starting with councilman Castillo, followed by Councilman Via Ground.

Sure.

And um, I'm sorry, councilwoman.

Um, councilman, you also asked about having homeowners select their own list.

Um, yes, how come that's the same?

Yes, we did um look at that.

We looked at do we even need a list?

I think the benefits of us having an on-call list is what uh Veronica talked about, which is then homeowners don't need to do their own research.

We still encourage them to look at all the contractors on their list.

We give them a summary of how long they've been in business, if they got one pager on each of them to help guide any additional research that they may want to do.

Um, but it is if they do not select this because of the various funding sources in our procurement processes, there does have to be some sort of a procurement process.

So by going through this on-call list, we are taking on that burden for homeowners and vetting multiple contractors, giving them some information, um, but they ultimately have the option of choice.

So if they don't go with any of ours, they still have to conduct their own informal type solicitation process to satisfy uh the procurement.

I hear you.

I guess what I'm posing is the opportunity to take it a step further and just have them work with uh those that we've we've thoroughly vetted.

But open for more feedback and discussion as time goes on.

Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor Pearl Tim, and thank you, Veronica, for the presentation.

Uh, as I shared during our one-on-one briefing, I think there's a lot to be uh pleased with in terms of the update to the uh solicitation process primarily with the contractor scorecard.

Uh, I think this will provide an opportunity, one for our constituents to understand that if there are concerns, uh whether it's with timeline or quality, that it will be tracked.

And then, of course, my expectation is that contractors will step up their game because their expectation is to high have a high score and continue to contract with the city.

Uh, I'm pleased with the update to allow residents to select their contract contractor rather from uh city vetted list.

This is a request that we also hear from district five residents and those that qualify have highlighted that they would prefer that they had that opportunity.

Um, so grateful to see that there's that update there.

Uh, in terms of slide 10, can you walk me through uh what the dispute resolution will look like uh if there's any concerns with the project with the warranty and dispute resolution?

Yes, what staff is proposing in relation to dispute resolution is really having a written record.

Um, a lot of times I want to highlight staff is very much involved, and as a you as you all are aware, uh we do conduct site visits, we we talk to the homeowner, we bring everyone together, but this is about making sure it's documented that cases are closed, so we want to have a better record of that to continue providing that customer care to our residents.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And during our conversation, I asked uh in terms of like, for example, uh, if there is a contractor that they are addressing uh uh an issue within the warranty time frame, uh, are we going to be tracking, for example, like yes, they are addressing the concern, uh, but there's also you know, frequent requests to to address a concern.

Uh, can you uh provide assurances in terms of how that will be tracked?

That's a great question, and we're really excited to develop the scorecard.

Um, I mentioned in this in one of the slides, the scorecard is not just meant to be used by project, it's actually going to inform staff at our next RFQ, but more importantly, every year as we review these contractors, we set up to five years, but that doesn't mean the contractors stay active five years.

If they're not performing well, we're documented documenting it via the scorecard.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And kind of going back to the constituent being able to pick the contractor, I think there was an example uh with a specific project where the resident ended up going with Habitat for Humanity and they were able to demonstrate one that Habitat can do this home rehab work.

And I know there's also interest from Habitat for Humanity to take on to seek um supporting this program.

And then uh on another note, we had another example on Glass Street.

They didn't qualify for any city services because they had experience the fire, uh, were uninsured, and there are a couple of other details, and Mark Carmona uh connected our team to Merced, and they did a great job with that glass property to rehab this structure.

Uh it wasn't uh it was a minor rehab, uh, but they just did a great job, and I'm hopeful that uh we consider Merced in Habitat for Humanity through this process.

Thank you.

Those aren't my comments.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilwoman Casillo, Councilman Via Ground, followed by Councilwoman Corps.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh thank you for the presentation team.

Uh I I'm I feel like we've talked about this a lot over the last uh four years.

Um I want to go to slide number the scorecard.

So while I do, I am total in agreement with a scorecard for the contractors.

I do I would like to see a scorecard survey or um and that was slide seven, uh scorecard survey for the contractors on the residents who participated in this because we know we have five years, but if they have a bad experience with a homeowner because they followed them around or they criticized all their work that they did, and I have a real life example of that, and then they went in, they redid it or took it apart.

We need to know that because that may be why some of these contractors don't come back because they had a that experience with the homeowner.

So I want I want that kind of to be a back and forth so they can share what their experience was.

The other thing I do, I would like the stories of where this relationship goes above and beyond, where the homeowner is making sure they have water and they you know check in on them and say hello every day because I know that some of my residents are doing that also, and then by the end, they feel like this contractor is part of the family because of what they did.

So I do want to make sure that we continue to tell the story because I think it is a very um good program as we move forward.

Um I think from there we can do so much with this, and I think I we want to bring back that good neighbor feeling as part of this process.

The other thing I want to echo is we have the rehab and the repair.

I would like more stats about when we have to actually rebuild because I know, especially in the South Side where they're on peer and beam and we walk that fine line of OHP, and then we find out you know, somebody added on a whole wing without any permission back in the 40s, um, making sure that we're addressing that and we're bringing up bringing them up to code and also making sure that there's that sustainability and weatherization issue there.

So sometimes rebuild is a better option than rehab.

So I'd like to see that stat if we're having to move in that direction and what that would take and where we could find partnership for that aspect as we as we continue on.

But uh, I think you know, our best stock is the current housing stock.

We just need to make sure it's taken care of.

And then anything with the legacy home, and I know y'all brought in the titles, is that we really try and work with our our credit unions and our banks to talk about the financial planning that with this rehab repair or in some cases rebuild, what is it going to take annually for them to have the maintenance and the warranty to make sure the HVAC systems are updated, to make sure the wiring, what they can actually bring in and not bring in.

So there's opportunity to do that.

And I I think Frost went into my community and did that for general neighbors, but I I believe your office was there when they did that.

Yes, thank you, councilman, for bringing that up.

Uh, we do offer um for especially our major minor rehab clients, uh, the chance to go through our homeowner maintenance classes.

It's a four-hour class.

We served over 200 homeowners last year alone that went through our homeowner maintenance classes.

List San Antonio helps us with that.

We have some nonprofit partners that we bring in.

One of the elements of that class is uh budgeting for future repairs.

We also go over options for home warranties so people understand that that's something that they could budget for and can cover comprehensive items that may fail with the home.

Um, but we are also looking at how we bring in more partners like the banking institutions that may be another resource to help them with those.

So we love the idea.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I think as we go through the process and we see in this these economic times, more people apply for this, that we we tend to put the people that are committed to do this up the list.

You know, if you have a home homeowner that says, No, I don't want to do that, we'll put them in one pile.

When the one that's like, yes, I'll do that, and yes, I'll do this, and and I I do want to those that are capable, if they could again going back to the good neighbor, those that are capable but live in maybe an older neighborhood.

If we could even ask, hey, can you help us with volunteer hours?

Can you help us with cleanup?

If we know that they're having to clean up their yard because there's all sorts of stuff that's going to be taken and they're taking it to themselves to the bulky item dump.

Can you visit your elderly neighbor and see if there's any items that you could take for them and we could give them a special pass or disposition?

Because I really think when something like this happens in the neighborhood, it kind of gets contagious, and other people decide they want to do something to improve their house.

And I want them to walk out the front door and start having conversations with their neighbor as they've done that.

And we've done that with uh for the veterans program, which your team has been part of, and what we've seen is that the neighbor across the street starts putting up a new fence or something because of the improvements going on.

So I really want this to catch on, and I really appreciate your efforts, and thank you so much for um all of the hard work there.

And I think that as we move forward, just if the council could continue to share their ideas about how we we have district-specific uh needs met.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Biergorn and Councilman Corps, followed by Councilman Alderath Kabilo.

Thank you, Mayor Porsche.

Uh, thank you so much for this presentation.

I uh like Councilman Castillo and some of our rest of my colleagues were really excited about this program for the budget cycle.

But I asked some questions that I asked for follow-up and didn't quite get all of the responses that I was looking for.

So the thing that I'm most concerned about about the RFP is whether or not we're backwards planning enough.

So this last cycle when we tried to do budget amendments, and at the very end, we said we would like to increase our major minor uh home rehab program by a million dollars.

The feedback that we got at that time was that we don't have enough contractors to do this work, that we would not be able to increase the number of uh individuals that we serve, just increase the amount.

And so what I had asked for was um specifically which of all of the contractors that are on the list right now, how many have they been able to serve and how many more contractors would we need to go get in order to to serve additional folks, given that this has been shown as a council priority for the last several years from this council.

So I did get data specifically about around the um projects that were done in fiscal year 25.

It looks like our nonprofit partners served about 145 individuals, versus our contractors.

If you calculate the 18 projects per were about 270.

Are those numbers?

Did I calculate that correctly?

Because I had to do the math on my own since it wasn't on the data.

I don't know if anybody has this as backup slides.

I'm sorry, I know it was sent to me.

Does the numbers sound uh pretty accurate, councilwoman?

And I'll clarify that uh we we want to ensure that it's it is part of it is contractor capacity, but it's also capacity for our team and for our nonprofit partners.

Um while they are able to serve that many in a year, um many of them take uh longer than the one year that we give them to serve climate.

So um contract amendments extensions are common for our partners.

We don't want to take the money back, we want to give them time to reach the households.

Um, and many of them use some of the contractors that are on our list as well.

So they're serving their homeowners, they're serving um the city projects that we're partnering on, and our nonprofits have limited capacity to manage individual projects, so do we.

When we don't have enough team members to manage the projects, we have other issues such as not having enough team members to do ongoing site visits.

Um we do rely on our third party inspectors, and we increased that this year.

We went from one third-party inspector to three to help ensure we have enough eyes on all of the multiple projects.

Um we've grown this program over the years with the addition of the bond fund, so we've had to try and increase our resources.

Um as Veronica mentioned, we do have 15 contractors right now, and we do hope to grow that, but that will depend on the responses.

Um but again, as Councilwoman Castillo pointed out, um, homeowners are not limited to this list, so they can always do more.

Yeah, I'm not worried about that.

I'm worried about the response I got when I said we want to put in another million dollars, and the response that y'all provided to us was that we don't have enough contractors.

It wasn't that we had staff capacity, right?

That wasn't the response that was given at that time.

So I don't want us to be back in August saying we want to put another million dollars into here and saying we didn't go out and get enough contractors during this time.

That's what I'm trying to figure out the uh what is the real what's so if is it we need another two?

If we wanted to double this program, right?

If we wanted to say this is to Councilman Via Grand's point, right?

Housing stock is super important to all of us.

So if we all said we want to double the impact of this program, would that mean an extra three NHSD employees plus an extra 10 contractors?

That's kind of what I'm trying to gauge at.

Like, have we done the thought process on what would it take to really um increase the magnitude of this?

So, councilman, let me let me jump in here.

But I think I think you're I I think we're dealing with two different issues here.

One, the budget exercise at the end was throwing investing additional money into a program of which we didn't have the capacity.

This is a pre-solicitation.

So as we go through this, if we get two or we get 22, or we change the mechanism like some of the council members have spoken about, that that pipeline could change, but we won't know until we go through this process.

Secondly, and your point is is well taken, right?

The answer to your question about if if the council decides to double the investment and the output, what do we need in place, whether from a contractor standpoint or from an administrative standpoint?

And we can work on those two things separately.

And I think I think we when we when we do the post-solicitation on this, we come back and try to answer those questions because if we get two, the answer to question number two, your question number two is gonna be different than if we get 22.

Yeah.

So message received, we'll we'll when we do the post-solicitation, we'll lay out that framework because it should be as easy as potentially a matrix, right?

Right.

If we do for every hundred that we do, we may need three people and four contractors.

And the the reason why I was saying a little bit, I appreciate that one thank you.

Um I was the reason why I was thinking that was because it pushes us to be a little bit stronger on our recruiting and going after contractors on a proactive basis versus just saying the 15 that we have are sufficient, right?

Because if we're if we're gonna maintain something, we could just go back to our existing base and say, please reapply, we want to continue this work.

But if we really have an intention to double it, we should be saying on a higher scale, like how are we really proactively going out and seeing we want as many contractors as possible to respond to this because we have the work that we are going to have the work um aligned to it.

So I was the reason why I was asking them we should have a target in mind right now of how many we want to add to be able to grow the program so that we're we don't we aren't okay with just the two coming back.

Well, so that we we can we can look at language within the R the solicitation.

Um my picture's throwing me off there behind your coin.

So um so uh like the shave looks interesting.

The uh we can put language in the RFP that says that here's what we have set aside, budgeted planned for now, and the council may have conversations or will have conversations as we go into fiscal year 27 conversations about additional investment.

It's gonna be hard for us to say, it's hard for you all to say we're gonna double it right now, but we can clearly indicate in the pre-solicitation and and in the solicitation itself is that the council will be looking to potentially increase it so that those those potential providers know that uh the pot could be bigger, the work could be bigger.

Okay, so we can do that.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Sorry, I was on mute.

Yeah, that I appreciate that.

And I know you guys are like I'm looking at the outreach, and I know we're already doing a lot, but just wanting to say, like, we should if we sit I I may be making this presumption, but I think a lot of us supported this program and we would continue to want to support it and see it grow.

So I just don't want the contractor's piece to be the limiting thing.

The last quick question, man, seven minutes goes by fast.

Um, if you have a bit, we can roll your five minutes into this last little bit.

Okay, just the last question, yeah, and I won't buzz in again.

Um the last question I had is for the nonprofits.

Are the they and included in this or no?

They're a separate process.

No, that's separate.

We do a separate RFP for and do we have one coming up for them?

Uh we have one coming up, and then tomorrow's agenda is adding um from the one million dollar improvement that we did at the budget, we're adding more dollars to uh four agreements that were from the last solicitation.

Okay, when you come back, it'd be great to see the nonprofits and their capacity because it looks like several of them are hitting their marks like really well, including um Merced that was mentioned in Blueprint, and then like SAS didn't do wasn't active in 2025.

So it would be good to get like a better understanding of all of them and what their capacity is.

Sure.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilman Corps, uh Councilman Adam Tigovito, followed by Councilmember Galvan.

Thank you, Mayor Potem.

Thank you all so much for this presentation.

Uh a lot of my questions have already been asked uh by my colleagues, but just two or three more quick questions.

How often do homeowners choose a contractor that that isn't on the list?

Currently they don't.

So they're only choosing anyone.

It's it's very it's either zero or maybe once one time I heard a contract uh homeowner did select their own contractor.

Okay.

Do you is there a limit to how many contractors can be on our list?

No.

Okay, so and I think that kind of ties into councilwoman core's point.

Like if we need contractors to get it done, because this is an important initiative to all of us, if if there's ways that we could certify more contractors and we're not limited um to a certain quantity, I think that that would be worth looking into.

Oh, and in uh little bit piggybacking off councilwoman Castillo's question: what protections are in place for homeowners who did receive subpar working?

Um two-part answer to your question.

One, they do enter into an agreement with the contractor, which stipulates a lot of uh the terms that both of responsibilities both for the homeowner and the contractor.

Second, there is a one-year warranty period, and part of that program agreement includes that one year uh one year warranty period where the contractor is responsible for delivering that and being responsive to the homeowner during that time.

And then that's part of NHSD's oversight.

They can reach out to us if that is not occurring.

Okay, but but the fix itself is happening with the contractor then.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, sounds good.

Those those were all my questions.

Thank you.

Easy peasy, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Galvan, followed by Councilmember White.

Thank you, Mary Pro Tem.

And as I've always said, if we want to we get some time done, talk faster.

Um just kidding, just kidding.

I'll do my best to continue talking slower.

Um a lot of my questions have also been asked.

Uh the scorecard is really helpful, the conversation there.

It's something that we're always trying to figure out, at least with the NAR office, making sure that we are giving quality recommendations to our constituents and making sure that everyone has as much information as possible when making these big decisions.

This is a program I really do care about, and I really want to see succeed.

I think more often than not, this program is doing as good as it can and as good as it does.

And of course, there's some unfortunate examples out there where it didn't go well.

And so I always want to make sure that we are building this process a bit better for that.

One thing that always stays stuck with me is looking at uh, well, two things, potentially bringing some of the work in-house if possible to see what that would look like to have folks do this work that we as a city uh essentially hire to see what that capacity would look like.

I understand, of course, that requires a different source of funding compared to what we're doing with contracting, uh, the cost may be a bit higher.

Uh, but I am interested in seeing kind of what that would look like in terms of our oversight with the folks who do the work as well as uh with maybe the potential ease to then address some of the issues that our folks are experiencing while um while seeing some of the work you're done at their homes.

Um I I always struggle with the kind of back and forth of if uh if a contractor does something wrong, is that something right?

And NHSD has to keep going back around and round around to fix it.

It makes me concerned about why are we doing this much to kind of keep this contractor to do the right thing when we could do it ourselves?

If we could.

That's my question is always to figure out could we what would be the cost of benefits look like for that?

Similarly, it's the same thing too about the kind of uh alternative to uh the kind of broad reach of the program that limits the amount of people that we can uh we can reach um and seeing the kind of piecemeal of adjustments there or the fixes there uh with people fixing their homes versus a neighborhood by neighborhood approach to kind of see the the scale change happen in parts of the community that we know need it more uh more often than not um to kind of see to what Council Ravia Grav was talking about, the kind of neighborhood scale change.

Um that's something I'm always interested in, those two things, and I always want to make sure I mention them when talking about home rehab, because I think they're worthwhile to to explore.

Um just a couple quick questions.

Well, actually, let me make sure I'm not missing anything.

I know, yeah, I think actually a lot of these were asked.

Um one thing I did want to ask is the broader about the uh courtesy contractor list itself.

Um do folks only give the options um for the currency contractor if they go through this program, or is that available publicly year-round outside of enrolling in this program?

That kind of list of contractors.

I know DSD has the kind of like full list of contractors that are part of this list.

Yes, uh, we would probably refer people to the full DSD list.

They have different levels and certifications and it's it's it's a pretty robust list.

Uh this contractor on call list is not currently on our website.

Um I suppose if asked, we would be happy to share and let them know these are the ones that may work on city funded home rehab projects.

Um, but we're not we haven't I can't think of an instance where we've been asked for that.

Got it by someone not in in our program.

But we do share it with the nonprofit partners too when they're looking for groups to work with.

Okay, good to know.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

Um I know Councilmember uh Alder Gavito mentioned this about who like folks typically go along with.

Um how many instances are there, or do we have an estimate about folks who uh don't feel confident choosing from this list, or maybe just kind of say, like, is there a best recommendation versus kind of going through the whole process of researching each one?

Do we have any feedback from homeowners, I guess, about what the process is to even select the contractors from this list.

Because here's where I come from with the question, I guess, just to kind of maybe settle it in, is that I I worry about giving our folks more steps to try to get into this program where if it's like, okay, now choose the contractor to try to work with is someone who but likely I think about the folks in my life who are in have tried to roll in this program or have enrolled the program, have talked to me about, you know, I I'm already stressed at the max about trying to make sure my home is okay, and so I'm worried now about picking the wrong contractor that leads to the scary news story I see.

Is there someone that's the best recommendation already that I don't have to fully worry about here?

I understand, of course, I want to make sure everyone has the choice, but I'm worried about that.

I wanted to see is that something that people are saying uh to the NGSD or to the department about.

Right, yeah, and um that's a great question, councilman.

So we do provide the homeowner kind of a brochure.

Um that brochure includes information on each of the contractors, their past work, and we try not to steer um a homeowner towards any particular contractor, but we can share, you know, they've worked on this home, you may be familiar with it, or maybe in your neighborhood.

Um we can also share um, you know, if they want to look them up or even have a conversation with the contractor.

If we know that say a certain contractor has a limited capacity and they've got homes lined up for the next several months, you know, we'll let the we'll let the homeowner know.

So if they don't want to wait, then they may go with a different contractor.

So we try to provide as much information as possible without steering them towards any particular contractor.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

I think those are all my questions.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you, Councilmember Galvan, Councilmember White, followed by Councilmember Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Um what are we thinking?

Uh the estimated value, 20 million dollar annually, uh, 100 million total.

Uh, what are we thinking the average cost per home is going to be?

Uh, when we do an in-house uh minor repair project, we can go up to 25,000 for our um rehab program, it's up to 130,000.

I will caveat that that's only construction pricing that doesn't include the soft costs like the inspector fees we pay if there's environmental remediation needed, and our full reconstruction of a home is much quite is quite higher than that.

It's about 185,000.

Okay.

And how how are we going to be able as a council to monitor the costs here and determine if you know we're getting a return on investment?

Well, what are we doing there?

Uh well, those are the um approved maximum amounts for the projects.

They can go over, and that does happen in the instance of maybe uh an unex unforeseen circumstance, maybe termite damage that have to replace the entire subfloor, um, then those go to um me, the director for review and approval.

So they can't just go above budget that has to be reviewed and justified.

And and so that sort of plays into my next question on disputes, cost overruns, change orders.

Who handles all of that?

It's there's some approval process as you mentioned.

Our team reviews uh the contractor will share the change order, um, for example, with the homeowner.

It still has to be reviewed and approved by the city, and then the homeowner has to agree to add that additional expense to their loan.

Um, most of these are our forgivable loan or grant, but it's all um documented.

And I think last year we had some issues with this program, right?

On some verifications and um uh approvals.

Yes, we have a much more robust process in place.

We had homeowners either verbally approving a change order or only signing the change order, but not necessarily going through the process to approve the actual amendment that adds those dollars to their forgivable loan.

So all that um process has been clarified for our team and ensures those processes are are much enhanced.

Okay.

Um we're not requiring audited financial statements for the solicitation.

Is that right?

Correct.

Since we don't have an agreement directly with the contractor, we're not auditing the financials.

Um also we didn't want that to be a burden to have uh contractors apply.

We do work with our procurement team to review it and ask them for their plan because these are all on reimbursement places basis.

We want to make sure they can cash flow, especially if they're doing multiple projects.

We don't want them shutting a project down, waiting on a reimbursement.

Um so we do look at um their history and if they've had any bankruptcies, any lawsuits filed, all of that is part of our due diligence process.

Yeah, because we gotta know that these contractors are financially stable because if they're not, we're gonna get middle of the project shut down, and then we've got a mess on our hands, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um I like the uh the contractor scorecard for accountability purposes.

I think I think that that makes a lot of sense.

Um I guess my last question is part of the funding here is from the federal government.

Um if that dries up for whatever reason, I guess we're just gonna do less of these projects.

Yes, um, the federal funding is about eight million dollars for major rehab, um, but we still have some general fund dollars, and um the housing bond also provides funding every year for all of these programs for major and minor repair.

Okay.

And we also use the RES fund now to help with the under-one roof program.

All right.

Well, again, I think first funding sources I think the uh the intent of the of the program is a good one, but the there is a lot of room here.

I think if there's not proper monitoring uh for money to get moved around as it's intended.

So um I hope we we've got all the mechanisms in place to make sure that uh that we're spending the money properly.

Clarified processes and procedures, review them regularly, and our team will be going through a whole nother audit starting in January to ensure that we our processes are working and that we are on track.

Great, thank you.

Yes, thanks, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilman White.

Uh, Councilmember Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I just want to start by saying, you know, we had a resident in District 4 who actually received this program and reached out to NHSD to share their appreciation and thanks.

And as a matter of fact, this uh positive story is gonna run on Ken's next month, so please check that out when it comes out.

And I know she's been in that neighborhood for you know 30 plus 40 years, and she's a uh, you know, of a res an elderly resident who's a widow on a fixed income, and this is exactly what we need to do for these folks.

And she was able to get a roof replacement, HVAC system, electrical repairs, plumbing repairs, windows, interior repairs, siding flooring, and more.

So I just think that's a positive story, and and folks are proactively reaching out to say these are great things that are happening in our city, and we want to share that information.

So just want to say thank you to the team.

Um so I saw here that you had uh you know contractors are not gonna have a minimum, but will will any one contractor have a maximum of contracts or projects they're allowed to work on?

Like what if everybody in the program selected the same contractor?

Is that gonna be possible?

We haven't had that happen yet, but uh we do um we do communicate to them how long uh the waiting period would be to get started on a home again if they're already working on several projects, and um so yeah, I mean there's no maximum that we would because we do want to make sure the homeowner has that selection, but if they have multiple projects going on and they can't even start your home for four months, um, for some homeowners that may be too long.

Yeah, okay.

And I see you know, the current list is is 15 contractors.

Are we aiming for the same number?

Is there a goal of how many contractors you're trying to get in place through this process?

That's right.

Well, we have 15 active contractors.

We will take as many as possible.

Okay, as many as possible.

Okay, gotcha.

Uh and then you know, some a couple of folks have mentioned this, and uh, you know, we had a resident who had some issues with their project, and we reached out and and thankfully uh Varaka Gonzalez was there to help out and and talk to the residents.

Um, what's the formal process when a resident has an issue with a contractor and they can't settle it between the two of them?

How who at NHSD gets involved and how will that be a sustainable um process?

Um just recognizing we understand it's a very personal space for homeowners, and sometimes contractors' relationships do not work out, but we're committed to being involved, and what we typically do it is escalated to either a program lead or even the director's office, so we get personally involved.

And the first step is to make sure we go to the site and for ourselves see what is going on, and so we review and and and create an inventory of what are the concerns, what are the issues, and we reconcile that against what was the actual the actual scope of the project, right?

Because sometimes there may be issues outside of the scope.

What was the scope of the project?

Are they still under warranty?

And how do we help find a solution and make sure the contract the contractor is as responsive as possible if he is responsible for um making sure those repairs are completed during the warranty period?

So to answer your question, uh myself, Ian Veronica get involved when we see a concern from a homeowner, and of course, are very responsive to to this um body.

Well, I hope that doesn't happen too often because obviously that's that's a lot for for you all in addition to all the other things you have to do.

Uh so maybe after you know the next fiscal year's process plays out, we can kind of see at how many escalations kind of come up through and make sure that it mostly working with the contractor and the resident, because I think that's the goal is make sure that works out together, uh, and then just see where the escalations kind of go and the resolutions to that.

I think that would be helpful for us to see.

Uh, but you know, I think it's a great program, and I remember um you know how many folks in the housing space came out and asked the city to do more on this.

Uh and we are here with this large capacity, so it's a great program, and we're very supportive.

So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Councilman.

I have no one else in the queue.

Well, I guess I'll just close out with a few a couple things that I heard and want to echo.

Um, one I think is I heard from a number of us, right?

We want to be sure that if and when there is conflict or contention between contractor and homeowner that we're as supportive as possible, uh, even going uh yeah, and and figuring out what it what happens when you know it has to go to court um and how can we how can we remain supportive to the homeowner at that point?

Um second thing, and this was a point that I think was most resonant, uh, and I think it was just it was started by um the point was first made by councilman core, which was that this is a program that year after year we say we want to improve, and it's I think one of the best programs we have at the city.

Um and so I think it's important that marketing for the contract for the solicitation is is really strong.

We don't want more for the sake of more, we want more for the sake of great greatest possible um positive impact.

Um, and so if we can come back with a list of 30 to 50 stellar recommendations, that'd be awesome.

But uh, we also know that you'll be limited by uh who responds.

Um, Eric, would you like to close us out with any final thoughts of what you heard?

Thank you, Councilman.

So, no, this was uh this was helpful to have uh this conversation, and we'll make the necessary adjustments and prepare for the post-solicitation and some of the broader questions that that you all talked about this afternoon.

Thank you.

There being no further discussion, I would like to note it's only been fifty less than 50 minutes.

The time is now 2:56 p.m.

and the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you everyone for coming.