Can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Okay.

Roll call, please.

Bowie.

Here.

Coleman.

Here.

Jose.

Here.

Kim.

Yang.

Here.

There are five present, two absent, that being Commissioners Johnson.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Forgive me.

Chair Chiniqua Johnson.

Um, so I before we start, um, Chair Johnson is supposed to be up on the screen on video.

There she is.

And I think, is she supposed to be on the screen in front of us?

I don't know if someone with OTC can fix that, please.

And then just making sure we can hear Chair Johnson sound.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Perfect.

Okay, wonderful.

Okay, great.

So Chair Johnson is present.

I think we can get started.

Yeah, there are six present and one absent, that being Commissioner Camp.

Item one number one for discussion is resolution REST twenty-six dash one five six resolution amending the twenty twenty-six housing trust fund project budgets to reflect the twenty twenty-six adopted budget, including contingencies citywide.

So um, this is a resolution that is basically uh a it is for response from the contingencies regarding the tenant protections, and we have a few folks to present us to us here today.

I guess I can turn it over to Director McFan, and she can turn it over to our presenters.

There we go.

Apologies, Vice Chair Joe's.

Um, the action before you today actually is things that require HRA board approval or transferring budget amounts between projects in excess of 100,000.

So sort of the traditional annual cleanup of that.

In this case, it also includes the tenant protections item of 380,000.

And so the presentation before you today will be um mostly about that.

We've got Lynn Firkenhoff and Faith Dietz here to present and be available to answer questions.

Wonderful.

So with that, I will turn it over to Lynn and Faith for the presentation.

Hello.

Can you see the can you see the um yes?

Presentation is up on okay.

Perfect little screens.

Uh Chair Johnson, I know I can't see you, but you can see me, I'm guessing.

And uh Vice Chair Jost, Commissioners, uh, my name is Faith Deeds, and I am presenting from OFE, which is the Office of Financial Empowerment, and uh Lynn Ferkinoff is from uh the Department of Safety Inspections, and we're here to give uh significant update as to what's been going on with tenant protections uh to the HRA.

Um just a quick um so for the do you see this second slide?

Yes.

I just want to make sure technology is working today.

Uh so what we're gonna do is just go through a brief history uh for people who are listening or uh uh watching for the first time and don't know like what is temp protection, what does this mean?

Uh we'll give a significant uh response to the HRA memo that was sent in 2025.

Then we'll talk about next steps and we'll have times for questions.

And I'm guessing that we'll pause, we possibly may pause with it throughout the presentation for questions.

So um in 2025, um the tenant protections ordinance was back brought back by the council.

It was on 2020, it was passed, it was rescinded in 2021, and the council last last year wanted to bring it back.

So they did and passed it on May 7th, 2025.

Um DSI was which is Department of Safety and Inspections, they were designated as the administrator of the ordinance, and OFB Office of Financial Empowerment was given the role of putting together rights and responsibilities, and I'll talk about this a little bit later, but we've added resources to that as well.

Um DSI is the administrator and the funding at the time.

Uh want to go back to the funding at the time.

The funding was held in contingency because it's it's coming from the uh housing trust fund, and so it needed to be um there needed to be some uh information and updates before it could be moved.

The um we had, of course, the safety and the security incident that threw everything off kilter and threw everybody's work plans um off kilter, and so then um within that same time frame, there was a memo that came from HRA asking for information and an update on what's happening.

Some information was given to HRA, but we are here now to give a more significant update so people know like what has been going on, what's what's the plan going forward?

Um before we get before I hand it off to Lynn.

I want to just explain that we have three phases of this project, and this um this work to get to the launch date.

The launch date will be May 14th of 2026.

Uh that's the launch date of the ordinance.

Um, and we have three phases.

So pre-implementation and implementation, as well as the uh post-implementation.

So pre-implementation is basically right now from when it was passed to about April of 2026.

That time is content development.

The implementation is there's kind of an overlap with pre-implementation in that it's going to be staff training, and that includes customer service people who are forward-facing to make sure that they have information before the ordinance launch so they know how to direct questions and not try to take it all themselves so they know how to direct questions and where they go.

That also includes the communications and outreach.

So pre-launch, working with our partners, working with different um neighborhoods to get, hey, this is coming.

Get information out there so that they know what to expect.

And then the implementation, once it's May 5th, 14th and it's implemented.

That post-implementation is the continued outreach and like gathering questions and figuring out what's next.

So that's the that's a basic timeline.

There's a lot more to it, obviously.

And so before I pass it on to Lynn to my colleague, is there any are there any questions right now?

I don't believe so.

Okay, questions.

All right.

Okay, do other things.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for uh having me here today to uh give an overview of what we've been working on relative to tenant uh protections.

Again, my name is Lynn Firkenhoff, and I'm from the Department of Safety and Inspections.

Um we have completed uh just in terms of the positions, we've completed a job audit, and we have um two customer service, two full-time customer service representatives that we will be bringing on board, and then one full-time management assistant at a level three.

And kind of the difference between the two is the customer service representatives, they will be housed in the Department of Safety and Inspections customer service team, and they'll have a certain level of understanding and knowledge about the tenant protections.

Um, but anything that they can't answer or would require a lot more research or investigation, that would go to the management assistant level three person, and that person will be housed on the rent stabilization team, which includes myself right now and one other colleague.

So again, two people on the customer service team and then one person on the rent stabilization team.

Um we feel good about our opportunities to get uh the customer service representatives hired pretty quickly after we get um full approval for the positions.

We have a waiting list of customers, active customer service representative um applicants, and so that's a pretty robust list.

So we'll be looking at that list to see if we can bring in some of those folks for interviews.

Um, and then we also will be making glossies for each of the positions just to help market the positions uh to other folks who may be interested or unaware.

Um so that's kind of the plan in terms of the positions.

Um on the next slide, you can see the tentative tentative timeline for bringing those positions on board.

The grayed out dates are the dates that we've already completed, so um, all the way up through DSI receives the waiver to the hiring freeze.

Um those have been completed, and then of course, today uh approving the budget for the positions during the city council meeting that will happen.

Um thing that uh isn't represented on here is that on um one this would have been two days ago.

Um the uh the hiring the um oops, sorry, I lost my place here.

Uh we had um gotten approval for the requisitions, so those will be moving forward again, predicated on approval.

So we don't see an issue in in not meeting the 2.5 date, which is OFS and um talent and equity resources approving the requisitions during the hiring meeting.

So that's moving forward as planned.

But if there is uh a hiccup somewhere along the way and those dates would happen to get off for some reason, that would push the 217 date a little bit, but still we would still be targeting for um end of February if we could get there.

This next slide is really just an estimated cost, which shows that the total budget adds up to $380,000 and the different components of that budget relative to the positions.

There's a number of things like salaries and social security, Medicare, pension, et cetera.

So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this slide, but it's in the deck in case you want to take a closer look at those numbers.

And then DSI is still interested in how tenant protections will be funded going forward, including for fiscal year 2027.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

These are both really technical changes.

We had our initial meeting yesterday on the tenant protections website.

So we had the Office of Technology and Communications coordinated with DSI and OFE, Faith was there as a representative at that meeting.

And essentially, that's going to be the team that's going to create the website.

And we're moving that through the finalization process.

And what we would do is we would mirror the existing process that we already have for rent stabilization complaints.

So we would simply mirror that process and then modify the new tenant protections complaint piece to include the questions that we would need to do for tenant protections.

And then finally, if there was any issue, and we don't we don't anticipate that there would be an issue bringing that up in time for the May 14th launch.

But if there was, what we would do is we would simply use the old rent stabilization complaints process, which basically ties the complaints to a SharePoint site, and we would do it manually until we could bring that up.

Again, we don't see an issue with it, but if there was, we do have a fallback plan, is just basically the idea.

With that, so we'll hand it back to Faith.

Thank you.

Any questions right now before I continue?

Okay, I don't believe so.

So thank you, Lynn.

And the for OFBs, um OFE's role in this, we are it's it's there's a lot of overlap, obviously, between OFE and DSI, which is why we're working so closely together.

Um what OFE has been doing is um looking at the 2020 information because there's so much information that and and content that was created then.

We looked at that information and have been making uh updates based on that, uh, what we already had and what needed to be updated.

And uh DSI has looked over it and added their sections.

We have been working with CAO uh, which is the city attorney's office.

We've been working with if if questions have come up, uh, what do you think about this as a as a legal um is this a legal issue or not?

Should this be included, like different questions that we've had, and then once we um it's back in OFE now, that information will be combined and then sends the CAO for uh review, and then once that's complete, um it will go to translation process.

So it's a lot of processes there, but um that's our that's our goal with that right now.

Um another thing that's been done um has been thinking about the communications plan.

This came up with um with OTC that we really need to think about.

So we have some content from again from 2020, but we need to revise and see what like what types of content will really be impactful, especially in these times.

It there may not be as many in-person discussions, um, but or we'll have to think about that.

How's that going to be communicated out?

Um, so as I mentioned before, we have the tenant um and landlord rights responsibilities and resources.

We've added resources that is not necessarily there's some information about that in the ordinance, but we um really um believe that we should have we have current resources out there now on our website.

Um, and we're gonna add a lot of that information, and we will all we will be um as we've found new uh organizations or new resources that are out there, we'll add those to that list so that people have some information.

That's part that's going to be um included as part of that post implementation, obviously, because as someone's gonna have to maintain that, and um we won't be answering a lot of questions in terms of what people are eligible for, obviously, because we will be, but it's good to have a list so that we can refer people out with current information as currently as we can right now.

Um thing to note is that uh landlords will be required or are required to give the um attorney general's landlord and tenant handbook, um whether it's you know the link to it or uh physical copy, um, that is what um landlords are supposed to be doing right now.

So um that's information to share.

Um I'm gonna just talk about a little bit about next steps.

Next steps as far as staffing will be obviously to get through those those uh dates that Lynn had mapped out um in the previous slide and um get the uh posting out there.

Obviously, that whole higher hiring process takes a little bit, so um that's the next step there with the content um to finish up pulling it together so that CEO can look at it and identify if there's any like legal um issues or is anything that we have to address before we put that out there before we finalize and then send it to our uh translation services and work with uh OTC on the website build.

Um and then continuing to work with OTC and um on the website build, and we do have uh another meeting already scheduled.

And that is uh last one.

Um this was added.

I thought that was my last slide, sorry.

Um, this is added just to um give people and um who don't know the process.

Um, as I mentioned earlier, the housing trust fund, that's where the money is sitting right now.

And in order to move that money, there has to be a presentation in front of HRA to actually move the money, and then there's a whole back end process to make sure that money gets moved over.

Um there will be quarterly updates.

Um, Chair Johnson has requested quarterly updates for 2026 to make sure that um there's a report back on how that money is being spent and how um what's being what it's being spent on.

Um so that is something that's gonna happen as well.

And now we're finished.

Great.

Well, thank you so much to both of you.

Um, I guess I will turn it over to Chair Johnson, who at least has some questions and comments.

Well, thank you guys for taking the time to put together this memo.

And as a reminder to commissioners, um, we sent a memo in July of last year with requested information for this contingency.

And this was the pretext of the conversation and a lot of the requested materials, if not all of the requested questions that we had outlined in the contingency memo, is what you see in the presentation in front of you.

So I'm excited to see that response both from Faith and from Lynn from the OFE and from DSI, because it's really important to the tenant protections work overall that is supposed to be in place in May of this year.

One of the questions that I had for the staff team and also just for the community members that are looking, um, when Faith was speaking uh just about community engagement opportunities, our office is very interested in um putting together a community events around tenant protections, especially when it comes to that piece that I thought was so pivotal and so important during the last passing um of tenant protections in order to get individuals access to see those community events.

And I'm just wondering uh with OFE if there is the ability to, you know, if if council offices or commissioners are interested in doing outreach within their ward on this topic, that there's still time and allocation for that, and wondering if that would be something that we would be able to follow up with your offices uh respective departments to do so.

Yes, Chair Johnson, thank you for the uh question.

And yes, I think that's that's absolutely something that we can discuss that's that's actually in the the details plan um and timeline.

Uh so that would be absolutely let's talk about that and see what that looks like.

Wonderful.

And as a follow-up, uh Vice Chair, I was just hoping that you could share like you could share a little bit more, Lynn, on so the timeline goes until the time the positions are posted, how long would the positions have to be posted for, and then also just looking at if there's any fluctuation with this timeline, what does that communication look back out with uh commissioners, just so we are continuously aware of when this role is posted, how to support and getting the word out that these positions are posted, and then just like you know, things happen where the process gets changed over time.

But I do know that the goal of the department, at least for my understanding, is to have at least 45 days with staff to be able to uh begin to prep for tenant protections as a program to go in place in May of this year.

And so just wondering like how long if it is posted on in uh February on the 17th, you're anticipating it to be posted for how long, and then I guess how long does it have to be posted for, and then also just like you know, what is that in actuality between the time it's posted and the time it's hired, a person's hired.

Thank you for your question, Chair Johnson.

Um, in terms of how long the posting would be up, I would have to double back with our administrative assistant.

She's the person in our office who's responsible for that.

So I'm not I could I couldn't say for sure.

Um I'll take that as a follow-up item though, and uh find out how long they're posted and let you know that and the rest of the um committee here.

And then um, can you ask again, just repeat again the second part of your question?

I want to make sure I caught that.

Uh the second part of the question was just um will you be able to update the commissioners if there's something that changes with this timeline date.

Yes, absolutely.

If there's something that throws this off kilter, I would definitely let you and the other people on the HRA committee know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just the one last follow-up on slide nine um for the timeline.

I just wanted to share with the commissioners.

We had the opportunity last year to change both of those sections because um at the time of passing tenant protections, but we wanted to keep them in place, and so the tenant protections ordinance actually went into effect.

And so we passed the ordinance, it goes into effect in May.

The anticipated, you know, at least the intent of our office is to ensure that those action items are taken prior to them going in uh into effect in May, uh, along with being able to have obviously a very important part of this puzzle administrative citations as a piece for enforcement too.

And so I welcome you know, commissioners who are interested in continuing to work with tenant protections on the council side um as it continues to be a priority for our office um to see those things happen.

Um, but right now the chap the two uh policy pieces that uh Lynn touched on regarding on slide nine basically is what's in place right now that have certain tenant protections looped into them that when we pass the ordinance they'll no longer be needed.

And so that's something that I'm looking forward to just the update on that, because I remember and recalled last year it was these chapters were ready to be repealed at any time, and so I just don't know what all um what work would need to be done to make sure that that gets done before May, but that is an interest of uh of our office, and we're happy to support what we can.

Perfect.

Um Chair Johnson, is that all of your questions for now?

Yeah, that's all of my questions.

I've been pretty involved with just um being able to access and talk to staff about additional questions that we had.

So I don't have questions on this item, but definitely wanted it in front of this body just as a follow-through from the July memo that we put together because I thought that was really important, and there was a lot of conversation surrounding it.

So I hope people found this helpful.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Um looks like uh council president Naker has a question as well.

Thanks, Vice Chair, and Chair, thanks so much for bringing this to our to the commission.

I mean, I think it's really important to your point that we have the accountability and kind of the through line from something we requested to the response we received, and this has been really informative.

So thank you.

I'm just curious, kind of backing up just a bit.

Um, you know, we don't always hire new staff when we pass an ordinance, even if it's going to require more work for a department.

Um, and and when we do, I know there's kind of a careful amount of work that goes into figuring out how many staff we're going to need.

So I'm curious how we landed on three full-time people for tenant protection specifically, um, how that compares to rent stabilization staffing and their workload.

Um, and then if it should turn out that either these folks are not needing to spend all of their time on tenant protections or we have more like we need more folks, um, how we'll adjust.

Thank you for your questions.

It's very good.

And um, I I'm not sure to be honest, how we arrived at three.

Um, I will definitely bring that back to DSI and um find out.

I wasn't involved in the conversations, but I see someone I know very well who may have been um director Weesee.

Did you want to add something?

Yeah, Director Weezy is coming up to answer the question.

Thank you.

If you'd think for me to answer that I can um HBC director of safety and inspections.

Uh so three people came really early on in discussions, and it was because of the breadth of the work um for this ordinance.

It covers a lot of ground.

Uh the what we did, we also took our learnings from rent stabilization, and that's why the titles that are used for rent stabilization are not the exact titles we're proposing for this because we learned a lot from that experience and where the majority of the time is spent and the different levels needed.

Uh, with that said, with rent stabilization, a year into administering rent stabilization, we did a job profile for um one of the positions and uh and did that through HR because you think you know what the work is going to be, you do your best judgment on the job profile before any work is actually completed.

And uh, and so we had done that process before implementing rent stabilization.

We had landed on a management assistant one position after doing the a year's worth of administration, did a job profile study again on that position, and HR determined it's a management assistant three.

So we do those evaluations depending on the uh the actual outcomes of some, you know, time to get everyone settled and think that you have a good process and and everyone's running at um capacity, I guess is how that I'd say that.

Uh so we take our best guess on the front end and then adjust as necessary.

And is it vice chair?

Is it correct to as I'm reading the customer service positions?

It seems like they're written in such a way that they can also do other work for the department.

Is that the intention?

Uh yes, that is the intention.

So most of our customer service representatives know a ton, sorry, a little bit about a lot of things.

So they might I call it like if they're six inches deep on anything happening in the city on all the different service lines across the city.

Sorry, I don't mean to like whack yesterday.

Uh Lynn, uh so these folks are our intent is to make them deeper in tenant protections, but still be able to ask those other questions.

Rarely somebody contacts us and just has like one isolated question.

They usually have other tidbits that go and we don't want our full goals to have one call resolution.

So if they can have that, but also be expected to have some depth where you get where it's not into the customer service representative position anymore, is when it starts requiring investigation.

So if there's investigation involved at all, then it needs to be handled by another person.

And that's that's where we get to it.

But we found through rent stabilization, the vast majority of people, both tenants and landlords, are really just looking for some detailed answers related to their specific situation about what how the law applies.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

Um, thank you, Director Weasley.

Thank you so much, Lynn and Faith, for all of your work on this and for your presentation.

We really appreciate it.

Um thank you.

And uh this is an item that we need to take action on.

So I'll take a um motion from council member Johnson to approve this item.

Uh is there any discussion?

All right, a roll call vote, please.

Johnson.

Aye.

Bowie?

Aye.

Coleman?

Aye.

Kim?

Aye.

Naker?

Aye.

Yang?

Aye.

Vice Chair Jost?

Aye.

Seven in favor, zero opposed.

The resolution is adopted.

Item number two is staff report.

SR26-13.

Introduction to conduit bonds for Episcopal Homes project.

Great.

And I'll turn it over to Director McMahon, and I believe we've got Jenny Wolf here to present.

We do.

We have Jenny Wolf to present on this.

Today is the presentation, and next week is when the action will be before you to take in public hearing.

Good afternoon.

Uh Chair Johnson virtually, uh Vice Chair Joseph and Commissioners.

Um, I'm Jenny Wolf with uh PED, and I'm here to do an introduction.

Um to request uh this is an introduction to a request to the HRA to issue conduit revenue bonds for Episcopal Homes of Minnesota.

Um to start, I want to just step back and cover a quick overview of conduit bonds as I've done in other presentations like this.

So conduit revenue bonds are special limited obligations of the governmental issuer, in this case the HRA, and they provide tax exempt interest rates for the borrower, reducing the cost of their debt.

HRA issued bond revenue bonds are repayable solely from the revenues of the borrower and are not secured by any revenues or taxing powers of the government, and the HRA and the city undertake no risk by issuing the bonds.

The conduit borrower secures loan funds either through a private lender or a bond underwriter, uh which is the case for Episcopal Homes.

Day tray serves only as a conduit for the borrower to access the tax exempt interest rates.

All due diligence into the project and borrower is completed by the lender or the bond underwriter.

The HRA can issue conduit revenue bonds for nonprofit organizations that are tax exempt under the IRS, and there is no limit on the amount that the HRA can issue.

And in the absence of a governmental issuer, the borrower would need to pursue taxable bonds or loans that would increase the cost of their debt.

The HRA collects fee revenue when we issue conduit revenue bonds.

Episcopal Homes is a long-standing nonprofit senior housing and care provider based in St.

Paul.

They offer a variety of services, including memory care, assisted living, senior living, end-of-life care, and transitional care.

Episcopal Homes of Minnesota and their affiliates own and operate multiple facilities at their six-plus acre campus located at uh at the corner of university in Fairview.

The HREAT has previously issued multiple conduit revenue bonds benefiting Episcopal homes, and there are two that remain outstanding, shown here with a total total principal balance of nearly 36 million.

Um now on to this specific project.

Uh Episcopal Homes has applied to the HRA for the issuance of conduit revenue bonds for an exist for them to acquire an existing 58 unit facility located at 80 McCovin Street in Ward 1, and a map of the location is shown here as well as a picture of the building entrance.

The property is known as Willows of Ramsey Hill and includes 58 units serving seniors needing memory care with dementia and Alzheimer's.

It has been operating in this manner since 2015, although the facility has a longer history in St.

Paul, as shown here.

Episcopal Homes pursued this facility when it was placed on the market to expand their presence in St.

Paul and add memory care units to their continuum of continuum of care as they encounter more demand than they can meet with their current capus.

Now on to the financing proposal.

They are requesting up to $18 million in bonds to be issued through a public offering underwritten by callers.

The bonds will not be rated, as is typical for single asset facilities.

Colliers on behalf of the borrower has requested a waiver of PED's minimum bond denomination policy for non-rated bonds.

The minimum denominations requested is $25,000 instead of the required $100,000.

And this will mean that the individual bonds could be held in a principal amount as low as $25,000, which will expand access to the potential purchasers of the transaction.

Call yours indicates the waiver would enable existing supporters of Episcopal homes to continue to invest in their bonds and lowers the overall cost to Episcopal to strengthen their organization.

And furthermore, each initial purchaser of a bond will be required to execute an investor letter.

This letter acknowledges the conduit nature of the bonds and confirms that neither the city nor HRA are backing the repayment, and the only pledged revenues are those of the borrower.

The PED credit committee is the body that sets the minimum denominations to safeguard the conduit nature of the bonds.

The minimum denominations help to ensure only sophisticated investors hold the conduit bonds, demonstrating a clear understanding that the bonds are not backed by the city or the HRA and only are repayable by the borrower, nonprofit borrower.

This is the first time I've had this waiver of the minimum denominations in a proposal before you, so if there are questions, I'll be happy to address those.

As shown, the primary use is to acquire the facility, and they also then have to pay the cost of issuing the bonds and as well as funding a debt service reserve.

The PED credit committee reviewed the conduit bond request on January 20th, including the the waiver request for a waiver.

The credit committee's review is solely to confirm the proposal meets our internal policies relating to conduit revenue bonds, or such policies are waived.

The internal policies cover the payment of fees and the sale and placement requirements.

The credit committee is not reviewing the repayment plan or indicating any opinion of the quality of the credit.

As mentioned, this request includes a waiver of our minimum bond denominations under our sale requirements.

The credit committee reviewed the waiver request, and notable factors include waivers have been approved for past HRA bonds issued for Episcopal homes, including bonds that will be on parity.

Waivers have similarly been approved for other nonprofit housing developers.

At the meeting on January 20th, the credit committee approved the waiver of our minimum bond denominations to 25,000 from the required 100,000.

As mentioned, the waiver will enable the lower interest enable a lower interest costs, which will enable Episcopal Homes to continue their commitment to serve seniors in our community for many more years.

Furthermore, one of the stated outcomes of the lower denominations is for supporters of Episcopal Homes to purchase the HRA bonds, helping to signify an understanding of the conduit nature of the bonds.

And that will include a public hearing.

The city council is also required to approve the issuance of the bonds as they are the elected representatives of the governmental unit.

Resolutions will be considered by both bodies in one week on February 4th.

And Episcopal Homes anticipates closing on the acquisition in early March.

Lastly, just a quick reminder that when the HRA does issue conduit revenue bonds, there's certain compliance that is triggered for the borrower and for the construction of the project.

With the sole purpose of this financing to acquire property, the only compliance triggered relates to the city's affirmative action equal employment opportunity requirements.

The borrower will be required to submit an affirmative action plan to the city to be certified.

This ends my portion of the presentation, and unless there are questions for me, I would like to invite a Episcopal Home CEO, Mr.

Tom Henry, to address the board.

Perfect.

Yeah, Ms.

Wolf.

Well, we can take it after if Ms.

Wolf will still be around.

Oh, yeah, she's gonna be state here.

Um Mr.

Henry is here.

If you want to come up and introduce yourself.

Well, thank you very much.

My name is Tom Henry.

I'm the CEO of Episcopal Homes.

I have been involved with Episcopal Homes for I think I was three when my mom dragged me there to sing Christmas carols.

So it's been in my family for a long time.

And so we use uh conduit bonds quite a bit, and as you saw in some of the presentations, and it we like this option, you know, for especially for this project, um, mainly because it is um it's secured for us, you know, not by you, but I mean by um our donors really like the fact that that we have get the city's backing and we get uh you know some approval with that.

So we really appreciate that.

This program is available, and we appreciate the the consideration for that.

We're interested in purchasing the willows because as you heard, we are out of space.

We um have uh five hundred and eighty people who live on our main campus.

We serve about twenty-three hundred people in the Twin Cities area, and um memory care issues are one of our number one issues that that we see.

And um the uh the opportunity to buy the willows was great for us.

Uh we get another 58 beds uh available for not just our residents, but uh for uh people that you know come to us to serve.

We have a waiting list of about a hundred people who are looking for some kind of memory care services.

Um there's 40 of those hundred people that are kind of like active waiting and say we gotta hurry up, we gotta hurry up, we gotta hurry up.

We have 16 beds, and so the urgency for us is pretty big.

And um, I invite you if you've never been over to the campus, you can go over there and you can see that every square inch has been built on.

You know, so uh there's just nowhere more place for us to go.

And we really love to stay in the neighborhood, and we really love to um to not move to the suburbs and you know those kinds of things.

We want to stay St.

Paul local.

So um that's why this project is really important for Episcopal Homes.

And um, so we appreciate your consideration and your support.

Um I think that we have uh you know, always enjoyed a great relationship with the city, and um, you know, hope that uh people see us as uh as an asset to the community.

So I'm free to answer any questions that you may have.

Great.

Um I think I'll turn it over to Councilmember Bowie had a question.

Do you want to ask Jenny?

Did I guess did anyone have I'll go to you first since you thank you, Vice Chair, and thank you, Chair Johnson and Vice Chair Um Jill's um CEO, CEO, um Henry.

I do appreciate you know having a chance to talk over the phone and is getting an update, particularly about you know your experience and um your presence, particularly in in the city of St.

Paul and just background around why you were invested into moving in a neighborhood.

Um I am you know aware of like how large this campus is, um, and it's really in a in a very unique neighborhood that already has a lot of seniors and a lot of people who um enjoy um living in space or excuse me, aging and in place.

Um my question particularly for you is around I know last time we talked about just like affordability and understanding this loan or this conduit bond is just more so acquisition.

Um it's not like a subsidizing of like the affordability and there's like a whole minutiae of like you know, health care and like the costs of um senior care.

Um, but I'm um curious if you could speak a little bit of just like the community impact and like the jobs that this uh acquisition would create.

Um we know we definitely want to make sure like St.

Paul is home for people who are looking for housing.

Uh we also want to make sure like St.

Paul is home for folks who are looking for jobs and especially in their neighborhood.

So you can speak to will this be creating jobs, or would this just be like repurposing your existing staff?

So yeah, I think that um that's always uh paramount importance to us too.

We uh employ about 650 people in the St.

Paul uh location.

Um we have about 700 employees uh in the Twin Cities area, and so uh we're pretty committed to uh expanding that employee base and and keeping that employee base.

This particular project is uh not a substantial um uh improvement for uh employees.

I mean, we will there's three jobs that we know that we want to add, um, but those are also contingents on how well we do, you know, filling in and being able to maintain uh the building.

So um we're confident that we can grow.

Uh the one of the reasons that we're very interested in this is that historically um the current owner has had trouble filling the building, and so they've been running at around uh 68, you know, 70 percent occupancy.

From the statistics I just said, we have a hundred people just ready to go.

So we believe that we can um you know confidently fill the building uh up to a reasonable occupancy, and with that will become the need for uh more staff.

Particularly though, I can't really stand up here and say, oh, this will add X amount of staff, you know, to our to the payroll.

So um, but that gives you a backdrop of that.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

Any other questions?

Awesome.

Well, um, thank you so much for being here.

And Jenny, thank you for for your presentation as well.

Um, did anyone have any questions for you?

You did have one for Jenny.

Yeah, okay, perfect.

That's what I thought.

Um I'll turn it over again to Councilmore Bowie.

Perfect.

Um, I just have a question about the procedural process, and we can also talk offline if it does um uh require more of a complexity, but you're talking about there's a public hearing um for HRA in city council, so I'm just looking forward in terms of like how is the council also gonna be involved.

Is it just our solely a resolution?

Are we going to have to like recess and didn't have the public hearing um during city council?

If you could just walk us through like procedurally.

Um yeah, uh Vice Chair Joe's Chair Johnson and uh Commissioner Bowie.

Um so that the public hearing will be held at the HRA um board meeting a week from today.

So there will not be a separate public hearing at City Council.

When the city council meets at 3:30, they will consider a resolution.

That resolution is generally on consent, but um everyone will be in attendance if it if it needs to have a discussion or anything.

But the city council action is um required because of just the fact that the HRA board is is um not elected, uh they are appointed by virtue of being elected as a city council member, and so the IRS rules ask that the city council also affirm um the issuance of the bonds.

So that uh that's all the action is at City Council.

Um perfect and then my last question um is just on about the reporting you mentioned uh once the um conduit bonds are adopted and we you know um adopt the the resolution through city council.

Um what is the time frame for the reporting?

Is this like a report after the buildings act acquired or after it's you know the the the project is completed?

I'm just trying to get a timeline of when upcoming and reporting is expected.

Um Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Joseph, Commissioner Bowie.

I'm I'm not sure what reporting you're referring to.

My apologies.

Um you had mentioned it was towards the end.

That's why I was just trying to get more information in my affirmative action.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, so the so the um the organ the organization that is created to own and operate the facility will need to certify an affirmative action plan um with the city.

Um so they they will do that before the closing.

And then that uh plan will be on file for two years.

Okay.

So that's not something that comes back to us, that's just internal.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Well, thank you, Jenny.

Um, thank you, everyone, for coming today.

I I did uh also want to mention the previous resolution about the housing trust fund.

You'll see that item also on the city council agenda today, number twenty-five, and that's when our public hearing will be.

So I just wanted to um make sure folks were aware of that.

Uh, and Chair Johnson, thank you so much for joining us.

It's wonderful to see you.

Um, and with nothing else to come before us, we are adjourned.