Good afternoon, everybody.

We will begin.

The time is now 201 p.m.

on March 30th, 2026, in the meeting of the Planning and Community Development Committee's now called order.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Councilmember Corr.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Here.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Councilmember Mungia.

Present.

I'm sorry.

Chair Mungia.

That's okay.

Chair, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much.

And I'll just note uh she'll be a little late, but we have a new member to our committee, Councilwoman Iva Lise Mesa Gonzalez.

So we welcome her to our committee and look forward to working with her today.

Um so the first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

And if not, can I get a motion to approve?

There's a motion and a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

We are now gonna move on to public comment.

And we have some folks here signed up.

Um signed up for item number three is Tyler Ferguson.

You will have three minutes.

Oh, good afternoon.

Uh my name is Tyler Ferguson.

I'm the executive director of Blueprint Ministries.

We're a nonprofit that has been serving uh low-income homeowners in San Antonio for over 20 uh 20 years, um, and we're also a partner in NHSD's minor home rehab program.

Um wanted to come today to both express my support uh for the work reflected uh in the uh special housing supply task force report and um more broadly because any time housing is discussed, I feel an immense responsibility to give voice to the over 60 low-income homeowners that we work with every day.

As you know, the housing crisis in San Antonio cannot be attributed to one specific problem, but is rather multifaceted, requiring a multifaceted solution.

Blueprint ministries is grateful for the effort that NHSD has put into the Special Housing Supply Task Force report as we've seen firsthand that while the housing crisis affects everyone, already marginalized groups are absolutely hit the hardest.

I want to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance that preserving and restoring our existing housing stock plays in the overall goals outlined, not just in this report, but in the broader ship.

We work with over 60 homeowners every year whose physical and mental health is critically impacted by their housing situation.

Yet none of them benefit from the things that tend to be what most people focus on when it comes to housing.

Things like additional affordable housing construction, support for renters, and programs aimed at housing the unhoused are all extremely important, but not at the expense of the thousands of severely cost-burdened homeowners located within a two-mile radius of where we are right now.

Most of us think of homeownership as the goal, and yet for many extremely low-income homeowners in our city, staying in the home that they've owned for decades is often the only thing standing between them and experiencing homelessness.

Your investment into the minor home repair program and organizations like Blueprint has made an impact.

However, restoring our substandard housing supply is not a quick task.

It's going to take decades and decades of consistent investment as we go house to house making the repairs that everyone needs to live safely and with dignity.

Your commitment to solving our substandard housing crisis is unmatched when compared to every nearly every other city of our size, as I'm reminded often by my colleagues across the country who are very envious of our city's commitment to substandard housing.

And yet, I humbly ask today that as these important discussions take place around housing that you not forget these homeowners who are living in unsafe, unhealthy, and undignified conditions, who oftentimes fly under the radar.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next for it number four, we have Isabel Galvan.

She can be here today, so I'm going to read her comment with her permission.

If that's if that's okay.

And what is your name?

Oh, Luis Hannah Santibanias.

Okay, so I can come to the case.

Yes, we put we put you down, but you only get three minutes for both your comments and hers.

That's fine.

But she's not here, so she doesn't get time.

Should I come back when it's my turn?

You can go now.

I'm reading this on behalf of Isabel Galvan, a passionate tenant advocate and voucher holder from District One who couldn't be here today due to having the flu.

Hello, my name is Isabel Galvan, and I serve as a lead tenant and housing justice organizer for the coalition for tenant justice and housing advocate for the coalition for dignified housing, which includes the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, the Historic West Side Residents Association, and Domesticas Unidas.

I want to start off by saying my team and I canvassed over 1100 units, and not one of those residents we encountered knew what we were talking about in regards to mixed family or moving to work.

Nor they had nor had they even heard of the moving to work program.

That alone tells me outreach was not done properly and community engagement was poorly executed.

I would implore you to request that Opportunity Home of 65,000 residents served by Opportunity Home San Antonio.

How many residents actually engaged in this plan?

How many provided feedback?

And how many complex info sessions did they hold since a lot of residents do not have transportation or are of limited mobility?

And I'm asking for actual numbers with proof.

What's happening here at home, what Opportunity Home San Antonio is proposing under RAD and the moving to work program isn't just policy.

It's a detriment that is going to deeply and negatively affect our most vulnerable neighbors and communities in a very real way.

Moving to work and RAD threatened to destabilize hundreds of households who are compliant, paying their fair share, and who are navigating through an already extremely complex system.

These are not theoretical impacts, these are families, most with children and many with disabilities who will lose their homes.

And here in San Antonio, instead of protecting people from that instability, we're hearing proposals for moving in a direction that could make things so much worse.

Taking away negative rent means people with little to no income lose the support that helps keep them, keeps their lights on, who are still being required to pay those utilities.

That's not efficiency.

That's pushing the burden onto people who are already giving everything they can.

Most of these proposed changes go beyond safety.

They even go so far as to limit how residents communicate, organize, and even protect themselves.

That in itself should concern every single one of us.

Then there's RAD, and no matter how it's framed, it brings in private financing and long-term uncertainty into a system that was meant to stay public and permanently affordable.

This isn't just about following a program, it's about the direction we're choosing.

Because what San Antonio does here with public housing will set the tone for the entire nation.

Other cities will follow, and the impact will be much more dystopian than we can imagine.

Please, I urge you to fight hard for public housing.

Don't take us down this path.

Keep public housing public.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you'd like to submit uh Ms.

Galvan's comments for the record, we can take that as well.

You can just go with Debbie.

Thank you.

Okay, okay, good.

Thank you.

Um, and up next is Leticia Sanchez.

Hi, uh, my name is Leticia Sanchez, and I'm here speaking on behalf of the Historic West Site Residents Association, which includes homeowners, renters, and public housing residents.

We're here to speak to you on opportunity homes strategic plan that includes uh some proposals, policy changes that will negatively impact the residents and ultimately will add to our city's housing crisis.

As our city council represent representatives, you're tasked to oversee the ship, which states that housing for residents earning 30% AMI and below is the housing of greatest need.

The policy changes being proposed by Opportunity Home will do nothing to help reduce housing for this uh reduce the housing crisis for this population and will in fact remove protections that public housing ensures to keep people from becoming homeless.

The mission of housing authorities such as Opportunity Home is to provide affordable housing for low-income families, senior citizens, and disabled individuals who can't afford housing in the regular market to help stabilize housing situations and prevent individuals from becoming homeless.

However, the policies that Opportunity Home proposes will change its mission from serving low-income individuals and households at the lowest income levels to all residents.

This goes against the mission of a housing authority which oversees housing for those at the lowest income levels.

The proposal to convert public housing to rental assistant assistance demonstration or rad housing would remove protections that ensure housing for individuals and households most in need of housing assistance.

San Antonio's public housing is one of the greatest safeguards that exists for our most vulnerable residents.

Eliminating public housing would only ensure that more of our residents would become homeless.

I've lived in public housing for many years, and it's not a good option all of the proposed policy changes that are being made at the federal level.

And at that time my salary was about 15 to 30 dollars a day, cleaning two homes if I was lucky, um, but barely earned enough to pay my rent and my lights.

But thanks to that, I was able to raise my children, and um both of them graduated from college, one is in active in the military, and my daughter has a bachelor's degree in international business.

If these public policies that they're proposing go into effect, they're not going to allow mixed status families to rent.

And a lot of families would be left unprotected, a lot of children left without opportunities to overcome and have access to a dignified housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Jasmine Ededa.

Sorry, let me just move this closer.

Hello, my name is Oh, okay.

Um with the Coalition for Dignified Housing in this Pedanza Peace and Justice Center.

Um I'm here to urge you to help us push back against the changes that Opportunity Home is trying to make.

For instance, one of um one of them that prohibits door knocking and uh the fire in their properties as a promotora and active resident of the historic West Side.

I think it's important that we keep these connections with our fellow neighbors strong.

We've already made uh such good relationships with them, and stopping that would build up a wall between us, amplifying the barriers that already exist in our community.

Some of the of the things and that we um that we door knock and put flyers, we we um they're about their important issues in the city like um San Antonio's Cove Neighborhood Project, um, our new neighborhood gem like the Museo del West.

Um Vienda project, which puts community gardens with residents in their front and backyards, local resources, resident association meetings, um, oral history, and convivials that help people route to their history and give our comunidad a sense of pride, orgullo, love, and irrespetto, and where and where they come from.

Please don't take that away from them, from us, uh so we could have those connections.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Alejandro Lopez, good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Alejandra Lopez, and I serve as the proud president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, the union that represents workers in San Antonio ISD.

Our beautiful diverse school district covers the urban core of San Antonio and is largely working class communities of color.

Over the last 10 years, SAISD has experienced declining student enrollment attributed in part to the lack of affordable housing available in our district.

This decline in enrollment has led to school closures, school buildings in desperate need of maintenance and repairs, and cuts to staff and services.

One of our core principles is that public schools belong to the people, that they are a cornerstone of our democracy, and that they are one of the last remaining public goods in our communities.

It is then no surprise that they are under constant attack from pro-privatization forces on both sides of the aisle.

From the rise of charter schools to Governor Abbott's private school voucher scheme, it is people in positions of power backed by their billionaire friends who seek to dismantle public schools piece by piece.

We see what what is happening in the domain of public housing is straight from the same privatization playbook as what we've seen in public education.

First, they divest and underfund a vital public good, in this case public housing.

This makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with rising costs such as maintenance, and it definitely doesn't leave any money to expand necessary programs.

It's within this scarcity mindset that they then incentivize programs that introduce elements of privatization.

In public education, we saw this most clearly with the 1882 legislation that literally gives schools more money from TEA for partnering with an outside third party.

This incentivization often opens the door for public dollars to end up in the hands of private entities or corporations.

So as we prepare to kick off our housing month, let's look at the potential long-term negative impacts to our communities as a result of this change being proposed by Opportunity Homes.

Will families be forced to move?

Will we see a further exodus of school-aged children from SAISD leading to more school closures?

Our union firmly believes in the interconnectedness of our communities.

Please trust me when I say our teachers and support staff are already stretched in meeting the needs of our students.

We know that issues like homelessness and housing insecurity show up every day in our classrooms.

And so I ask you to please oppose this change being proposed.

Let's not further destabilize our communities.

Oppose the further privatization of our public housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is uh Melody Miranda.

Hi Molly, and I'm giving my three minutes to Melanie.

Thank you.

You'll now have six minutes.

My name is Melody Miranda, and I'm 16 years old.

I've been a resident at Alazanpache Courts half of my life.

I'm a straight A student.

I've completed three fellowships, and I'm currently on my fourth with Up Leaders of Tomorrow.

I hope to go to St.

Mary's and become a lawyer.

When I pass the bar, I'll be bringing those skills back to our beloved Westide.

Because I love public housing, I'm speaking today because the decisions you make about housing don't just affect adults, they affect me, my friends, my classmates, and the future of our entire generation.

I know you don't have this the I know you don't have the decision making power at this committee, but I'm asking you to stand with us, the residents.

We are told that to succeed, we need to stay in school and work hard.

But it is nearly impossible to focus on a chemistry test or an essay when you don't know if your family will be affected next month.

I'm concerned about the changes being proposed at opportunity homes, and limiting negative rents or city rebursements will hurt the most vulnerable zero income households.

If a family can't pay for water or electricity, they're in a violation of their lease, and it's not a healthy way to live.

We're necessarily setting families up to fail.

Similarly, ending repayment agreements create creates a zero tolerance wall that leads to more homelessness.

If a family fells falls behind due to an emergency, they should have a way to catch up without losing their roof.

Public housing isn't just a safety net.

For many of my peers, it's the only reason they have a stable place to sleep.

I'm against the proposed restrictions on solicitation.

I'm okay with sales not being allowed, but this definition of solicitation is just neighbors helping neighbors.

When you ban people from knocking on doors, you aren't just stopping sales.

You're stopping community groups from sharing resources, checking on utterly, or inviting us to youth programs.

These rules make our neighborhoods feel like prisons instead of communities.

Please preserve our right to connect and support one another.

I'm also here to voice my up uh okay.

Um my decision to rad uh conversation while it's framed as a way to fund repairs, right is essentially the privatization of our public land.

When we move public housing into private hands, we lose transparency and public oversight.

Once the deed is in local hands, even though they intend or to promise to keep it public, it's ultimately up to whoever the leadership happens to be at the time.

History shows that privatization often leads to displacement for a teenager moving, isn't just change of address.

It means losing your school, your friends, and your community.

We shouldn't be gambling with stability of San Antonio families just to satisfy a different funding model.

I'm asking you to protect the public and public housing and look for viable alternatives that keep residents safe and in their homes.

Housing is a human right.

As a young person, I'm asking you to choose stability over administrative effects.

Please help us express the OSHA that we need to protect our residents and reject policies that make it harder for families to stay housed.

Thank you.

Thank you very much to all who came out to speak and taking time of your busy day and work and school to be here and speaking on such an important topic.

With that, we will move on to item number two, which will be interviews for the Building Standards Board.

Is there a staff presentation?

Sorry, yes, go ahead.

Come on up.

Sorry.

Thank you so much.

Um Chair and Council members.

My name is Aaron Hahn.

I'm with Texas Housers and here to speak on item four opportunity home strategic plan framework and share concerns about the future of public housing in San Antonio, and in particular, proposed plans to reposition public housing.

Opportunity Home is the primary provider of deeply affordable housing for the city's lowest income residents.

While we recognize ongoing funding challenges, that role and the permanence and protections that define public housing should be preserved in any major policy shift.

Repositioning public housing through RAD and project based vouchers, even if framed as preservation represents a fundamental shift from permanent affordability and public accountability.

By allowing ownership structures involving private entities to facilitate low income housing tax credits, which are used in roughly half of RAD conversions nationally.

This opens the door to increased privatization and risk of instability for tenants.

When affordability becomes tied to housing assistance payment or HAP contracts that must be renewed and depend on future federal appropriations, permanent affordability is no longer guaranteed but contingent on decisions outside of local control.

If a HAP contract is removed due to funding issues or owner noncompliance, units could serve households earning up to 80% of AMI, a significant shift from public housing's focus on the lowest income residents with incomes below 30% of AMI.

If repositioning uh public housing moves forward, strong safeguards will be essential, one for one replacement of deeply affordable units, a binding right to return to a comparable unit, long-term affordability beyond HAP contract periods, meaningful ongoing resident engagement and education, and transparent public reporting.

And importantly, national evidence shows us that uh protections on paper don't always translate into practice when it comes to RAD conversions.

Residents have face barriers to returning after rad conversions, unsafe relocations, and denied reasonable accommodation.

Uh execution really matters.

Second, we are concerned about proposed changes to the public housing lease that would undermine tenants' rights and housing stability.

A new solicitation policy goes beyond prohibiting commercial activity on public housing properties and would restrict residents' ability to communicate with their neighbors and organize, like we've heard today.

A proposed ban on recording would conflict with Texas one-party consent law and limit residents' ability to document harassment, discrimination, misconduct.

We recommend limiting the solicitation policy to commercial activity only and removing the recording provision.

And finally, eliminating repayment agreements shifts away from a housing stability approach towards a more punitive one.

For extremely low-income households and public housing, small debts are often the result of temporary hardship, and the option to repay over time prevents avoidable evictions and homelessness.

Any change to opportunity home policy should strive to preserve housing at the same level of affordability with the same rights for current residents.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Aaron.

Did we miss anybody else before we move on?

So I'll make sure.

Going once, going twice.

Okay.

We will now move on to item number two, uh, which will be interviews for the building standards board.

Is there a presentation?

All right, thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jamie Nietel, Assistant City Clerk.

I will be presenting background information about the Building Standards Board and our overall process.

The Building Standards Board is a quasi-judicial body composed of 11 members appointed by the city council and three members appointed at large.

Board members must fall into one of the following seven categories: architect, engineer, general contractor, social worker, health care professional, retired over 64, or U.S.

military veteran.

A professional property manager may serve in place of either a general contractor or social worker.

Each member has a two-year term with no limit on the number of terms they may serve.

There are currently three at large seats available for appointments.

The communications and engagement department released three web and social media postings.

The first one on September 25th, 2025, and the second one on October 28, 2025.

And the final posting on March 4th of this year.

By closing date of March 18th, 2026, we had received a total of eight applications.

The City Attorney's Office vetted all eight applications, and four applications were deemed eligible.

Today we will be interviewing those individuals and providing a recommendation to the full city council.

City Council will vote on the full board appointees appointments during an A session.

After the vote, the city clerk will notify the appointed individuals and ask them to complete the proper forms, administer the oath of office, and invite them to complete the municipal leadership institute training.

Once these steps are completed, they can be seated on the board.

On this slide is the list of individuals scheduled for interviews today.

Two members are seeking reappointment.

This process today will begin with each applicant providing a two-minute opening statement.

For an applicant for applicants who are not unable to attend, a written statement has been included in your packet.

Mr.

Hussein is the only applicant not present.

And his written statement is available in your packet for review.

If the chair would like, the city clerk's office can read the statement, and we are prepared to do so.

All candidates will will be sequestered during the interviews and will not be able to listen to each other's answers or questions.

The council committee will interview all the applicants, then move into executive session to deliberate.

No more.

Sorry, no formal action may be taken in executive session.

Afterward, the committee will reconvene, and a committee member will make a motion for a recommendation to be forwarded to the full city council for appointment.

This concludes my presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

Um again, just to reiterate, we have four applicants for the three seats available.

Each applicant will have two minutes to provide an opening statement.

Mr.

Faso Hussein is not planned to attend and did provide a written statement, which was distributed in your packet, so we will just read that.

We don't need to have that read.

Uh so we'll begin with opening statements unless my colleagues have any questions before we begin the process.

And we will start with Mr.

Robert Zabanke.

You'll have uh two minutes for an opening statement.

Yep.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, guys.

Thanks for having me here.

Um, Robert Binke is seeking reappointment.

I've been serving on the board for almost two years now.

Um, local San Antonio guy, Robert Ely High School, UTSA graduate.

I am one of the at-large seats as I don't live in the city of San Antonio proper.

Um I've been a licensed realtor for over 10 years with the historic home specialty.

I'm also a licensed general contractor and home builder here in the city of San Antonio for almost a decade as well.

Um I actively participate when on the board.

I don't miss meetings and I try and move for motions and be proactive while in there asking our uh citizens questions and making sure we get the answers that we're looking for.

So pretty short and brief today.

I don't think I need all two minutes.

That's kind of my spiel.

So thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Yeah, we stay up there.

I'll just remind my colleagues if they have any questions to ask that we will be asking every applicant the same question.

Um so at this time I'll entertain my any of my colleagues who have a question they'd like to ask.

Councilman Castille.

Thank you, Chair and thank you, Robert, for your interest in continuing to support on the building and standards board.

The property maintenance code states that demolition should be a remedy of last resort.

Can you share what your interpretation of that statement means?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, in my experience of having sat on the board, we do try and work with everybody that comes in front of us.

They are given an opportunity to explain their case.

There's obviously a different situation for every home that we see, and we do try and or I personally make sure to treat that on a case-by-case basis.

Everybody's got different things going on in their lives.

If we don't have to tear down the house, we're gonna try not to.

Um yeah, I think that it's important to hear the people out, see what they have to say.

They do have some requirements that we ask them for when they come and present their case to us in those meetings.

And if they are present, which unfortunately a lot of people don't come, I've learned over sitting on the board for two years.

Um, if they are present, we're gonna listen to you, we're gonna try and work with you and we're gonna try and help you.

We aren't allowed to give them advice, but we can listen and the code officers can help point them in the right direction if they're given more time and their house is not removed.

So thank you, Robert.

I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Thank you, thank you.

Councilman McCorp.

Can you provide an example of a situation where you would move forward with demolition and why?

Sure, absolutely.

If the house is in disarray, uh the San Antonio Police Department's been out there multiple times.

Dangerous premise services are out there as well, and the owners don't show up, don't call, don't write.

That's usually a pretty easy one for me to move forward with demolition of the home.

If it's become a nuisance to the neighbors, a lot of the time some of the other neighbors will come and there's no owner found or of record, or it's lost in probate or something like that.

I mean, it's hurting the community at that point, and I don't have a problem moving forward with demolition.

So thank you.

Okay.

I think that's all.

Thank you very much, sir.

And up next will be Mr.

David Valtiena or Valtiero.

I have to set it to the right height for the shorties.

No worries.

Thank you, sir, for coming today.

Uh you will have two minutes uh for an opening statement, followed by two questions.

Thank you.

All righty.

Well, good afternoon, honorable chair and council members.

My name is David Valtira.

I'm a licensed architect in the state of Texas, and I'm a very community-minded individual.

I've served as a volunteer firefighter for 11 years, including one department here called Camelot Volunteer Fire Department.

And I've also served on several boards over the years, including one for the City of El Paso, the uh Transportation and Industrial Archaeology Board, which is kind of a mouthful.

But I love showing this picture because this is one of the fruits of the labor on that board.

Uh we were able to bring the streetcars back to life in the city of El Paso.

I also served on the board for VIA back in 2005 here in San Antonio, and I served on the Building Standards Board, which is similar board uh for the city of Houston.

Uh again, I'm a very community-minded individual.

I've also been a volunteer with the Red Cross and a volunteer on the safety assessment program, which is a nationwide program that responds to emergency relief and disasters, and only architects, engineers, and building officials are allowed to be on that committee.

Uh it's a nationwide program, and whenever there's a disaster like uh like the um tornado that struck Round Rock, we were there augmenting the building officials, assessing buildings on determining whether or not they were uh occupiable or not.

Thank you very much, sir.

Uh Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, David, for your interest in serving on the building and standards board.

The property maintenance code states that the demolition should be a remedy of last resort.

Can you share your interpretation of that statement?

Well, you know, sometimes, and again, this is from my experience in serving on this building standards board for the city of Houston.

You know, it's at times there are heart-wrenching conditions where somebody has passed away or somebody's taken over a piece of property that they didn't originally own, or other dilemmas that result in that.

But at the end of the day, safety of the community is of the utmost importance.

And so when you have a dilapidated building that requires a building to be demolished for whatever reason, where it's symptate the impact, or there's vagrants or there's some issues resulting from that building being dilapidated or not being cared for, then that's exactly what needs to happen sometimes, and it's unfortunate.

Okay, thank you, David.

Thank you.

Councilman Corps.

Can you give in an example of a situation where in which you might have to vote to demolish a home?

Well, I can give you plenty of examples of that.

I mean, uh, there's been conditions where a home is being used, like I said earlier, by vagrants, or there's drugs or some kind of illegal illicit activity happening in that facility or that that structure, or the structures beyond repair where there are structural elements to it where it may cause, even if it's occupied by individuals, some sort of injury or you know, failure, structural failure.

And that's those are primary examples.

Safety risk is a is the element.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

We appreciate your time today.

Thank you.

And up next, we'll have Ms.

Ann Hoffman Weiner.

Oops, wrong way.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for coming today.

You'll be giving uh two minutes for your introduction, and then we will have two questions as a follow-up.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, my name is Ann Winer.

I live on West Ashby Place in District One.

I have been on the building standards board now since I think 2001.

I've kind of lost track.

I'm also on the board of National Council of Jewish Women as programming vice president.

I'm a board member of the Alta Vista Neighborhood Association, which has taught me a lot about zoning.

And I'm an active member of the League of Women Voters.

I moved here from Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, but lived in Akron, Ohio for a very long time.

And in all those places, I preferred living in older homes.

But I never really saw how dilapidated a home could be and still be lived in.

By profession, I'm a certified registered nurse and aesthetist.

I am retired.

I don't know if I have enough for two minutes to speak, but I would like to stay on the board because in the time that I have been on it, I have learned a lot.

And from the DPS agents.

And I really care about San Antonio.

I have moved here, it'll be seven years in July.

But I have grown to really love the city and would like to see it flourish.

Thank you very much.

That's all I got.

Thank you so much.

Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Ann, for your interest in continuing to serve on the voting and standards board.

The property maintenance code states that demolition should be a remedy of last resort.

Can you share what your interpretation of that statement is?

We see houses that the roofs are gone, the peer and beam is falling down, the wall board is gone, there is no plumbing.

There is no water coming in.

And to rebuild these houses would cost more than tearing it down and building a new one.

A lot of the houses that we decide to demolish, uh people come to us and they have a lot of money.

They have $60,000.

But as we all know, that is really only going to cover maybe the roof and the Piran beam.

It will not take care of anything else.

But I ask those who say that to come and sit in on one of our meetings and see the houses that we choose to demolish.

Besides all the junk that is in them from squatters, they are just uninhabitable.

Roaches, rats, and drug paraphernalia all over thank you, Councilwoman Cork.

Can you give me an example of a house that you would have to demolish?

I know you kind of spoke to that already, but um on the outside again, the roof, the walls are leaning, the peer and beams have fallen down.

You walk in and the floors are all spongy, and we get this from the DPS agents who come and bring us multiple pictures.

So it's not like we see one exterior pictures, it's the inside and the outside, even down to the little bitty corners.

Um the walls, the the joists are bowed, the wall board is gone, and again, they are infested with rodents and roaches, and the only way you can really get rid of a lot of that if you haven't taken care of it before, is to demolish the house and rebuild it.

I think people forget that the land still belongs to the people who had the house on it.

And that's actually I have found out living in Alta Vista is worth more than my house.

Thank you very much.

Um at this before we go into executive session, I will just note that after talking to my colleagues and due to the public interest, after we convene from executive session and uh make a decision on this item, we will swap items three and four.

We will swap items three and four.

So after this item, we will do the briefing on opportunity home.

Uh since there's a significant amount of uh residents here in attendance.

So uh with that, the time is now 2 46 p.m.

on March 30th, 2026.

The committee will now meet in executive session and consult with the city attorney's office pursuant to chapter 551.071 and chapter 551.074 of the Texas government code and to discuss the Bonus Standards Board applicants.

Thank you.

Alrighty, the time is now 3 03 p.m.

on March 30th, 2026.

And the committee will now reconvene an open session.

No official action was taken in executive session.

Thank you all to thank you to all those who applied to serve on the Bully Standards Board, your willingness to volunteer, your time and expertise shows a strong commitment to our community.

We appreciate your interest in the important role you play in helping maintain the quality and safety of our neighborhoods.

Thank you again for stepping forward to serve.

Can I get a motion uh for the recommended building standards board appointments?

Chair, I move to recommend the following applicants to the full city council.

Uh Robert Benke, Fasul Hussein, David Valentera.

Can I get a second?

Okay.

Any discussion?

Uh there be no further discussion.

We have a motion and a second to recommend the appointment of Robert Bankey, Faso Hussein, and David Feldguera to the Building Standards Board uh through May 31st, 2027.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

So we will now move on to item number four, uh, which will be a briefing on the Opportunity Home San Antonio Strategic Plan Framework.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ayana Longoria.

I am the Chief Strategy Data and Innovation Officer with Opportunity Home San Antonio.

I'd like to introduce my colleagues, Lorraine Robles, Chief Real Estate and Development Officer, Jose Moscoro, Chief Operating Officer, and Michael Reyes, president and CEO.

Thank you for letting us uh present today.

This presentation was at the request of Mayor Jones.

And in the spirit of collaboration as a ship partner, we are one of the largest providers of zero to 30% affordable median income housing.

And we are proud to be working in collaboration with the city and in support of SHIP goals.

So I want to jump straight into the presentation in the interest of time and share with you the process that we went through in uh starting our strategic planning process and the phases that we went through.

So we did start with the discovery phase.

This plan started in July of 2025.

In it, we conducted listening uh sessions, surveys, uh SWOT analysis, um, and then we also went into priority development, deciding what our priorities were going to be for the next 10 years as we look down the road.

Then we got into the goal development where we will formed working groups, uh teased out what the goals and the different strategies would look like.

Then we took uh time to come up with some uh objectives, some action steps, how we were going to accomplish these goals, what was going to make sense, and then we had to take a step back, right?

We threw everything we could at the wall, and then we had to decide what was going to have the most impact, what resources do we have available, what are the barriers we're facing, um, uh, and then some things we could move forward with today or in the next few years, and some things might be longer term, might be beyond the 10 years that we were looking at.

And so then the last step of this is to finalize our plan.

So, as I mentioned, in the listening groups, we had uh again focus groups that we held with residents, uh stakeholders in the community as well as um partners and our employees.

Uh again, multiple conversations were had throughout the period throughout the process.

So um through each phase, we would convene back with our residents, our employees and our stakeholders as we went through the process.

It wasn't just one meeting or one conversation.

Um, and then as I mentioned, we went through the visioning and we'll talk about the goals that were developed, and then again finalizing and implementing the plan.

But what's important was what we heard.

And so it's housing we we heard, especially from our residents that they were proud to have affordable housing, um, to be part of our communities.

We did note that, of course, uh the aging public housing infrastructure and communities needed upgrades and rehabilitation.

They the residents were asking for newer amenities, um, and also to advocate for housing.

Um, the last one here was that they wanted us to maximize partnerships to achieve housing goals, and this came across the board.

And of course, increase construction, build new, build more, build all over San Antonio, be in more neighborhoods, be in more areas.

With with resident services and partnerships, what we heard was that we're great at providing supportive services because we do provide case management to our residents as well as working with our community partners.

However, we are missing services and noted mental health and behavioral health needs, and this is not surprising as we know this is a critical need across the city of San Antonio.

We also heard that residents and communities were not aware of programs and services, and this worked both ways.

That residents were not often aware of all of the services that opportunity home provides, but they weren't aware of what other services were available in their communities, and likewise our partners were not available of the services that we provide and how to connect with us.

And so out of that, you know, came the idea that partners wanted more information and education about opportunity home, not just about our programs and services, but about housing in general and how the housing programs work.

We also heard about technology and staff, and the big takeaway around this was that we really need to lean in on technology and use that to our advantage to help be a resource for communication and information.

So as we took all of this under the under that listening guise, we thought about what those goals would be.

And we came up with three key goals.

Housing, which is preservation and expansion, opportunities, which is resident services, partnerships, and advocacy, and then innovation.

And this is staff development, technology, and operational efficiency.

And as we thought about the goals and how we would move them forward, we had to take a lot of things into consideration.

And it's it's one of those pieces where we're working today, but we're looking 10 years down the road.

So we have to do a lot of thinking about what the horizon and what the future could look like, and we had to do best case scenario, worst case scenario, expected scenarios.

And this really had to do with the federal budget considerations, ongoing ongoing regulatory changes, our partners and our communities' interest in our work, and then our residents' and communities' needs.

So, as I mentioned, housing being the core of what we do, we came up with the goal to provide quality affordable housing by developing, acquiring, financing, and preserving at least 14,500 affordable units across a diverse portfolio of housing options, ensuring long-term affordability and stability for the res for residents throughout the San Antonio area.

And so to break down this 14,500 number, what we look at doing is leading a comprehensive preservation effort within the public housing portfolio, modernizing 6,000 homes to elevate the living standards and preserving long-term affordability.

We want to work with our partners to produce 5,500 new units, including along transit-oriented corridors to ensure those developments are multimodal, acquiring 500 existing housing units, and this is a very unique opportunity for us as we have found that when we look to develop new, we're looking at that becomes very cost prohibitive.

And what we found is that we can acquire existing class A communities in areas of opportunity, areas that we probably couldn't actually build in, but we can acquire.

Under innovation, we want to ensure that we are utilizing technology and that we're bringing our workforce up to capacity to be able to bridge those modern technology uses and be as efficient and effective as possible.

So why are we doing this now?

We have to talk about the current conditions.

Our organization is facing deferred repairs replacement, what we commonly call deferred maintenance for our capital infrastructure.

Our organization is facing deferred repairs or replacement, what we commonly call deferred maintenance for our capital infrastructure, and this need continues to grow.

We now have an excess of $550 million across our public housing portfolio.

At the current rate that HUD funds us for our capital fund program, and again adjusting this for inflation, it would take us $154 years to address the deferred maintenance.

So the funding we get today would take us $154 years to address what we have today.

That doesn't include what may happen tomorrow, because these systems continue to age and wear and tear happens.

This organization is also losing approximately $1.4 million each month in its public housing portfolio.

And again, this is due to federal underfunding and the rising operating and maintenance costs.

So San Antonio is one of the largest last US cities in Texas that has not repositioned its public housing portfolio.

This has already happened in Austin, Dallas, Arlington, El Paso, and Houston.

We are the last ones that have not started this conversion process.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

In this case, it's a chart.

Again, we want to make sure that it's clear what our deferred replay repairs and replacements look like.

And so this is broken down by city council district.

As you can see, our district one and district five have the largest capital needs.

And this is just public housing and represents approximately 5,800 units.

To look down the road at 30 years, where we'll be with our public housing section 9 projected deficit, as you can see, year 2025 where we're at today, our revenue is $43 million, our expenses are $60 million.

So we're running an annual deficit of about $16 million.

We've been fortunate that we're able to use our moving to work dollars and flexibility to cover that deficit.

However, we were just notified that under this last appropriations act that was just passed, they're going to offset our funding and uh place a place it on us to use the reserves for our general operating purposes.

As you can see, based on this chart, with an expected growth rate of 2% and an expense inflation rate of 3%, within 10 years, we will be at a negative 50% of our operating margin.

By 2055, we'll be at 86%.

We did run this same scenario with what would be worst case scenario, and in that in that scenario, we have revenue growing at 1% and inflation growing at 4%.

In this worst case, we are at the 50% operating margin in three years, which is 2028, and we are at 100% underwater negative in eight years.

So we want to talk a little bit about what you've heard and what's out, what what's being discussed around the types of rental assistance, what happens when you move from Section 8 public housing subsidy to um or from a Section 9 public housing subsidy to a Section 8 rental subsidy.

So the first concern is that rent is going to be more than 30% of someone's adjusted income.

Rent is going to be 30% of the adjusted income for both for once the conversion to Section 8 happens.

The initial income eligibility eligibility.

What we've heard is that families are concerned that they're not going to qualify.

Currently, the program says you must earn less than 80% of the AMI, and the background criteria is set by opportunity home.

Within the Section 8 rental subsidy conversion, it will still remain less than 80% AMI, and a background criteria is still set by opportunity home.

There's a concern around tenant protections, specifically around relocation assistance and the right to return.

Those things are in place as well.

There's continued relocation assistance and the right to return.

There's a concern around resident councils or associations and tenant participation funds.

Those continue under Section 8 rental subsidy.

Notices and grievance processes.

Notices will be continue to be given, and there is a grievance process under Section 8.

And then the publicly owned, controlled, and long-term affordability.

In the case of the Section 8 rental subsidy, our intent is to these will remain owned by the housing authority.

We are intending to ensure that there are restrictive covenants put on the land, such as a land lease that keeps the land affordable.

And then the long-term affordability is guaranteed through a HUD contract that renews in perpetuity.

So I do want to show a sample of what a public housing conversion could look like.

And we're using Marie McGuire as it is one of the four that we have listed in anticipation of starting the process with.

And as you can see, what is highlighted in yellow is the tenants' portion of funds.

And so this would be 30% of their adjusted income.

Again, it's just a sample.

So in this scenario, the resident is paying 278 dollars towards their rent.

And this would be someone who earns about 11 to 12,000 per year.

What we receive in operating fund from HUD is 276 dollars, and then what we receive in capital fund is 212.

Once it is moved over with a 90 90 10, which is again one of the methods that we're able to convert this community, we would see the rents shift over to what would mirror a market rate rent.

And what HUD is going to be paying us in the operating subsidy becomes $1,200.

And as you can see, what the tenant is going to be paying continues to be $30 or at $278.

So there's no change to what the tenant is paying.

It is the operating subsidy that we receive from HUD that changes.

So going back over to the plan, where we're at today, we're working on those objectives and making sure that they're actionable and that we can measure them and track them.

We want to make sure that we have the resources in place, including technology, training, funding.

And then we want to make sure as we move forward that we have performance management and evaluation pieces in place.

Again, that's ensuring that we have the right metrics and performance indicators.

We want to make sure that we create a public-facing dashboard, something that is accessible, much the same way the citieship plan has been created, and then that we have quarterly monitoring and annual evaluation.

There was a question around how this is different from the MTW plan.

So our strategic plan again is a long tenure vision for the organization.

The MTW plan is an annual submission.

So this outlines our proposed activities and various operating plans, and we have to submit this every year to HUD by April 15th.

We have as MT as an MTW organization, moving to work organization, we're allowed to propose waivers to our regulatory to our to our regulatory waiver.

We can ask for regulatory waivers as long as it fits one of three criteria.

It provides cost efficiency or effectiveness, it increases housing choice, or it promotes self-sufficiency.

There are additional plans submitted under the MTW.

In addition to what we submit as MTW, we also submit the administrative and continued occupancy plan, which is our public housing plan, the administrative plan, which is our section eight, the family self-sufficiency plan, an asset management plan, and a capital plan.

And these all go together as a package.

So with that, thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

I appreciate it.

And earlier I did see one of our opportunity home board members, uh Kayla Moran, I'm not sure if she's still here.

I just wanted to give her a shout-out for being here today.

Um then also uh clerk, we do have a letter here from Unite here local 23.

I just want to make sure that was in the record as well.

So uh thank you all for coming here today and documenting this and sharing your ideas.

Um, as was noted earlier, uh, just to lay it flat, right?

PCDC is not going to vote on this or approve or deny this.

Uh, neither will city council.

Uh, however, we are partners, right?

And I appreciate y'all coming here, and I think part of that partnership is conveying uh some concerns that some of us might have and have a good dialogue with that.

That's what we are.

We're ship partners.

Um we you know have you all on the housing commission as a partner.

Uh and as was noted in this article from Express News just a couple days ago, you all were the largest recipient of our housing bond funds, right?

Uh, that goes a long way up to about um 16.7 million.

Uh so it's very good for you all to be here and share your ideas with this and what's going on, especially not just here, but at the federal level also.

So I appreciate that.

Uh so we will begin discussion.

We will start off with uh Councilwoman Castillo.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh this weekend I had an opportunity to visit with local electeds all throughout the United States in Seattle.

Uh and it was a housing conversation primarily about RAD and the ways in which cities like Baltimore, Atlanta, uh so on and so forth, have seen uh the negative consequences in terms of RAD conversion.

Uh, while the intent is to subsidize similarly like the example that Alejandra gave with the public education system, is to help with those deferred costs.

And I'm looking at slide number 10, right?

222 million uh need.

District 5 accounts for the majority of our city's public housing stock, and that's why I'm grateful that you all have received the most funding in terms of the 2022 bond, an amendment that was put forth by Kayla Miranda to open up opportunity for opportunity home to qualify uh for that funding.

Furthermore, we've worked with our federal delegation, like Congressman Greg Cassad and Tony Gonzalez, to earmark funding to support opportunity home within our district.

And I'm grateful that with the leadership with Mayor Ron Nyanberg, we earmarked one million dollars to assist the Gasciano homes with their windows because we know that public housing in particular is our city's most affordable housing.

And as you mentioned in your presentation, as folks mentioned in public comment, that's what makes the city of San Antonio stable, right?

Public housing provides stability to the city of San Antonio's overall ecosystem.

And I'm grateful that y'all are here presenting to share your shared commitment with moving the strategic housing implementation plan forward.

With that being said, a couple of constituents did bring areas of concern in terms of some of the lease agreement changes that you are proposing.

I'm pleased to see that y'all have removed the stipulation on recording, because I believe that would violate Texas law, right?

That we are one consent party state.

I'm so rat glad rather that that is no longer being considered.

I did have a question, and I know you all have shared with staff y'all's response in terms of the door-to-door outreach.

Um our team's working on a way to prohibit solicitation in our community because we know that that's something that many residents are concerned about.

Uh but what we're hearing from residents and tenants is that there's concern with the language, and it may prohibit and deter folks from community organizing.

So can you share one again, reiterate rather, your intent with that provision with prohibiting uh community from doing door-to-door outreach without the authorization of property management?

Um yes.

So as noted, one of the things, so the reason some of our lease revisions came into place were were raised by tenants.

And in this case, you're absolutely correct.

It is a lease provision, so it's for tenant to tenant, and and what we're looking at is not prohibiting any kind of uh information sharing, any kind of organizing.

We absolutely support our resident councils and our communities organizate organizing and working with management.

What we're what we want to ensure, and what we've seen in the past is that we do have um third-party uh for-profit entities, and and everyone is allowed onto our communities, but what we ask, and this is part of our current policy, just again externally for everyone, is that you go to the community management office, alert them that you're on property, and depending on what it is, especially if we know it's a predatory type situation, right?

Then we don't allow them to be on property.

What we've seen happen is that they just go directly to a tenant and use the tenant to get them onto the property.

Um, where you know, instead of going through management because they know they're not going to be allowed.

So definitely this is not a situation where we are looking to prohibit anyone, we would not limit access to neighborhood service providers, community advocates, or nonprofits.

Um, then again, the policies towards that have not changed.

Uh, we continue to welcome them in collaboration with property management.

It's simply a way to protect tenants from feeling harassed by other tenants who are bringing in people that should be checking in with the property management office.

And then can you help me understand how that would not violate a tenant's right to organize as written?

So they can so well, let me say, let me kick it over to our operating officer.

Sure.

In reality, as as we said, the intent was really to help uh maintain everything for our for our families and and keep them uh as safe as possible because we've had tenants complaining.

The the reality is is we we want to work with all of our families and all of our our uh individuals who would like to uh coordinate and and collaborate with other tenants.

All we're asking is simply come talk to us so we know what's happening.

Only because we will have other residents and other tenants who will come back and complain to us saying they're going door to door and they're knocking on my door, they're asking me to sign something, they're asking me to do this, and they don't want to do that, but they also don't want to say no.

So if we're aware of it, we can help guide anyone that's coming on or any other tenants that are trying to create some type of coordination collaboration among residents.

And what are some examples of things that are um being asked to be signed?

Is are they petitions or petitions?

And it's usually petitions because they're upset with a manager, or there's petitions because they're upset with one uh a maintenance, very specific maintenance item.

And you know, those those items are being addressed.

We have processes in place to handle all of our maintenance work orders and and and they can be handled.

So those are examples of why we put it specifically in the lease so that if there is a tenant trying to do this, we can come back and talk to them and say, you know, you need to work with us, or you you need to uh uh really be mindful of the peaceful enjoyment of your neighbors.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I think right there's my concern with the the lease uh change, right?

Uh our uh team in particular, we ran this language past the city attorney's office, and our understanding is as written, our own office would uh be encouraged not to do door-to-door outreach.

And I think uh that that language as written, right, can scare uh tenants from checking in on one another uh and or you know uh organizing, which they're allowed to by law.

They are um so I I think again, right?

I want to highlight the the concern that that provision within the lease presents.

Um but I did want to ask another area of clarification uh that was mentioned in terms of how incomes calculated uh with section eight uh holders.

Okay.

So the section eight household income calculation has a broader definition.

Um for example, it includes tenants who may have a student loan and it calculates that student loan total within their income.

Whereas public housing does not take that student loan into account.

Is that correct?

Um you're gonna pull me so far in the weeds that I'm not exactly sure, so I I'd hate to say yes or no at this point, but the overall uh intent is is 30 percent of a household's income is what really is going to be applied towards their their portion of rent.

Is there someone on the team that can answer that question with certainty?

Uh we're not here today unless I recall that.

Okay, yeah, I think it's important to have clarification on that question because as presented, right?

Um that there's the argument that I heard, or the statement rather, is that they're calculated similarly, however, based off of HUD, they are not calculated similar.

So I just want to be sure that we're being presented the correct information.

We we can get that specific information.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Sure.

Uh, as I started right this weekend uh in Seattle with elecids all throughout the United States, what they're now running into is they have um converted their properties through RAD.

However, they're finding that those uh vouchers aren't being used to be reinvested into the property.

So here we're presented uh that the properties would see investment based off of this new conversion structure, correct?

That's correct.

And so I want to uh help kind of clarify.

So nationwide, what we've seen is a lot of housing authorities have converted through RAD, but they've continued to use um PBVs, project-based vouchers.

Those vouchers are uh a subset of the housing choice voucher program, which is under section eight as well.

Our proposal and our plan is to convert to project-based rental assistance.

It's a PBRA contract, which is different, it's very different.

So it's not a voucher program.

So it within that same uh uh shift, we will be operating under the multifamily office of HUD and those guidelines, and those guidelines will require uh each property with the funding that comes in to create a reserve for replacement account, which is your your savings account for the continued operations on capital needs.

So all of that money will be reinvested.

So our plan is to be the the owner of the contract for the subsidies, to maintain the ownership of the land, and and to continue to manage and own the buildings uh as we're as we're uh uh doing today under the public housing model.

So a lot of what I've seen uh nationwide are uh private developers coming in and private management coming in and housing authorities are shifting that subsidy for those organizations to operate in that manner.

That is not our plan not our plan, nor is that our intent.

And then can you walk me through opportunity home's definition of conversion?

It's it's shifting, it's essentially shifting from the public housing funding model and shifting to what I just explained on the section eight side is a subset of the project-based rental assistance program.

So that funding model under a different uh HUD office.

So that would be the conversion of public housing to section eight?

Correct.

That would not be the preservation of public housing, correct?

Well, it in theory, so when when specifically, no.

But when you talk about preservation and of public housing, what we really rely on is the subsidy that's provided to the families so that they can live and continue living in an affordable housing property.

Speaking with several residents, myself over the past couple of weeks, we explained that their fear was that that was going away, that there was going to be no subsidy.

That is absolutely not the case.

The case is the tenant subsidies will remain in place so that they can still continue to live in our properties and still be provided with the subsidies that they're currently getting.

They won't have to worry uh about paying any more than 30% of their income.

Thank you for that.

And I wanted to pivot back to some of the lease changes.

I had an opportunity to read through the public comments uh summary report that you all have provided.

And I see that seven out of 49 are in favor of RAD, and 28 out of 49 oppose RAD.

And one of the comments from one of the individuals, they state they state that they don't call maintenance because one time they called to have their light bulb changed at one of the highest light bulbs in the stairway and they couldn't reach it.

So they put in the maintenance request and their billed over $30 to change it.

She goes on to state I cannot afford to pay that.

My bill with rent and other charges is way over due $5,000.

I cannot catch up with it.

I'm on dialysis and I have equipment and supplies.

My supplies needs to stay at a certain temperature in order for it to be usable.

Within the proposed changes, it requires, or rather, it prohibits tenants from making any minor maintenance changes without submitting in a formal request.

Would changing a light bulb be something that they have to continue to submit a formal request?

If if that is what is needed and that we can help them, I would I would say yes, but we also have uh hardship scenarios that we're happy to help those those households deal with.

Would it be considered a violation if they changed the light bulb without submitting the formal requests?

I wouldn't, no, not to that extent.

The biggest concern we've had, and and the reason we we talked about including this is as we mentioned before the age of our public housing units and the infrastructure, uh especially on the on the electrical systems, are very uh fragile, and we have a lot of a lot of issues throughout, and so we have residents who will come in and they will install something uh without authorization, and we have no idea what they've installed and will impact the overall uh electricity and electrical panel in those units, and we don't find out until something happens.

So, to prevent those types of items, we need to be aware of what's going on so that we can manage it.

A light bulb, not concerned with.

Okay, thank you for that.

And then in terms of the three properties that y'all are currently having conversations, or I believe uh at the last board meeting y'all talked about would be the first three projects to be converted through RAD.

Have you all engaged the current properties like the tenants?

How many meetings have y'all had?

Uh, what days were those meetings that y'all engage tenants?

I'll okay, well, let's explain it.

Good afternoon.

I'm Loring Drovlis, and I am the uh chief real estate and development officer for the housing authority.

Um, and to address your question, no, we have not, we've not begun because we have to first get approval to begin, and then we can start those meetings.

HUD requires that we have a total of five meetings throughout the process.

However, we know in our experience that it takes more than that, and we are committed to doing that.

And then with the three properties identified, how were those properties selected out of the public housing portfolio?

What were some of the metrics y'all took into consideration?

So, what we did, because you know our our portfolio is so huge, right?

6,000 units over 74 properties, 59 that are pure public housing.

Um, so what we tried to do is we worked with our consultant to look for not only those with the greatest need, uh, but also because we have not ever done this before, we want it to start small so we could find feel our way through, work through the system, work out any kinks to make sure that by the time we get to our legacy projects, you know, towards the end of the 10 years, we know how to do this and we can do it well.

And so we looked at those one that are in dire need of infrastructure improvement, whether it's uh mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and not just you know, windows or uh a roof, but something heavy that needed to be replacement.

We also looked on the other side of it of those who had had some capital improvements because of funding maybe that we got from HUD or from grants or from the bond money, and that could just need uh a little bit of a facelift where we could go in and uh modernize you know uh flooring and paint and fixtures, cabinets, bathroom, in order for us to bring it up to more modern standards and would just take a little bit of money to do.

But knowing that the boost in uh in rent, like the example that you saw with Maria McGuire, would go a long way for that property.

So that our goal is to not only make each property self-sustaining financially, but also for the agency, right?

Right now we don't have that.

Right now we are being asked all the time, why can't you fix it?

Why don't you fix it?

You get money from HUD.

HUD does not provide us enough money to do that, and when we talk about capital improvements, it's not windows, it's not simple, you know, paving or roofing.

We're talking again, MEP, right?

Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC system.

I guess if we could get back to my question.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Um, I I I heard two things, so can you clarify what we did three properties?

You did both what so the three properties that were selected, were they based off of the highest need?

Um but I also heard that they were those that need like a facelift.

So can you clarify with the three properties that were selected?

Are those the properties with the highest need out of opportunity homes public housing portfolio?

We did both.

We did those who didn't need as much but could easily convert, and then we did we chose something that was small but needed some major repairs.

And then out of those three properties, how would you I can you share like for example the district seven property?

Uh was at the highest need, the least need can you share uh district seven was highest need.

Okay, can you give me the breakdown for all three?

Uh highest need in district seven, uh the ones in district one were the easiest to convert because they had uh just little uh fixes that were needed.

Okay, and then in terms of the application for those three properties, you all haven't begun the process because you all need to submit the application.

The application has not been uh submitted yet.

There's there are many steps before we can even submit an application.

Okay, and we're not there yet.

Okay, and then I believe you answered my last question in terms of these would uh they would be project-based vouchers, not necessarily project-based rental assistance, correct?

Right.

Okay, and then in terms of the partnership, uh, for clarification, uh opportunity home intends to maintain full ownership and not enter into a public-private partnership?

Correct.

Okay, and that is for those three properties or the entire public housing portfolio that we have to do.

Our goal is to retain ownership.

We have to take it out of HUD because they don't allow us to put debt on the property, so we remove it from HUD, we retain ownership, and then we're able to go get a mortgage on the property to make the the improvements that are needed.

Okay, thank you, Lorene.

You're welcome.

And then um you all may have answered this question.

Uh has HUD approved the financing plan by issuing a RAD conversion commitment.

This has not been submitted, correct?

Correct, not yet.

Okay.

And then one of the steps for that application to be submitted would require a letter of support from the city of San Antonio, or who there's a letter of support that's needed.

Can you walk me through who that would need to be from?

The letter support.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?

Yes, uh, in order to submit the application for rad conversion to HUD, it requires several letters.

Can you walk me through who would need to submit letters uh in support of the RAD conversions?

So we would first um go through the process of our meetings, and then it would require a letter of support from the uh resident advisory board, which we have in place, uh, if there's a resident council or just the residents within that development, as well as support from the city from the mayor.

Okay, thank you for that.

And uh that last component that you laid out, right, from the residence council and from residents, uh, the lease change to essentially preempt community from engaging in conversation andor petitioning uh seems preemptive, right?

And I think again, going back to that's very concerning uh in terms of the lease change that's being recommended by Opportunity Home.

Thank you, Lori.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Um, do any of my other council colleagues have some comments we'd like to councilman Gulvon?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation, and thank you to Michael, Hector, and Teresa for meeting with me last week.

Um talking more about this in detail.

I know I have a bunch of different questions related to RAD.

And I still, you know, I'm a bit apprehensive about the whole conversion given the fact that it's something that I think is just uh puts our public housing at risk, um, but understandable in terms of uh what's federally happening at the moment and has been happening for decades upon decades upon decades.

Um but I'm hopeful with this conversation, right?

The one that we're having today and any other conversation in the future that we're able to really go through this kind of uh effective dialogue and hopefully set our expectations here from the city, given you are the city's housing authority.

Um you serve the residents that we also serve, and so making sure that we're on the same page about what things uh are needed there and how we can be the best partners and both uh effectively deliver on preserving our most affordable uh housing in the entire city is really crucial, and hopefully we'll hopefully happen through these conversations.

I think they will.

Um maybe a higher level, just wanted to make uh a couple questions with the plan to do to utilize RAD.

Um, how many units do you anticipate uh maintaining um as well as uh building new that's uh that's a good question?

Uh right now, um we're gonna we're gonna do one-for-one replacements, so we fully intend to keep the 6,000 units.

Uh but we also know that there are some properties that have underutilized acreage, or because of changes in zoning, we can actually build higher uh density.

So we're looking to increase the density within our public housing.

Okay.

And do you anticipate anything impacting that, whether it's local or economic reasons or any kind of funding needs?

Impacting it?

Correct.

Support.

We just need to make sure that as we move through each uh development project that we have the appropriate zoning and support of not only of the residents but our elected officials to do so.

Okay, and I guess I'm wondering, right, you know, as you get into the development of new units, or I'm sorry, preservation of some units, and you're looking for modernizing uh the amenities there or anything like that.

Do you anticipate any um any trade-offs of a unit for any kind of amenity, whether it's a park space or whether it's community space, so whatever it may be, do you anticipate that or is it fully disfocused?

Okay.

No, that's what I wanted to clear.

It can only get better.

Okay.

To be able to improve and because of the additional acreage that we have in some areas, we can improve the amenities.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's helpful because I think I just want to be clear on that, right?

I've some of the cities, right?

There's been some of those conversations where, well, you know, we can't make a spencil fully out yet, so we're gonna try to just do as many as we can versus the full thing.

And of course, that's some of the realities we have to deal with, but I want to just be clear on the intent of it, right?

It's to be clear is always to make sure that we're preserving them one for one.

I don't think we can afford to lose any more public housing units in our city.

Um yeah.

Um something I wanted to ask too was um would you look at so okay, sorry, let me back up for a second.

When you are looking to use um the project-based rental assistance, I heard the comments about um that those dollars are required to stay in reserve and be used for capital needs.

Would those dollars then be the primary uh source of maintenance funding, or would those be used as leverage to finance debt?

So you're talking about the uh rental assistance that'll be used for, right?

So whether it's PBV or PBRA.

Correct, right?

Yeah, what's the what's the source that you're using to actually use the maintenance?

Is it those dollars, or is it leveraging debt to then?

That and out for operations, whatever comes in through operations, that's how we'll maintain the property.

But we'll actually have additional funds.

You saw the chart that shows how much an additional rent will receive, and not from the resident themselves, but from the subsidy that provides us to put that reserve or create that reserve for capital improvements.

Right.

And so then that reserve would you use those dollars directly to fix the building, or would it be to leverage debt like the mortgage was mentioned earlier?

It would be to fix the building.

Okay.

And so then where would the mortgage conversation come in there?

Because I know that was something I was mentioned as well.

So um, you know, if we we're gonna redo a property uh right now, we could go, well, not right now.

But yeah, once we gain ownership of it, we can go to a financial institution and let them know what our plan is, show them the difference in the subsidy, because right now, even if public housing, even if HUD let us take out debt, the property couldn't sustain it.

There's not enough funding that comes in to even operate the property, much less handle any debt.

Right.

So we would show them how the increase in the subsidy because of the contract we're receiving from uh through PBRA or PBV is gonna increase the subsidy so much that that the operations of the property now can support that.

I see.

Okay.

In some of the cities um and counties, I've seen uh different models.

I know we talked about them briefly um with Michael and Teresa and Hector, we talked a bit about Montgomery, Maryland, talked about Atlanta, talk about Seattle and other different uh cities are looking at ways to continue to preserve public housing, um, although through a diff uh infusion of RAD dollars, um still finding ways to make sure that they're maintaining uh the debt structure within public housing sources that way there isn't any kind of risk of the market impacting them and therefore potentially losing the unit, whether it's because of some kind of economic downturn or financial crisis, um, that the the collateral being the public housing uh is that taken away or off the off public housing uh completely.

So I wanted to ask, I guess uh what has there been any conversation and those longer term conversations, right?

But given the strategic plan, thinking about um have you looked at uh or would you consider refinancing these loans um is it taken out into a larger public subsidy or into a larger public uh portfolio?

I don't think I understand your question.

Just uh so some of the other cities have been given different kind of public funding, usually local sources to maintain um to do kind of larger redevelopments and with those public sources they're able to maintain them without having to go into the private market.

Would you ever consider using something like that to then bring them back in?

Absolutely.

If if uh there is an opportunity for us, like we're looking at a big what if I'm also aware of that.

Yes.

We're looking at one downtown.

Uh the one we showed you, Marie McGuire are really Hermosa, which is also downtown, District One.

Um we've got uh capital funds, we have a couple of grants.

Um, and then if we're able to utilize uh any uh internal dollars, whether it's real from real estate or from MTW, then we very well could make all of those improvements.

Right.

Uh without having to go get a mortgage.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um yeah, I think it's helpful these conversations, right?

That if there are, and again, I know it's a big what if, but I think as we're seeing other cities look at it, um, trying to see what those could look like here in San Antonio would be helpful, and then what of course relationship you would need and partnership you would need with us.

Um I think that would be the ultimate source, right?

If we're looking for local sources, hello, here we are.

Um but also we gotta make sure that we are making those available to you all and understanding um what those priorities are would be helpful in the next housing bond conversation.

Um anyway, I'll leave those there.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome.

Um last couple quick questions.

Uh well, one last one on uh on rad.

Uh really related to the relocation plants.

I know that since you haven't submitted the application, you still don't have those particularly detailed out, but you do have to abide by um certain HUD rules that relate to relocation public housing and rad conversions.

I noticed on page 92 of the moving to work plan.

Um it mentioned the requirements and making sure that they're still aligned with RAD conversions uh and the HUD uh requirements there, but it does also mention that uh opportunity home is not required to have a written relocation plan for temporary relocation lasting one year or less.

Given the fact that of course maybe the maintenance will be a lot longer than that or the redevelopment to be a lot longer, would you consider doing relocate or written relocation plans?

We and that's our plan.

Okay.

Well, HUD doesn't require it, we do.

Okay.

Uh we have to have a plan in place.

We will assess the area, we will talk to the residents and make sure that um one, they want to stay in the area.

If there's an opportunity for them to move closer to family, we would provide that opportunity.

Got it.

Okay.

And I think those really helpful, right?

Understanding the or make being uh sorry, making that available to residents, having the written uh relocation plan will be make sure that they feel that there's a lot of trust there, that they can make sure that they're gonna be able to come back if they would like to uh once the improvements are made.

I think it's been one of the biggest, well, yeah, one of the biggest issues in other cities, and I know y'all are looking at this as well, um, about the issue of people being able to return on site once it's all done.

Um of course that's all for any relocation, any redevelopment, right?

That always happens, but trying to make sure that we're able to keep that um that commitment um is what's really crucial to me.

No, and one other thing to note is and I heard it earlier, was the cost to move.

Right.

And so HUD only requires that we move them one time.

We don't.

Our commitment is to move them if they have to be rule relocated off site for the redevelopment or the rehabilitation.

We move them, we pay for that move, and then when they're ready to come back, if they choose to come back, then we will move them back to the property.

We'll pay for that.

Got it.

Okay, that's helpful to know.

Thank you.

Last couple quick things on um the the revision to the leases.

Um I share a lot of the concerns that Council Recast Steel raised related to the soliciting portion as well as uh well, that's one of the main ones.

I just want to make sure I heard it correctly, right?

We're focusing primarily on commercial soliciting, for profit soliciting, and I heard a lot of internal tenant to tenant.

Does that mean uh external soliciting is not affected by this?

This change?

Any external door knocking, any external flyering.

I'm sorry, could you I'm sorry, Jose Moscow again, chief operators.

What was the question again?

The question just around these revisions to the public housing lease um in regards to soliciting or solicitation.

Um would that I heard that earlier there was only internal from tenant to tenant.

Um that means external folks are still able to come on site, and I asked that because I'm thinking about folks like NHSD from our city or thinking about ready to work, would they still be able to come on site without they they will still be able to come on site?

All we ask is that we have some level of of communication with our management office just so that we're aware and that it's it's not some predatory uh type of business that's coming on and taking advantage because I've seen that happen as well.

Yeah, and what what would be the concept that they didn't?

I'm sorry.

What would be the repercussion if they didn't?

If the outside um the uh the outside person or outside group didn't go to the maintenance or go to the property management office.

Well, it just depends.

I mean, um if we find out who they are or if they if we have complaints from other residents, then we would probably call them and address it and ask them not to do it again.

I see.

Um I mean you could take it all the way down to um having some type of legal document in place, but that there's a lot of steps that would happen before that.

I see.

Because I guess one thing that I think is uh one thing I want to mention about this one is that um when it comes to um folks who are even doing petitioning or doing voter engagement efforts or who are doing uh information sharing about um upcoming elections, et cetera.

My understanding is that those are protected by the First Amendment right, given the fact that they're the right to assemble, freedom of speech, etc.

Is that what do you find any uh any way that that would be impacting that at all?

Given the fact primarily in the ones that are in um housing that are not gated.

Right.

They that would be a difficult piece to manage.

So we're mostly concerned a lot with this scenario a lot with our our elderly in the high-rise buildings because those are secured buildings.

Right.

And if they're getting in without uh any permission or any access, that's an issue.

So that's why we ask, communicate with our office, we'll coordinate meetings if there's some type of sound.

Yeah, and I think that makes sense, right?

Given the fact that they're gated, they're uh secured, as you mentioned.

For those that are not, would this still apply to them?

This new rule.

It would technically apply, obviously, would much be much more difficult to enforce.

Um again that would be something that's not impacting the tenant because this is a tenant lease situation.

So it would be outside uh of the tenant lease that we would be trying to deal with this if we receive complaints from residents.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Um I guess it's it's still a little worrying about the too broad of language to be for places that aren't uh secured.

Uh I think it's a good to your point difficult to manage that.

Um so I just worry about you know, in the event that um someone like the legal women voters goes out there and they're doing door knocking, etc.

I'm sure the uh conversation would be a bit different uh when that happens.

Um but I don't want there to be a discouragement uh from nonpartisan civic engagement organizations to go on site and try to do voter registration or try to do voter engagement, uh or frankly, even partisan ones, given the fact that it's the right, I think, of candidates um and uh parties to go on site to public streets and go up to people's homes and to be able to talk to them if they want to.

Of course, if they don't, different issue where folks do have the right to push them away and send them off.

Um but I I worry about the the message it stands of that if it happens once or twice and someone gets a note of it, whether it's on from the organization who's impacted and tells their their boss, they say, okay, well, we're not gonna have anyone go to Castellon anymore or do it circle anymore.

Uh so I think that's my hesitation with some of these, or why worry, not hesitation, my worry with this one.

And rightfully so, but I think uh bottom line, as as an organization, you know, it's our responsibility to help maintain that peaceful enjoyment for the for the households, and that's our main.

I mean, if if something like that occurs and residents don't complain about it, we probably won't even know about it.

Fair enough, right?

Uh until we know about it because there's a security issue or there's a situation that occurs.

Yeah.

Uh but in reality, that wouldn't be something that we would be discouraging.

Okay.

We just want to enhance the peaceful enjoyment and we want to support our residents in any way.

And we have seen where residents come to our office and say, we, you know, is there any way we could support uh this candidate or have some type of an event uh on property and you know we work with those families.

I see.

Okay.

Well, I mean, that's helpful to know.

I think uh there's still hesitation in terms of the language itself written down within the actual plan.

Um and so I think if any of that can be updated, that I'd appreciate it.

But I appreciate giving the intent out here publicly.

Um and those are all my questions for now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh Councilwoman Corps.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, thank you all so much for the presentation and for um all the education that I got on this program last week, too.

Councilmember Mungia and I actually went to uh a conversation at the bipartisan policy center that had a housing group, and they were talking to us about housing policy, and it was super informative to better understand different avenues that we have to support our um most vulnerable populations, which I think it's the goal.

So I think we all have the same goal, but there is a concern about the way that we're getting there, and I think that's a valid concern that we need to address.

Um quite transparently, I say this to public works all the time.

So, you know, it's it's it's like similar people have a perception that we we are trying to sell off public housing, which is the definition of what this work is, right?

And so it is our job to go over and beyond to listen to what their concerns are and make sure we are not um unintentionally creating more misconception that doesn't need to exist, right?

So, like telling people they can't go door knocking without getting permission is uh a simple change that if you guys just decided to tomorrow, we're gonna waive that.

Everybody door knock away.

I think you will get more support than opposition from folks that are like we don't if you don't want to answer the door, you don't answer the door.

It's what we all always do, like you know, when you go up and you have someone knock on the door, I don't feel like getting up out of bed.

They don't don't go door knocking on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m.

No one's gonna answer, right?

So I mean that's a like all in my home, people come door knock and sell everything every day.

I understand predatory um like those folks that come try to sell you solar panels when you really shouldn't be purchasing those solar panels.

Um that is a challenge.

But uh, and sorry if anybody is here that supports that work, but we it is also our job as community leaders to go out and educate our residents to make sure they're not falling into predatory traps and not our job to censor.

And I think what people are hearing from that policy specific is like an attempt to censor, which is not the to your point, and what council members said is not the intent.

So let's just change it, right?

Let's think about the problems that are coming up, and let's just change the policy so it doesn't make it seem in a way that it's not intending to.

Um that being said, I learned a lot about I understand the deferred maintenance.

The number one call that we get for our residents that live in OH properties is about maintenance, right?

We get calls all the time about it.

Um we have from Victoria Plaza, Blanco apartments, Villa Transit, trench, I can never say this right, trincazy.

Um, and Parkview apartments all have major deferred maintenance issues, and we get calls about them all the time.

And so I understand the opportunity here, no pun intended, opportunity.

But at the same time, I did look up some of the challenges, and councilwoman was mentioning some of them.

And I just like to see like what have it also be important for you guys to discuss, I think openly, what are the challenges that we know that other cities like have incurred and how are we mitigating those risks to make sure that we don't do it again?

So rather than framing this as the oh, we're the last city to adopt, maybe we could frame it as we've learned so much because we are the last city to adopt, and these are the things that we're not gonna do.

So one of the things that I learned is the a lot of the other people have sold it to like they um the ownership and the management goes to private uh for-profit entities, which I'm hearing you guys are not gonna do.

But that brings up another challenge, which is internal asset management, right?

What are you guys?

What is the plan to address that challenge of making sure you have enough capacity in-house to internally manage?

So, like I I think sharing that would be an important understanding.

Another one that um I read about was construction.

No one in the city is great at construction, and so like when you are constructing for too long, to your point over a year, you can cause permanent displacement of a person, right?

If you kick some, not kicked, if you've relocated someone else to another spot, they may never choose to come back to their family home, like we heard from that one student who spent her whole life there.

And so I think it's important that we think about okay, what are we gonna do to make sure that as a public entity managing construction that we don't take too long?

And the reverse of that that I also read was not putting enough money in reserves to actually redo, right?

So the idea that one of the properties was chosen because it needs has high need and the other two have low needs, but we should still be using some of those operational dollars that we're getting should go back to those properties rather than going to offset another one, right?

We should be able to reinvest that in some way to increase the quality of life for the residents there.

And so um, one of the strategies that I read about was having a dashboard.

I know I feel like every community meeting I talk about a dashboard, but an accountability dashboard.

One of our other council colleagues mentioned a large challenge is also accountability.

How are we showing that we're gonna hold ourselves accountable to keeping this at a very at the at the same the same type of rental assistance as was there before?

And so I think if you had a dashboard that you showed, this is what we're gonna track.

We're gonna track how much, how many dollars have gone into each property after the like once we converted?

What is the actual each of the main, like do an audit of deferred maintenance at the downtown property, and this is what this is how far we have gotten on that, so that people can see, okay, this is how we've made progress.

Um if we're I know there was a talk about choosing a nonprofit partner, show let's show a matrix of what are we going to consider for when we're deciding a nonprofit partner.

We've built up some capacity with the community land trust policy for nonprofit partners that could support this, but what are we looking at across the country?

If someone wants to come in, do we know if they're a real nonprofit?

It's not that hard to create a 501c3 as an offshoot of a development firm.

Um so how do we what's the matrix that you're gonna look at to make sure the partner selection is really solid?

So I think as if and cut and I understand this is an initial conversation, you guys haven't voted on it yet, but sometimes the more you can show of like things that you're going to do helps build trust.

And I think right now, as you see, there's no there's not a lot of trust.

And so there's, I think we've got to, I think you guys has have to do more on that.

And the last thing I'll end with is Councilman Via Gran had mentioned an advisory board of sorts.

So I understand, and y'all didn't really talk about the board structure, but they're essentially the opportunity home board remains the board of these properties.

And so, what does it look like in terms of city council um opportunity home collaboration for an advisory board?

And if that advisory board could be uh responsible for doing an accountability audit every year or reporting out to us or some type of partnership so that we feel like we stay engaged, because the other thing that we shared is like us reading about uh pro a public housing spot in my district going um rad online is not the best way for us to be informed about some of this stuff because it causes initial like um initial frustration and distrust right off the bat, even if it's the only thing possible.

Um I ranted for a very long time and didn't ask very questions, but um I just think at like the last thing the last last thing I'll say is knowing the nitty-gritty of things like hey, is someone's student loan going to affect their income will also be important because then we can truly see all right, this is truly not going to kick people out if they're less than 80% AMI, they're gonna be able to pay 278 dollars.

If we could have the evidence to back that up, I think there'd be a little bit more support and um because we understand HUD's not getting another billion dollars to give to you all, but let's make sure that we are building up the right team, the right supports to keep our most vulnerable vulnerable populations safe.

Okay, that's all I have.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Corps.

I think you just assigned yourself to a new committee.

So congratulations.

Uh Councilwoman Evil, uh Messagonzales.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um just a couple of uh questions on slide seven.

It looks like you've got about A and D, you've got about 8,500 homes that are mostly in the preservation space.

So uh do you have a clear strategy on modernizing for the modernization piece?

You have a clear strategy on not to displace those residents, and can you share that or is that part of the plan to be uh voted on?

So as we were discussing, uh we would create for every project, no matter how big or how small, if we have to relocate residents off site for whatever reason, for whatever time frame they could be two weeks to a year, we would always create a uh relocation plan and be able to discuss it with them and plan it with them so that they're fully aware of of how it works and where they would go and um if they were in need of something that we could make sure that we address those kinds of things.

Is that codified somewhere?

Or is that just your that's it's gonna be for every project that we do.

But how is that it's in a an actual physical plan?

Okay, and the board votes on it okay.

Um and then as on slide eight, uh on D.

You guys are essentially creating a nonprofit arm within is that what that's saying?

Am I reading that right?

No, where is that?

No, I'm sorry, slide eight.

Or my slide.

I think it's oh my bad.

No, no, seven, slide seven on D.

Is that um nonprofit within opportunity?

That is correct.

So we do have a 501c3.

Formerly it was known as the Education Investment Foundation or the EIF.

Um, it uh during COVID went into disuse, and we are wanting to revive it and start um the philanthropic efforts again.

So we have uh submitted for uh the renewal of that 501c3.

And um, yes, and the idea behind it is that it will be used to support all of the resident services and all of the um resident uh things that we have that we don't have funding for.

In in years prior, we've used this funding for education for scholarships, um, for uh work supports, clothing, you you um bus passes, things like that.

And um, I guess at the peak when you did have it, how what was uh how much money did y'all have in there?

Were you raising?

Oh goodness.

Um, I believe in years prior, it was about 120,000 per year that we were raising.

Um so it was it was subscribed was good.

Yeah, and the scholarships are for the scholarships were we so we had um scholarships for perfect attendance and A V honoral for our elementary and junior high and high school students, and um then we also had uh students going on to college, so first time students going into college would receive a scholarship that was renewable as well.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and obviously, you know, you are a ship partner, but uh just want to make sure.

Can you confirm that opportunity home um would not be reducing the amount of units uh public housing units or 30% AMI units as part of this overall um conversion plan?

Yes, I can confirm we are not reducing the number of affordable units at 30% AMI.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and then quickly on and maybe you can do this offline, but just wanted some more background.

I know the Woodhill uh project, um, which I believe is in district eight uh as part of your draft um MTW plan.

Are you familiar with the Woodhill project?

Yes.

If you can just this is first time learning about it, so um, if you can, I think that's in district eight if I'm not wrong.

So if you can, I think that's in district eight if I'm not wrong.

Yeah.

That's correct.

And and if if you can share more on that project or it's something you do offline, up to you.

Um specifically, what are you what do you think how is it in the MTW plan?

How did it make it make its way there?

In the MTW plan.

Oh sorry about that.

So we have a group of non-public housing properties uh that we oversee uh and own and manage.

Woodhill happens to be one of those, one of the largest, it's 532 units.

Uh as part of the MTW plan, we're we're planning on using uh some of our MTW funds to do some work at that site.

Okay.

So that's that's really how it works.

Yeah, I'll learn more offline.

Teresa's looking at me, so I can I know that look.

Uh and then uh my last question was oh, I lost it as I was talking.

Well, I I guess I'll say too, I think it's important that um you know, residents and and we've heard this for I mean years without in just on the fact that residents are telling us that are telling you, you know, we want more information, not aware of programs, um, more information education about opportunity home, um, and also making sure staff right is is prepared for that is so important because I mean that's what keeps the morale um going for uh so many of these housing units, and so I think that's just extremely important internally that you guys are doing.

Um we're uh last week I met with Crown Ridge Neighborhood, a neighborhood in District 8, um I-10 West, and um and maybe this is also something you can share with me at another time, but it was it's not a PFC project, but it's uh is it chapter 303?

Chapter 303?

392.

It says 392, it's an eight HFC.

Is that and just if there's other pro is it 392?

What is it?

Well, I'm just it's I'm um well, I want to learn more about what other projects you have online in district eight specifically, um, because residents in the area were not aware that this project was happening.

Um, and uh going to your point and trust and want to make sure that we continue that trust in the district, and so um I'd like to learn more about projects that are like that in the district.

So if someone can provide that list, I'd appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you, Councilman.

We will now go to round two of uh questions and comments.

Councilman Castile.

Thank you, Chair.

Um a couple of last questions.

I heard one thing, but I believe I read another, so I had my team bring me down my copy of the move to work plan.

Uh my understanding, and as I stated a couple of times, is that opportunity home intends to maintain ownership through these rad conversions.

How however, under section 21 uh point two B, uh section C, it states HUD may also allow ownership of the project to be transferred to a tax credit entity controlled by a for-profit entity to facilitate the use of tax credits for the project.

And then the section goes on.

Um, but I guess my my question and concern is with that session section codified within the move to work plan uh is our our expectation that that section is not going to be used under the section for ownership and control.

I'm gonna I'm gonna defer in a second, but but typically in any type of redevelopment plan, as we've mentioned before, every single plan is gonna be different.

And as we've mentioned, a few of the properties are gonna be completely and wholly owned by us.

But to acquire and and invest the amount of dollars for some of the larger projects down the road, we may need tax credit investors, but all of that would still be uh uh under control, and I'll I'll defer to our chief real estate officer on this a little bit more.

Would still have control through the the land lease, we'll still have control through any type of development and master development agreement that we we may put into place and and partnership agreements that we have uh uh for the for the partners as we do uh redevelop.

And so that's that's another uh discussion that every project is gonna have its unique challenges.

And then uh before the main answers, or maybe Lorraine, you can answer.

Can you just help me understand?

Maybe I'm blurring the two, right?

Um, so for example, with the move to work plan, this is specific for rad conversions uh with our public housing stock, correct?

Correct.

And then within the ownership and control notice, it does have section C, which I just read.

Um, but then I'm also hearing that there's going to be additional items added to the portfolio that may require private partnership.

Um, but that would be in addition to, correct?

Not the current stock.

Are you talking where are you talking about?

We're just saying further down the row.

We don't we don't know how we're gonna so our our intent is is fully to utilize tax credits where we can because tax credits come with also debt.

You can either do pure tax credits or you you couple them uh four percent tax credits with bonds, right?

So you get both a debt and equity provider.

They're in it to help provide funding for the project with our debt.

That's our construction loan, which then rolls into a permanent loan, right?

With the equity piece, this is important.

They'll provide equity because the tax credits we get from TDHCA, we sell it to somebody.

We sell it to a financial institution.

In the great days, they used to pay dollar for dollar at least, if not more.

Now we're probably getting about 84 cents per tax credit.

They want those tax credits to offset dollar for dollar on their tax obligation.

And so they stay in the deal for the first 15 years, which is a compliance period.

We write into the real estate documents that we have first right of refusal.

Our intent is when we're done with the 15-year compliance period, we now own the property, not that uh financial institution.

And it's for them as well.

They're in it for the tax credits and the losses that we'll experience within the first few years of stabilization.

Um once that happens, we now at year 15 we talked about our affordable housing communities.

That's what happens.

Year 15, we take them over, and now we fully uh own them wholly.

But you will see that there's a tax credit investor, and that's what it is, because if they give us 20 million dollars towards that project and equity, we don't repay it.

So it it offsets our debt so that the property carries less debt because we've used this equity towards the construction of the property.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

And then my last question, and if you could confirm if this is correct or not, uh this understanding, uh, which is HUD allows up to 5% reduction in units through RAD in addition to units that have been vacant for more than two years.

So, for example, if the total number of public housing units is about 6,000, then opportunity home is permitted to reduce units by 300, not including units that have been vacant for more than two years.

Is that uh correct or incorrect?

Yeah, and and that's not our intent.

Our intent is to do one-for-one replacement, 6,000 units, and that's why it's so important that we have to move now, because you may or may not know this, but once a unit goes offline, or even full buildings, because we have full buildings that have come offline, once they go past two years of being vacant because we haven't been able to uh rehab them and make them habitable, we lose the subsidy.

There's no more getting public housing that becomes fair cloth, right?

Fair cloth in San Antonio doesn't work because public housing pays so little.

And so for us, we feel it's urgent for us to move quickly, because in order for us to preserve those units, we've got to find a way to rehab and put them back into operation.

Okay, so uh for clarification, is that statement correct or incorrect?

You'll have one.

Yeah, can you read it again?

Yes.

So it is it is correct.

You're talking about the five percent reduction.

Yes, it is.

Uh uh, but the by the HUD regulations, you are allowed to reduce if there's a unit vacant at the time that you start converting or start the the application process, you are allowed to reduce.

It's not our intent.

It doesn't say you have to reduce, it says you may.

Our intent is to continue with the one for one.

And you know what they say the role to something's paved with.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

What was the full quote?

Uh Councilman Gilvan.

Thank you, Chair.

Really quick last two things.

Um, one of them was to say I wanted to share uh a bit what Councilman Corps was saying, talking a lot about the trust, right?

And this kind of work they were able to do together.

I think I started off commenting similarly about that as well, talking about like this is the opportunity to do that work.

Um, and I I want to say that again just because I I think about one of the first conversations I had with uh we're doing our budget and the new homeless services department was created, and I was really critical about a lot of it, but it comes from a place of a lot of support, right?

I want to make sure that opportunity home succeeds, I want to make sure that our home of services uh harm and succeeds, I want to make sure that these things succeed because they're so impactful to our community, right?

Everything is, but in particular, but having a safe place to live, having a quality place to live in, um, having an affordable place to live in here in our city is absolutely critical.

And so I want to just extend that.

That as much as we may dig into this, I know Council Ever Castillo, Council Record, myself, and everyone on this committee are committed to public housing and making sure that we are supporting you all every step of the way.

Let's just make sure we're getting to the details here and how we can better support you all as well.

And so we can get to that shared goal that we're looking for.

I mean, we're gonna have the conversation on the specific uh special housing supply task scores, and a lot of those things I'm seeing opportunity home due talking about senior housing, talking about youth uh or underserved youth, talking about veteran housing, people with disabilities.

Most often those folks live in public housing here in the city, and so it's not separate, that's all has to come together.

And so with that, I wanted to ask one last question that you can provide to us offline, and it's a list of capital needs for all the public housing uh properties, which I know you provided us the kind of big number, but kind of broken down by each property.

Um what those kind of needs are, just we can get a general understanding of it's you know the full structure, walls, et cetera.

Um, all those things as much as possible.

Um the number of units at each one, so we can also understand a little bit about that.

Uh at least I can understand that.

And then um what sources of funding you're looking at uh to address those needs, and what other ones could uh could we help identify as well?

That's it.

That's it.

Councilwoman court.

Thank you, real quick.

There was a couple of things that some of the speakers brought up that I just wanted to get clarification on because I don't know the answers to.

One of them was the repayment option.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Okay.

You're you're speaking of the repayment agreement.

Yeah, they said something about like we being able to repay over time.

Correct.

So most housing authorities across the nation to get into the details of operations, a repay agreement was specifically tied to uh a household whose income may have changed, let's say eight months before their annual recertification, but they didn't let the office know that their income increased.

So technically they would have had to pay more rent for the previous eight months.

That delta or that difference between what they were paying and what they should have been paying, uh uh and in most housing authorities, that becomes a repay agreement to pay that.

During COVID, uh the agency uh allowed repay agreements to go into place for those who uh didn't pay their rent at all for whatever COVID reasons there are uh or that they had at the time.

Those families have accrued a lot of uh receivables and and they've they owe a lot of money.

You'll hear some up to three thousand, up to five thousand dollars.

What this is doing is taking us back to the normal operations in the repay agreement.

Uh it will still be in place specifically for those situations where uh uh a rent calculation wasn't, or I'm sorry, an income wasn't um uh updated.

But if you have someone who's not paying rent or who has a hardship, that's gonna fall under a different portion of the policy.

So what we realized in this public comment period is we didn't explain that as well.

We have another portion of our policy that allows for families who are running into hardships to talk to the management office, say I run into some excess medical bills, or I run into this.

And how long is that?

I'm sorry.

How much uh support can someone get if they're in hardship?

Like how many months do you guys?

Well, it's gonna be on a case by case basis, and that's usually a plan that will work out.

But I wanted to what I wanted to add uh um add back to the to the uh the the repay agreement, all existing repay agreements that have are still uh in in in play right now or still active, those stay in place.

Okay.

We're not looking to cancel those or stop those.

I would urge you guys, since you're gonna be getting more money through the RAD process that you look at that hardship policy and try to put some more bones on it.

That way folks can see that they do have that opportunity, and rather than just saying, hey, we'll look at it on a case-by-case basis, maybe there is an actual policy that you can put together that shows folks, okay.

I can first several months out, get some support, work on a repayment plan, etc.

Right.

We we will have it in place, we have it in place now.

So that would like to be a good idea.

But you're just saying it's what you told me was it's a case by case basis, so I'm asking for the length of time.

Okay, right.

But I'm that's what I'm saying, put some structure on like at least a a little bit more clarity on what folks are getting, or at least show his historical what you have done.

The second thing is what about the mixed status families?

The one can can I take a step back on the repay agreement comment?

I wanted to add one more thing.

So I just want to make sure it's clear that um it it is in the lease, you know, that if a fa if a family or a household loses income, that they should notify the office and their rent will be adjusted accordingly.

So if somebody is not repaying their rent or not paying their rent and they haven't talked to the office because they lost their job, they should be doing that because then they can become a zero renter or or their their portion of rent will be adjusted.

So I want to make sure that that's very clear that that is still uh um in our policies and it as a uh an option as well.

Okay.

So just want to make sure that was out there as well.

Um and then the mixed status families.

Um that's a proposed rule by the federal government that's uh what is that?

We've heard about undocumented, correct.

So the mixed the mixed status rule is is one that the federal government has out there that uh would that apply to everything all of your units or just the all federally funded units, yeah, would be impacted by that rule.

Okay.

That is true.

Um so the last thing I'm gonna just reiterate my point again, right?

When we're at rather than saying our intent is not to, because intent doesn't necessarily mean we are committing not to.

I think if we changed our language to we are committing not to removing any public housing units, there would be more um we're committed to not removing any public housing units.

We're committed to working with every household and every every family in our units to make sure that whatever we do, uh that they get the best option in any type of temporary relocation, and that we maintain uh uh communication with them on an ongoing basis to make sure they know when it's time to come back or even what what the timeline looks like.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

I'll be uh as quick as possible.

I know we're approaching the third hour of this committee, which we're very happy to do.

Um so can you go to slide 10, please?

Do you have that?

Now I'm not used to being the same bucket as district nine, so can you explain to me why we are both zero dollars on this slide?

You there's no public housing in your district.

Good to know.

And I just wanna uh I figured that, but I wanted to bring that out because as you can see when you talk about districts one, two, three, five, and and even parts of seven, that's where all the public housing is in the city, it's a very specific part of town.

Uh and I want to add the context to what these folks are seeing, right?

Not necessarily opportunity home actions over the years.

Well, what people living there are seeing, um, and so is a very classic example, right?

Soap factory, we saw what happened there.

I just want to bring that up for to tie it into the relocation concern that I have too, is because when we were discussing that when the last council was discussing soap factory, there was a list, right?

We would they worked to Opportunity Hall and they said for folks that qualify, where can we put them?

There was a list of of units, some of those units available were in district four.

That complex no longer exists in district four.

And you know, somebody I know who has a friend that used to live there, they you know had to move to the medical center because of that closure.

So if you look at if somebody actually did take that unit from Soap Factory, they would have been at Soap Factory and they would have been in D4 uh for maybe a couple one or two years, and then they would have been somewhere else.

Uh and I think about what Alejandro said, right?

What if they had kids in that situation?

And so as somebody who had to relocate many times growing up, I lived in 11 different places in 20 years of my life.

Um we had to chase the low rents sometimes growing up.

And so luckily my mother was able to ensure that we were close to the school I was going to, or I that I could walk there, or that I could take a bus there through the schools program, right?

Not everybody's gonna have that situation.

And so I think when we talk about displacing folks, even if it's for the right reasons, right, even if it's for to make their living conditions as best as possible to give them the best quality of life, that is is a big fear for people, uh, especially if they have to move into an area they they no longer know, they don't know the bus routes there, they don't know the school there, uh they're maybe away from their family or the relatives, uh they may be away from councilman Castillo who they work with, you know.

So we have to be mindful of that.

I think that's where you get a lot of uh the angst about that.

And so, real quick, how many uh units are public housing compared to the rest of your inventory?

So we have six thousand public housing units and approximately twenty-five hundred affordable housing community units and five thousand affordable housing partnerships.

No, so oh, a four I'm sorry, it's five thousand affordable housing communities, how many I was gonna say that seems a little low.

Yeah, but either way, um public housing units represent the majority of your inventory.

Correct.

Yes, okay.

Another big issue why people might be worried, right?

If we're going to do some sort of conversion, that we would be changing the vast majority of your holdings, so to speak.

If you could uh make sure, I know it's a draft, but if you can put the district label on every property that you have there, that would be very helpful for us to to look at those things.

And for relocation, is there any prohibitions for assistance on relocation?

Is there anything that would prohibit a resident to to relocate, get help to relocate?

No, no, if they're part of an impacted community, they are automatically given relocation assistance.

Okay, even if they're a rental situation, if they're behind on payments or things of that nature.

Okay, so I noticed on there you the public comment, I guess closed on March 20th.

Uh, and so I don't think you had it on the draft, but do you have a summary of all the public comments?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

Will it be online?

That's yes, it will be um going to our board and should be included in the board packet that is um going to be released on April 1st.

Okay, gotcha.

And so, you know, uh Council McCorm's right.

We were there at a meeting in DC, and they you know reiterated to us that a lot of cities are going this way, and that's the federal government's goal, right?

Uh, and so with an administration that many of us are very weary of, um, what would you say is their goal in trying to make this conversion happen?

Yes.

Good afternoon, Michael Ray is president CEO of Opportunity Home.

Uh, it's a good question, Councilman.

I think this is something that's been happening since the mid-1990s.

So it started with the Clinton administration, endorsed by President Obama, really endorsed by President Biden.

So it's a bipartisan thing.

The government want to get out of public housing, and they want folks to move over to Section A because the funding to uh Terry uh councilwoman Castillo's point, they want to privatize this housing.

Uh as we've seen in other cases, our goal is we need to make sure this housing stays publicly owned, publicly managed our city needs it.

Um, as a former public housing resident myself, uh for generations of public housing family.

I understand the need that housing stability provided me an opportunity to become a homeowner to get educated and now serve this organization in a full circle to have been born into it, not to lead it.

I want our kids, we half of our 85,000 families are children.

They deserve an opportunity to live in stable housing.

So we would do everything in our power to make sure that stays um publicly owned and publicly uh managed.

And I knew a government question would get over time, so we're hoping to get you back at some point.

Um but thank you for that answer.

I think that that really illustrates what's going on, and I appreciate the uh commitment um to state that these will not be turned over, right?

We want to continue to manage them to be you know publicly owned.

Uh and I think Councilman Corps is right.

If you just if we continue to jointly reiterate that point, um if we continue to meet with each other and and understand what's happening again, not just with y'all, any partner out there, we cannot read about developments in our district in the newspaper.

We have to have that ahead of time uh for any of us.

Uh did you want to add something, Michael?

You know, thank you.

We had those conversations last week, and I thank uh uh councilman uh Gabon and Core and also uh via grand for joining us and in that conversation we talked about we need to make sure that the council districts are in lockstepped with what we're doing.

So we're in hand in hand uh in every step of the way.

So I think the advisory council, I think we walked away thinking maybe this is a working group, that way we have relevant staff uh in this, and we're in lockstep.

We know exactly what's happening, everyone's in agreement of what's moving forward.

You should not be hearing about what's happening in a newspaper or in a TV uh spot.

So we're committed to doing that.

Again, we need to do this together, and we need to make sure it's transparent.

Thank you.

And one last question on the lease, um, just because that's been brought up a lot.

You would not uh people could still campaign, right, to knock on doors for those properties, just in general, not for us, but in general, is that still is that allowable?

Is that allowable?

It's allowable.

Okay.

And I bring that up now for me, right?

Because councilwoman uh Maria Berriosaba made a a comment recently that when she was running for office, she um went to uh public housing unit and talked to none other than Lucia Adam McClark's mother, right?

And said if you want to win, you could organize here in the public housing units in the public housing community, and that was probably the first time those people had in that time, right?

Uh somebody running for office wanting to knock on the door and ask them a question, right?

So we just want to make sure that that freedom is there, not for any one of us, right, in particular, but if someone has a problem with management, then they're able to talk to other people about it, right?

Not go through management to get permission to complain against management.

Uh also have our districts distribute information, ANHSD is out there, right?

Ready to work is out there.

We make our departments block walks.

We want to make sure all of that's there.

So constant reiteration of that is helpful with us, and I know there's a long road ahead on this, a lot more to do, and we really appreciate your time being here today.

We appreciate your partnership as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we have one more item, item number three, uh, which is a briefing on the special housing supply task force report.

And I think we have our very own uh from one of our triachers, Veronica to present.

Great, thank you, Chair.

Veronica Garcia, director for the neighborhood and housing services department.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

So today it's a briefing.

Uh we came last month and did an overview of our initial findings.

We shared the final report with you last week, and so we'll be going over those final recommendations today.

Um, I was joined earlier by uh my fellow tri-chair Pete Alanis with the San Antonio Housing Trust, but he did have to step away for another meeting.

And then Mark Carmona, um, the director for our homeless services department was also served as a tri-chair, um, but he was out of the office today.

The um Mayor Jones back in August of last year requested that this committee create a task force specifically to generate initial recommendations to increase housing for four specific populations, specifically people with disabilities, particularly those with vision and hearing impairments, older adults, LGBTQ plus unhoused youth, and veterans who utilize housing vouchers.

Um, the task force um launched in September of last year, and we agreed to utilize our housing commission and a group, a working group that was specifically aimed at helping more people, um better access housing with a housing voucher that was our rental engagement and assistance to connect to housing or our reach initiative.

So many thanks to our commissioners and committee members for helping us have important conversations with their effort with their help.

The uh special housing supply work involves several approaches to collect information that formed the initial findings and recommendations.

We engaged um had panel discussions with housing commissioners in each of these four categories.

Uh, we did site visits and met directly with stake um nonprofits that serve each of these groups.

We did a digital survey to hear directly from people with lived experiences and had over 350 responses, and we looked at case studies and research to look at how successful models from across the country.

Again, these initial findings were shared at last month's meeting, so I'll go through some of that quickly because I know you've seen much of this already.

And we also share the findings uh last week with the housing commission.

So, again, the primary goal of the report is to identify ways to how we increase the housing supply.

This shows we created goals for each of the four categories, and overall with the findings, we're recommending the new goal at 3,250 homes across all the categories.

Uh, we will look at refining this number as part of our ship refresh um later this summer.

For the first group, veterans specifically with housing vouchers, our goal is 250 homes.

When we looked at the need in the community, there are 237 veterans experiencing homelessness at the point in time count last year.

Um, we know that using our existing resources and capacity, we feel very comfortable that we can meet the need in this particular category.

Again, a lot of our housing developers do build communities specifically for veterans, and in this category, a lot of our recommendations focus on making veterans aware when new communities come online and making sure that these communities are located in a place that veterans want to live so they can access services and what are the on-site supports to help them stay housed.

For people with disabilities, our goal is 500 homes.

This is lower than our need in the community in San Antonio.

We have 900 households with the hearing disability and 1,300 with a vision disability that spend more than half of their income on housing.

By utilizing again our development partners, um, looking at those who utilize the state funded tax credits, that program requires 2% of the units that those tax credits fund to be equipped for hearing and vision disabilities.

If we look at doubling that requirement for projects that also layer in local incentives, we believe feel comfortable that we could reach this goal in three to five years.

When we look at older adults, our goal is set at 2400 homes.

This is a unique category because we already have a ship goal of 1,200 homes for older adults specifically.

We've already met that goal in just in the four years that we've been working on the ship.

So again, working with our existing development partners, using our existing tools that we have, we feel comfortable that we can meet 2,400 homes.

It's again focusing on where the homes, what partners are we using, what services are we providing in those communities.

The last category, LGBTQ plus youth, our goal is 100 homes, and our um last estimate.

And our last estimate, we estimated about 372 LGBTQ plus youth have experienced homelessness in the last year.

So our goal in this category is less we know than the need.

But we really have to focus on the nonprofits that provide services to this particular population.

We know that these youth need a lot of support to find housing and to stay housed.

And because of the intense need for case management and assistance, we've aligned the goal to something that's realistically achievable with the time frame that we're looking at.

So again, I'll do a broad overview for each of these four for veterans with housing vouchers.

Again, with all of our outreach, we heard a lot of common themes, which is getting a voucher is challenging this particular group.

Anyone who's trying to get a housing voucher finds challenges.

There's a wait list, it can take a long time to receive a voucher.

For veterans specifically who are homeless or at high risk of being homeless, they could qualify for a special voucher from the veterans administration.

We call that a VASH voucher, Veterans Affairs with supportive housing.

So they also get a lot of case management support with that.

Those vouchers are very limited and they're limited because the VA ties the vouchers the community receives in line with how many VA funded case managers are there to provide that support.

So the supply of these vouchers is in short supply.

Finding a place that accepts the vouch voucher can be a challenge, especially when they want a home located near the medical center or along transit so they can access all of the services veterans may need.

So in the next year, we want to look at again really making sure that veterans with vouchers are aware of where these housing communities are, when they come online, what services are offered, how can we work with the VA to increase that case management support?

How can we make these housing more accessible to the people who are most in need?

For key action items that we haven't already addressed previously, we want to look at that outreach and education specifically to property managers.

We're working closely with a lot of our partners on how we reach them, how we ensure we're working with the REACH working group, which does include our housing authorities, it includes housing stakeholders who work with lots of landlords, specifically the apartment association, the San Antonio Board of Realtors, and a few others.

So how can we work closely with our existing working group members on materials and outreach geared specifically towards veterans, especially when we focus on properties that are you know close to the medical center or transit?

Another thing we want to look at again, we know that the supply of these vouchers is very limited.

So, how can we, when we're working on new housing communities that focus on supporting veterans, the location and the resident services?

Balor Hill, right here in San Antonio, newly opened is an excellent example of that because they have space on site for the case managers, they have the VA on site, and they have SEM who supports the veterans.

So all of that with space there really helps create efficiencies in serving the veterans who live.

For people with disabilities, we know that finding a home within budget can be a challenge because many of them live on fixed incomes, and especially finding a home that has all the accessibility modifications that they need.

It can be expensive for developers to build new properties, and it can be expensive for renters to modify a property that's to meet their needs specifically.

So we want, and many times the leasing materials are not usable for blind and deaf applicants.

So the next year we really want to work with our partners, maybe creating specific materials in ASL and Braille so that they're usable and understandable for the community we're trying to serve.

Again, focusing on housing that is more accessible, where is it, different housing types, and then bringing in partners who can help fund this work.

Talk about a key couple items that we haven't already discussed.

We want to look at how we can specifically update our universal design ordinance.

We have this, it was passed back in 2002, and it does apply to city incentivized properties.

And as we evaluate our annual calls for affordable housing developments, we look at what type of universal design criteria we're incorporating, but it's all kind of priority-based.

So we have been doing is working with the housing commissions, removing barrier subcommittee on what items could be considered additionally for city incentivized projects, and doing a cost analysis on what other modifications could make sense citywide.

Again, want to make sure we're not creating overly burdensome requirements that would be cost prohibitive to implement.

But what are some kind of middle ground things that may make sense?

And then also I mentioned this earlier, looking at how we can increase the proportion of units that are equipped specifically for hearing and vision disabilities in our in-city incentivized properties.

For older adults, uh, we know that they're a lot of times working through challenges that are related to adjusting to changes both in income and lifestyle.

Sometimes they're downsizing, um, sometimes they need new accessibility features quickly.

They may have new mobility challenges, they may have health issues, need a ramp suddenly, shower and ram uh shower bars, all those kinds of things.

And so sometimes modifying their own home can be expensive, or finding a new accessible home within their budget can be a challenge.

So we want to focus on uh creating more accessible housing with the on-site amenities and support specifically for older adults, and bringing in again more partners, new partners who can help fund these efforts.

Um I know we've talked a lot about school district today, so that's a very specific recommendation in this category.

How can we partner with our school districts maybe to utilize some of those now vacant properties?

Maybe they could be turned into communities specifically for older adults.

We know many of them are taking care of grandkids who go to school.

So all those kinds of specific partnerships to help really fund the housing that we're looking to create.

Um we look want to look specifically at two key items for this group that maybe have not been talked about, such as encouraging home sharing, especially for older adults with empty bedrooms.

This is already a ship strategy which benefits older adults, it creates additional income for them, new companionship, even maybe help around the house.

And this all utilizes some of our existing housing stock and creating no units where we have them.

And we've been exploring this with the area foundation with focus groups just to kind of create a better understanding of what could be some barriers to people to use home sharing and what programs can we create around that.

We also want to look at how we can engage our managed care organizations as potential funders.

Think of these as like your your health insurance companies.

Other cities and states have done this around the country, and they find that they can be great partners in creating new housing or even funding modifications in existing housing.

You think of um a newly discharged patient, the health care organization wants to make sure they have a safe space to go to and recover for our LGBTQ plus youth.

Uh, they have a lot of challenges in finding housing, mainly finding the housing and then staying housed, having that support so that they can learn to live independently.

Um are navigating life without family support, such as youth who are aging out of foster care.

And in San Antonio, we have a limited availability of congregate community style options that support all types of lifestyles.

We want to look at how we can help our LGBTQ plus youth secure and keep maintaining the housing that they're able to find.

How do we remove barriers to creating new shared housing models, and how can we continue to partner with our organizations who are specifically serving the youth?

So when we look at that, two key items for this category could be supporting master leasing to help provide access to housing quickly, reducing barriers to you know, signing a lease, and co-locating youth with their peers.

Master leasing is when an organization, many times a nonprofit, takes the master lease for several properties, and then they sub-lease those to as an affordable rent to youth.

Um Sand Ministries has done this locally and has had some positive success.

We also want to better understand and remove barriers to shared congregate living in neighborhoods, especially along transit lines.

Again, we are relying on our removing barriers subcommittee to better understand what are those code-related barriers and what kinds of possible recommendations can we employ.

One example of that is our current code allows up to six units in a community home situation, and the owner of the property must rezone to have up to 16 beds.

The rezoning process can be a barrier due to the cost, the time, understanding how to rezone, and so better understanding and evaluating these barriers can help us remove these regulatory hurdles down the road.

The next step of our work, again, you have a copy of our full report, our final recommendations.

We are in the process of updating our strategic housing implementation plan goals, and these um housing supply task force goals will be adopted in our ship.

The timeline for that is to go to council with final recommendations in August of this summer as part of our ship refresh.

We are having additional community discussions, getting more feedback.

So we'll be incorporating these task force recommendations and getting continue to get more feedback on our efforts and see what other adjustments we may need to make.

The full report from the task force will be made available online.

And in closing, I just want to really thank everyone once more, all the housing commissioners, the many, many nonprofit stakeholders.

We had a few earlier here.

I know a few folks had to leave, but thanks again to all of them who helped contribute, how host the space and allow us to have this final report.

Thank you so much, Veronica.

And I do want to give a shout out to uh Pete and to Mark who were instrumental.

And I couldn't think of any better tri-chairs than the three of you all to lead this effort.

Uh and you've got a great uh team with NHSD who was working on this uh 24-7, I'm sure.

And uh I did see uh Justin Hawley here in the back, and I want to give you a shout out for helping.

I know there's some other folks that were involved in this, and you can read about them on on page six.

But this is great.

I appreciate the fact that the mayor put this together because I feel like if we have um a brand new housing development that anybody in these categories could qualify for, these folks specifically mentioned may be some of the last folks to get there because of specific needs and challenges, uh, not just on their own, but societal ones as well.

And so I think it's very important to to find folks that we are uh not engaging enough with, uh learning about the challenges and trying to make sure there's housing for everybody in San Antonio.

And again, I what I said last time was the idea is not just to have housing just for any specific category of folks, it's to make sure that we can build a community that supports anybody and everybody.

Uh and so I think that's very special and very important.

And so I do look forward uh to putting this into the ship refresh, which uh hopefully would conclude in August uh and kind of reevaluating that plan.

Uh I just thank everybody for doing this.

And I think it's well organized, and and you know, if there's anybody that has a specific interest, they can just kind of go to that page and say, okay, I really am interested in veteran um housing, go to page eight, see all those details, and some of them are organized into administrative policies, uh, council ordinances, uh state and federal legislation also.

So I really appreciate the way you broke all that down.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh so I'll start with council discussion.

Does anybody have any comments or questions?

Councilman Gilbone.

You don't have to.

Just wanted to say echo Council Everyone Gives' points about the incredible work that you put into all of this.

Um I mean, I think I'll just leave it there.

It's it's an incredible uh packet that you submitted that you shared with us.

Uh it was very I always enjoy going through a very detailed packet myself.

Uh and so I enjoy looking through all the administrative directions, the ordinances, the funding uh possibilities, all the different things there.

So I appreciate anything laid out that way because it gives us the direction that we need to go and advocate effectively versus a general will hopefully address this somehow.

It's a direct we need this thing done.

If then we do that, we can then get this many housing units there.

So I appreciate it so much.

Uh I don't have any big questions for you.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Castile.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Veronica, for the presentation.

Uh, really grateful for you, the work of the Tri-Chairs, and then of course, uh the neighborhood and housing services department for uh the work that you all do.

I really uh like watching the housing commission meetings, so sometimes I don't need the briefing when y'all uh submit a request because I already watched Joe present to the housing commission.

Uh you always do a great job.

Uh in terms of the recommendations, I'm pleased to see that again, right?

It's reiterating what uh some of the work that uh reaffirming rather some of the work and the mission within the San Antonio Housing Trust, particularly with adopting universal design uh with many of the specific groups that were brought to the table for feedback.

One of their recommendations was more uh accommodation.

So uh I I know that's in the queue for next steps, and I'd like to see us get that there sooner than later in terms of adopting um or amending rather the UDC code um to adopt the Kelsi standards.

Uh in addition to that, uh I I mentioned earlier going and meeting with the other housing leaders and advocates in Seattle, and what they talked about, there's this re uh for some cities, right?

The the concept of converting office spaces and or schools and what they're running into is the plumbing, right?

It's very expensive, and many of these aren't set up to create new units.

But with that being said, office spaces and schools can be used to address uh the home sharing model, right?

Um, which many of again the demographics uh and folks that were brought to the table have shared that this is something that they would like more support on, whether it's through zoning uh and or code.

So I'm pleased to see those recommendations are here today.

Uh, and just always get excited when you give presentations and updates on committees and the ship because I feel like it's one of the few um policy documents that we actually implement the recommendations, right?

We don't say, oh, great recommendations, things.

It's like no, we pull, we create CCRs, we agendize items, and it really keeps the ship moving forward.

Um so just really grateful for the work of you and your team.

I don't have any questions, just um appreciate the recommendations and eager for us to move forward with them.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Sagonzales.

Did oh, thank you.

Uh, just really wanted to echo um really what councilwoman Castillo said.

Just uh thank you for uh the time you did to put this together.

They've all done this work and continue to do it, and so it helps us uh when we want to um expand it um like we are now.

So uh thank you for that work.

I look forward to uh moving forward on these recommendations, and and really too, because we have a VA hospital in District 8, and um looking to expand that hospital as well.

And so um making sure that veterans um are successfully using utilizing their vouchers though near VA healthcare uh centers is extremely important.

So thank you for that work.

But uh thank you for all the work you've been doing over the last uh four or five years on this.

So I look forward to these recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council.

And to reiterate, uh, I do believe also that ship is one of the crown jewels of the city's policies.

It's a hallmark, it's one of the best things I think we've ever done.

And this just adds to it and strengthens it.

Um so we appreciate that.

We will have a really good discussion on UDC hopefully soon.

Uh and obviously UDC, I mean the um ADU universal design will be top of mind in that conversation also.

But thank you, Veronica.

Congratulations, no questions on how you did it.

Thank you.

But thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

So there being no further discussion, the time is now.

Oh, Justina, yes, please, sorry.

I just wanted to recap from uh the previous discussion on Opportunity Home.

We will work with them to provide a follow-up memo to the committee, which will reiterate some of the responses that they provided to concerns that the committee had um uh brought up, as well as providing the information that the committee had uh had asked for as well.

So we will get that to you.

Awesome, thank you all very much.

Uh there being no further discussion, the time is now 4 54 p.m.

and the meeting is adjourned.