I just like it just on the old computer and then you can we have to actually now try to get a little bit more than it would not say more.

I have to get one straight.

Yeah, everybody filled it in.

So I think that's why you have to write there.

I I have I didn't think that's how I think it was over here.

I haven't thought about quite a bit.

Yeah, I mean it's all this.

Um I've got to get that actually.

Very well.

Right.

So you're like, yeah.

Yeah, so you want to do it after it.

I just said you know.

You want us to sign it too, or something.

Okay.

Yeah, but no, I can't call it.

Yeah.

You gotta just not be so not being around anymore.

That's me.

I can cut it on here.

Yeah, I'm gonna go.

So I think the intervals see different shine.

Yeah, just a little bit better on the right.

There's another thing.

No, we don't want to be interested in it.

Oh, maybe that's right.

Shall we have to look at some people again?

Yeah, so I mean why have I got a library or something?

Um but we enjoy doing it.

No, no, no, no, I have somebody else.

Yeah, she transcribed and working on the planet of should have been the Tierney.

Well, I mean scrolls usually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um trying to sign a green shirt on.

The voice are eight two friends.

Also right now.

We sacrifice our own lives.

We will discover it kills you, but again, it's just not wow, we actually have a chance to read your book.

What's that?

Um, that is probably I learned every time you get a cover time.

For actually, I'm reading it after basically I think it's the outer here, so I don't know.

I'm still worried that we require the library.

I would five minutes.

I don't know if I don't know.

Yeah, no, it's people would be badly taking that right.

Or I looked outside.

I didn't have an umbrella.

I think it looks like something that right.

I had the overhand.

Oh, just data now that was waiting for you starting topic.

Oh, right.

Yeah, um, it's like the house is on your um, I just thought like this must be prior to over.

I think that they have you already revolution.

We live at the reading.

Oh well.

Oh, okay.

Well cheating.

Okay.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Have you met the new world as I can know someone that would want to have I would say I was there?

I think it might be in my office group for the oxygen number.

Yeah, I think that's how we can find the power.

Yeah, if you like that in the labor.

For me, it wasn't level.

It's human and smells.

Good evening.

Oh, that's loud.

Sorry, we're a little delayed.

If you um have just walked into the door, if you could please make sure that you sign in at the sign-in sheet at the sign-in table over there, and we'll get started with the um first public hearing.

Ready?

Okay.

On behalf of Director Clemens, who couldn't be here tonight, um, I want to welcome you for the first public hearing for the 26-27 um one-year action plan.

Um, my name is Monica Brown, and I am the community planning and development grants manager or CPD grants manager for the Department of Housing and Community Development.

So, what I'm gonna do is a brief presentation on the action plan, and then from there we'll have a couple of um our community partners that will be up here speaking, um, talking about homelessness, public housing, and also fair housing.

So, if you're ready, we'll get started.

Um, what we'll do is we'll hold any questions to the end, and then uh we'll get going.

So, the one-year action plan is a requirement of HUD that each year of the five-year plan that we have of our five-year consolidated plan, we have to submit a one-year plan to HUD that describes some of the activities that we would like to endeavor for the program year.

The action plan identifies the strategic projects and also performance measures that will be carried out using the community's um annual HUD HUD funding allocation.

Um, along with that, also we'll use any prior year or carryover funds to carry out these initiatives.

Projects included in the action plan are designed to address the needs and priorities and goals that are established in the consolidated plan.

If we have to make any types of changes or identify any needs, um, if we want to add any new projects or use any um use the funding not previously identified, the um jurisdiction, which is us, would have to complete what's called a substantial amendment to the plan.

So what we have to do is we have to hold a separate public hearing again to talk about the changes that we want to do, and then we have to get it approved and so on and so forth with HUD.

Um for this program year, our funding application process and timeline.

We had our uh application meeting for our non-homeless service providers and our homeless service providers on Friday, January 9th over at the library.

We opened up the office on January 21st for new applicants.

That was for any at um any agencies that had never received any type of funding to come into the office and kind of get general help um or guidance on their application.

We did hold a application question session.

We did one in the morning for the non-homeless service providers, and then we did our second um meeting for the homeless service providers in the afternoon.

The applications from all agencies, both non-pro uh non-homeless service providers and homeless service providers, was due on February 6th at 4 45 p.m.

Um today.

We are having a first public hearing on the draft action plan, and then on next Thursday, we'll have the second public hearing.

Keep hearing the buzz out there.

We have to, we are planning to hopefully submit legislation here shortly.

We did receive word from HUD that we should receive our allocations possibly by next Friday.

Keep your fingers crossed with everything going on and the administration that does happen.

If not, because uh next Friday is Good Friday, I'm anticipating maybe the following week that we will hear what those allocations are.

So if that's the case, if we do receive our allocations from HUD, we will be submitting legislation to council on our proposed activities and who we're recommending for funding.

Um if everything goes accordingly, we should be able to submit that to council, hopefully by April 14th, and there will be an agenda review meeting at 2 o'clock on April 14th.

Um we will be communicating that if once we find out for sure, but that's the tentative date that we have scheduled for that pub that meeting with council.

If council decides to, they typically will have what's called a housing and community development committee meeting in the meet and in between the agenda review and then also before they make um final uh approval of our plan.

So that could happen somewhere in between um April 14th and April 21st, and then on the 21st, hopefully, if everything goes according to what we're anticipating, we should be able to have council pass our legislation on that date at 4 o'clock.

We have a drive a final date to submit our action plan to HUD of May 18th, and if we do get the allocations as early as they're predicting, we will have to meet that deadline of May 18th.

Typically, if it's after a certain time of period in the in the month, they allow us 60 days in which to submit.

So last year we didn't receive our allocations till mid-May, so we were able to hold out and not submit for up to 60 days.

HUD has up to 45 days after we submit our plan to review and approve it.

And if they haven't completed that review in the 45 days, the system will automatically approve our plan.

So hopefully they'll approve it, and we won't have any changes to it.

The citizen review process, we work off of our citizen participation plan that we have to we developed, and then we had to get approved by HUD, and it's a comprehensive strategy for engaging our residents and stakeholder stakeholders in our planning and implementation of our housing and community development activities.

There was a 30-day comment period that did start yesterday, Wednesday, March 25th, and that runs through April 24th.

The action plan is posted up on the city's website.

It's also available at the public libraries.

If you want to review it and make comments on it, you are able to do so at that time.

We do have to hold two public hearings, which this is the first one, and then our second one will be next Thursday.

And then the public hearings are and the comment period are promoted through a campaign that includes we do public notices, we send out press release, we do website postings, and then also there are some social media updates, including Facebook and then other email notifications that is sent to our community partners and other organizations.

We make all of our public hearings accessible to accommodate individuals with disabilities, and then we also have a virtual option if if that's necessary.

So the Citizen Review Committee, we work with two of them.

So each year, the nonprofits serving LODOMI individuals are eligible to apply for our funding, and it's the application process, it's a very competitive process, and we use two citizen review committees to vet the applications.

So we have one that's for our homeless service providers, and then we also have one that's for our non-homeless service providers.

And they work in coordination with our internal review committee to evaluate all the application, they participate in agency interviews, and then they also provide the funding recommendations for our CDBG and ESG programs.

So this committee serves as an advisory to the mayor, mayor's office, to our department, and also to city council, and they are different volunteers at work in the community, they live in a community, they own businesses in the community, or they also represent the interests of our low to moderate income individuals.

So for our excuse me, for our non-homeless service CRC, we had representatives that were from Prometica EBI Center, John Henry Eldred Jr.

For our homeless service services, our CRC representatives was our continuum of care chair.

We had a representative from Ann Grady, NAMI Greater Toledo, Team Recovery, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Toledo Lucas County Care Net, Toledo Led Resource Center, the YMCA of Toledo, Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Lucas County, and also from LMH.

So in the application process and timeline, there's initial application and orientation process.

So there's a mandatory meeting that all applicants have to attend.

The application submission, they have a deadline in which to submit the application, which as I indicated earlier was February 6th.

We do not accept any late or incomplete applications, and we won't consider them for funding if they are late or incomplete.

The application review process again is undergone by an initial review from our internal review committee to ensure complete completeness and some eligibility requirements, followed by the citizen review committee, then conducts their final evaluation.

As a part of this process, applicants are required to participate in interviews with the Citizen Review Committee in order to support their overall funding assessment.

Once we do the final interviews, then the CRC reconvenes or convenes again to deliberate and also develop their funding recommendations.

These recommendations are submitted to the director of our department, and then for well for her final uh administrative review and approval.

After that, it has to go before council for any recommendations from them as well as the mayor, and then final final final approval by the council.

The minimum requirements for the applicants is they have to be at least a 501c3 for at least two years in operation.

We do allow government agencies or government entities to apply.

Other nonprofits in operations at least two years, and then our any certified community-based development organizations, our homeless service providers, and then any other agency that can show the capacity to implement any proposed activity or projects.

Some of the criteria that is reviewed is the agency's financial stability.

We look at the board of directors composition.

We look at project budget and leverage, including a one-to-one match because all agencies are required to have a one-to-one dollar match for any funding that they seek, their activity impact for the community, and then also organization capacity and past performance.

So for the 2627 application for homeless and non-homeless service providers.

For CDBG, we received 34 applications for non-homeless service provider from the non-homeless service providers, the amount of requests total 4.5 million dollars.

For home, we received one application for our home buyer development, and that was 400,000.

And for ESG, we received nine applications for a total of 1.3 million dollars.

See, we got a lot of requests in.

So everything is based off of what we received for the 25-26 program year.

We're anticipating level funding from HUD.

That's what they've indicated that we should be receiving.

So for 25, um, for 26, we're basing everything off of 7 million 46,960.

We do have some carryover money of a 1.8 million.

So our total resources that we're looking at for the 2627 program year for the block grant dollars is 8.9 million.

For home, we are looking at 1,965,724.

We do have about $5 million in carryover.

So we're looking at total resources of about $6.9 million for home.

And for ESG, which is our smaller pot of money, um, we are looking at about $627,000 that we were receiving those dollars.

Um, as long as they are doing the level funding, this is what we're hoping that we're gonna get again.

Um it could be it could go up or down.

If it goes down, it could be because there are other entitlement cities that have applied and were granted to become a part of this pot of money, so that could change it.

So we won't know until we get the actual allocations which way it's gonna go.

So this is a breakdown of our resources allocation for the 26-27 year.

As you can see, um 1.4 million is going to go to planning and administration, which equates to about 16%.

We are allowed to allocate at least 20% of our funding to planning and administration.

There's um going to be about 900,000 allocated out for housing program delivery, and that's for the staff of the division of housing.

Our public services, we're allocating out uh 1,057,000.

That is the maximum amount that we can allocate for public services.

HUD requires that any public service activities we can't exceed a 15% cap, and that's what the cap is.

Um I got it down to like $97 left over, so it's about a million fifty-seven thousand for public service activities.

For affordable housing, we're allocating out 1.8 million, and we'll have 1.1 million of carryover to that.

For our neighborhood parks and community centers, a million dollars for economic development, 747,000.

For our capacity building institute, it's 150,000.

We do have a couple of um uh NERSA public services, which are done by our community-based development organizations.

We're allocating 220,000 for that.

Our NERSA housing activities is 825,000, and we're gonna do some new um things with our co-compliance with some demolition.

So we're allocating 250,000 for some NERSA areas, and that's co-compliance demolition, as well as we're gonna be doing some strategic economic development in our NERSA areas, and that's about 500,000 for that.

So all of that totals the 8.9 million dollars, and as you can see on the pie chart, it's broken down by the percentages, so um it kind of shows you where we're at with everything for the home resources.

Um, we can allocate out at least 10% for home administration, so that comes out to 196,572.

We're always allocate out at least 15% for our total set aside.

That amount is $844,859, and that includes um $550,000 in carryover money for our homeowner rehabilitation.

We're using carryover dollars to fund that this year, so that'll be about $2.4 million.

For our rental housing development, is um $1.4 million we're gonna be allocating out.

And then for our home at last down payment assistance, we're not using any of our actual allocation.

We're gonna be using um a million dollars of carryover to fund our home at last down payment assistance program, and that's the same for our home buyer development.

We're gonna use a million dollars of carryover dollars to fund that.

So, in total, we're gonna allocate out the $6.9 million dollars in home dollars for the program year.

For our ESG, we're um for central services.

Um, we can allocate out up to 60% of our um allocation towards essential services, which would be our emergency shelters.

That amount totals 370 376,225 for stabilization services is $48,539 for administrative operations is $47,000, and then for our HMIS systems, which Julia talked, I think Julie's gonna talk a little bit about that, um, it's $155,251, and that totals are $627,000 that we have in ESG funding.

Um, I just want to briefly talk about our nurses, which is our neighborhood revitalization strategy areas.

A NERSA is um a tool that HUD designed that allows us to target investments in our most distressed neighborhoods.

It allows us um greater flexibility in the use of our CDG CDBG funding for over five-year period.

So it allows us to leverage private and public funding, um, so we don't have to use any new CDBG funds.

Um it allows us to reallocate existing resources, it expands our housing and assistance support, so for we can go up to 120% of the AMI when we're in a NERSA area.

It also supports job creation and retention, and then um depending on what that agency is doing, and if it's a uh certified community-based development organization, it allows us to exceed our public services cap of the 15%.

Um other key advantages, uh we have uh more reporting flexibility and it streamlines our compliance, and again, the best part of it is the public services cap.

We can exceed that by the 15%.

So in Toledo, we do have three designated NERSA areas.

We have the O South Inn, and you can see the boundary of that one there.

And then we also have the Inglewood NERSA, and we have the Junction NURSA.

We are working in Vestula to possibly have that as a Vastilla Choice neighborhood, and if that designation does go through, then that could be designated as our fourth nurse for the city.

So that's all I have at this time.

I will bring Lisa Pinkov up from the homelessness board to talk about some of the homeless initiatives.

Thank you and good evening.

We're halfway through.

Good job.

All right, I am here to talk about our home for everyone continuum of care.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Again, my name is Lisa Pangove, and I am the Continuum of Care Systems Operations Manager.

I'm going to be representing the Toledo Lucas County Homelessness Board today.

And we want to talk about oh, here we go.

Why are we here tonight?

I want to share our one-year action plan, what we are doing to better help people in our community who are experiencing homelessness.

First, let's talk about the problem.

In the past, our system had a lot of barriers.

People had to tell their story over and over again to different agencies.

Programs didn't always share information, and sometimes people didn't get the help they needed fast enough.

That made it harder for people to move out of homelessness and into stable housing.

In 2024, the Toledo Lucas County Homelessness Board with the Continuum of Care created a street strategic plan to help us move forward with our homeless services continuum.

So now we're making important changes.

We're moving to an open HMIS system.

This means that with permission, service providers can share information and see a person's history throughout time since they have become homeless.

Instead of starting over each time, we can understand someone's needs faster, avoid repeating the same questions, reduce stress and trauma, and get people connected to housing more quickly.

This will help us better understand who needs help the most, what kind of help they need, and how we can match them to the right services.

In simple terms, we will finally be able to see the full picture and respond in a smarter way.

Sometimes right now, if you call 211 and there isn't any shelter available, they tell you I'm sorry, we'll put you on a list.

We don't want to do that anymore.

So this year we're focusing on three things.

We're focusing on coordinated entry, how people enter the system, key performance indicators, how people are doing, and data quality, which helps us in all areas of analyzing how we're doing, and it also helps us to get more funding in our community.

First, enhancing coordinated entry.

This is the front door to our system.

We're improving how people enter and move through services so it's easier, fairer, and more coordinated across all partners.

We're working closely with United Way 211 and we're actively seeking out outreach teams to make sure no one falls through the cracks.

Second, we're working on key performance indicators.

This means we're measuring what works.

We will track things like how quickly people are housed, how long they stay housed, and how well programs are performing.

This helps us make better decisions and use funding wisely.

Better data means better results.

With improved data, we can identify real needs in our community, see trends in homelessness, and plan smarter solutions.

In the following year, we plan to grow the Hive program.

Hive is housing integration visibility and engagement.

This is a connection platform to streamline housing options for the unhoused community.

Case managers can match their clients' needs with landlords that are willing to rent to our population.

Right now we have 113 properties listed in this hive program, which accounts for 987 units being listed across these 113 properties.

And we know that as of today, there are 148 units open and ready to be rented to folks out on the streets.

Oops, sorry, let's go back.

Hopefully, I don't know how to go back like that.

There we go.

All right.

We also want to expand the youth programs in our system so that young people experiencing homelessness get the support the support that they need early.

We have a growing right now, we have a growing youth advisory board.

These are young people age 18 to 24 who have experienced homelessness and are helping to let us know what needs to happen in order to help folks that are coming out of foster care or even just young people that no longer have supports at a young age.

This uh youth advisory board has been helping us not only with our local system mapping, but also at the state level.

Our young people are part of the youth advisory board for the state of Ohio as well.

In addition, this year we will begin fundraising efforts to support some critical community work, including the point in time counts, which help us understand how many people are experiencing homelessness each year.

Our Code Blue events, which provide safety during extremely cold or hot weather, and we're looking at targeted outreach events to reach people living outside.

These outreach dollars will be used to focus on encampments, outreach, supplies, and system mapping.

These efforts help us to meet people where they are and connect them to help.

Overall, our goals are simple.

We're working uh here's our goals.

We want to reduce barriers, reduce barriers, use better data, and help people move into safe, stable housing faster.

This plan allows us to better understand our homeless community, not just guesses, but real data and create real results.

That's all I have.

Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued support in making Toledo a place where everyone has a place to call home.

Again, I'm Lisa Pangove, I'm the COC Systems Operations Manager for the Homelessness Board.

And this is my contact information.

If you have any questions, uh we'd be happy to help you out.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa.

Okay, toss up George Single or which one wants to go first.

Okay.

Okay, come on up, George.

We're going to next have George Thomas from the Fair Housing Center to talk about this.

All right.

The challenge has been laid down for me to go faster.

Uh so we'll set the timer.

I'm George Thomas.

I'm the CEO and general counsel for the Fair Housing Center.

Uh just real quick about the Fair Housing Center, why we're here as a partner with the city.

We're a nonprofit civil rights agency that promotes housing choice, the creation of inclusive communities of opportunity, and the protection and expansion of fair housing rights to support strong communities.

So what does that really mean?

Well, where you live, your home powerfully affects every aspect of your life, your job opportunities, educational opportunities, health safety, et cetera, and fair housing rights ensures that every person can access a home regardless of their race, their color, their national origins, sex, religion, familial assessment, disability, et cetera, all those classes that we recognize that people may face discrimination based on those issues and be denied housing or treated differently in housing in some way.

So if you think about it, we can build housing, we can make a lot of plans to implement housing in different ways.

But if there's barriers to certain people being able to access that housing, the solutions never ever complete.

So that's where fair housing comes in as a partner with the city as partner of this processes.

And just about us real quick.

So if you need to access our services, victims of housing discrimination should definitely contact us for assistance.

Or anyone seeking information about fair housing laws, fair housing compliance.

We get a good number of calls just from real estate agents or property managers, et cetera.

We just want to make sure they're they understand what they should be doing.

We do a lot of trainings for housing providers and others in the community as well.

We also have a program that helps tenants experiencing housing conditions issues in the area.

I'll touch on that a little bit later.

We provide the service and look at some what counties and our website and phone number are on the screen there too.

One of the things that we do for the city too is the AI.

So AI stands for analysis of impediments.

But really what that means is we look for barriers to fair housing choice.

So when I was saying before, your home is really important.

It's the core of your life, right?

But what if what are those barriers in our community that might prevent certain folks in our community, certain marginalized populations, certain groups from accessing housing or creating a barrier in some way?

So the analysis of impediments tries to identify those issues and then make a plan for our community, our city, our partners to remove those barriers.

So it begins with outreach, community surveys and focus group meetings, reviews local history and demographics, draws on census data and other studies, identifies barriers to fair housing choice, provides an action plan then to eliminate those barriers that are identified by the community.

So on the screen now is a very long list of all the different barriers that we identified that appear to be creating problems in our community, things that we need to work on to make sure that folks can access housing.

However, I'm not going to go through all of those because just time limitations.

So one important piece of it is access to home ownership.

This is really important really for cities all across the country, but it's very true in Toledo.

You may have heard seen news stories or reports about hey, Toledo is a wonderful place to invest if you're a real estate investor or to buy up houses and turn those into rental units in some way.

Well, that might actually sound kind of good in a way, like it's a great place for investment.

But think about the flip side of that, that if investors are buying up a lot of the homes where people might otherwise be able to be a homeowner and pass on generational wealth, you know, to their children.

Um in a way that's actually a flip side of that is it's taking that away, right?

We want to actually see folks in our community be able to buy a home.

Um I will note too that certain marginalized groups, it's particularly hard for them to get access to home ownership.

Um it's becoming harder and harder with the cost of um housing increasing.

So we have another recommendations, and some of which the city is certainly already working on.

So one just one example, the city's gonna be doing a home ownership fair later this year to educate um residents on access to home ownership.

There's other things that we can do to improve local laws and maybe um look at partnering with banks to provide better products or making sure that if there are investors buying up a lot of housing, even though local investors or sometimes they're even international or out of state, whatever their background is though, um, we need to make sure our local laws are strongly enforced so that they are providing habitable housing and you know, hopefully that will also encourage them to be maybe sell to local residents as well.

Another thing we identify that's really important as source of income discrimination that comes in a variety of different forms, but let's say someone denies someone housing because they the income that they have is let's say veterans' benefits or social security or a housing choice voucher.

So what that does is um if you hit let's, for example, a housing choice voucher, which is really important uh piece of this, that voucher should you should be able to live anywhere you want with that your money can carry you, right?

Like if you that voucher can pay for your rent, the idea is go to any neighborhood, go wherever you want, wherever your money can take you.

However, sadly, a lot of um housing providers discriminate based on that source of income.

So the city actually has a local law that prohibits that, it's a misdemeanor offense.

The next phase that we're working on really closely with the city is making sure that's actually enforced and that people can file complaints you know with the city if they have experienced that kind of discrimination.

And I won't go into all the details, but um there is uh progress being made on that.

Land use and zoning um is always almost always identified in action plans all across the country, and cities all across the country have to do these kinds of analyses and action plans.

Um is really important because that's the first phase, right?

To decide where housing gets built or when and where housing can be developed.

Um and again, not to go into too much detail, but one of the things that we identify was make it a little bit easier, making sure there's not barriers uh for housing for folks with disabilities, because that sometimes is difficult.

Sometimes there's barriers that get raised for housing for disabilities for individuals with disabilities, or even just uh affordable housing.

Sometimes there's pushback, there's NIMBYism.

Um we need to make sure at the zoning phase that we eliminate that.

We have recommendations for that.

Um I will I should really strongly emphasize that substandard housing conditions definitely came out in the focus groups and the surveys, um, and that was true for the prior analysis that we did five the previous one that we did five years before this one.

Um that because uh Tlato is an older housing stock, right?

This is an older town, a lot of the housing was built before 1978.

And at the same time, there's neighborhood areas that have been um were historically redlined or disinvested in different ways, and there hasn't been we haven't seen the investment in those areas, and so over time um the housing stock begins to deteriorate, and that then becomes a barrier to real housing choice, especially in those particular neighborhoods.

So we have a number of recommendations um for fixing things as the screen is a picture of a kind of a before and after.

That's actually a case that we handled where we help someone um with those housing conditions issues.

One of the last things I'll mention is just public awareness of fair housing rights and um how to get involved with the action plan.

That's part of the reason why we're here, is to emphasize um the importance of these issues in our community.

Sometimes when I talk about these things, they sound kind of technical, and it's like a local law.

Um, and how do you you know get enforced some of these rights?

There's legal processes.

Um, but the more and more we can educate the community on uh why people just see the results, right?

They see that housing is hard to get to.

They see that it's really expensive.

They see that the quality, the conditions are often bad.

That's a result of a series of different local policies and state and national policies, but things that hopefully we can work on as a community to truly change.

Uh so that's probably the reason why we're here is to educate the community, but also educate them on their fair housing rights.

So if they are experiencing discrimination, uh they know where to go and who to call.

I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any, or I don't, or if you want to do questions later, whatever.

Okay, I do that there.

Thank you.

Thank you, George.

And we'll have um Singor Mans from Lucas Metropolitan Housing to come up to talk about public housing.

Okay, hit something in particular.

Okay.

Good morning.

My name is C.

I'm the chief executive officer and president for Lucas Metropolitan Housing.

Thank you for allowing me to speak briefly.

I George went pretty fast there, so I'm I don't know if I'm gonna beat him.

I'm gonna try.

Um so I was asked to speak or LMH was asked to speak just briefly as it relates to public housing.

So there are gonna be a variety of different things that I'll be speaking about, but it won't necessarily be beyond public housing.

There might be a few uh a few projects that I'll mention that are sort of outside of public housing, but for the most part, we're talking about public housing and not some of our other activities that are um still in the affordable housing space, but um we have an affiliate nonprofit that does a lot of our work, and so um I'm not asked to necessarily talk about that, so I will um not really go into that.

And so a little bit about us.

Um we have a vision statement and we have a mission statement.

Our our vision statement is to be a lead partner in creating communities of choice where everyone has a place to call home, very similar to what the homelessness board had said earlier.

Um our mission is to be uh leading in the development and sustainability of housing accessible to all and providing pathways to an enhanced quality of life to empower vibrant communities, and there are a couple of photos of some of the communities more recently that we had developed that um those are pictures of Collingwood Green.

So uh public housing.

Actually, did this skip something?

I don't know if it skipped a page or not.

I think it did.

No, I think we're okay.

So public housing, uh, just a few simple facts.

We manage about 2400 apartments, public housing apartments.

We have even more than 2400.

If you expand that beyond public housing, we have some market rate units that we uh manage.

We also have some tax credit units that are within our purview.

We don't technically manage them, but they're controlled by us.

Um and so uh so it's about 2600 almost total that we um that we have some control over, so we're the largest residential landlord in the region.

Uh the number of families on the public housing rate list are actually a little bit over 4,000, so it's approximately 4,000 in uh late fall, early winter uh we've opened our put our our wait list, and within three days we had uh 3,500 applications.

So we all understand that there's a a great need out there, a great demand for for housing, affordable housing.

Uh families that uh leave our our public housing uh residency, and then uh obviously we we try to fill those up as quickly as we can, but with a waiting list of over 4,000, you can see just the imbalance in the number of units that are needed versus the number of people that leave our communities and so or the number of families that leave our communities.

So you can only uh imagine the uh the challenge that we we have here in the community.

Currently, unfortunately, our wait list is closed because 4,000, if we kept it open would be 5,000, which of course would be 8,000, and then on and on and on.

So we we close it.

Regardless strategic plan, it started, it was developed in 2024.

It's a five year strategic plan that ends in 28.

Um I've uh identified the various goals that we have.

Um the the goals, I'll just read them really quickly is to invest in employee growth and enhance our workplace satisfaction.

We believe that it's important that we uh not only have good employees, but we also have the ability to recruit good employees and keep them.

So uh so we have to invest in our folks, and so I I uh feel very strongly about us having a workplace in which people feel comfortable and and ultimately want to stay for uh sustained period of time.

We also have to in this very weird uh time.

We have to increase our revenue but pursue diverse ways in which to do that.

Um we're about 95% HUD funded, and uh that means that we uh operate at the whims and wishes of the congressional appropriations, unfortunately.

And so that means if HUD is having a very uh challenging year because of Congress or the executive administration, i.e.

the president, then that means we're gonna end up having a very tough year ourselves.

And so by diversifying, we actually uh in a way secure ourselves uh financially.

We won't make any effort to create accessible housing opportunities in Toledo and the region.

We're Lucas Metropolitan Housing, so we we do think more broadly outside of uh outside of Toledo.

I'm not gonna talk about those areas in which we operate outside of Toledo, but um, but we do think about how we can expand housing opportunities for everybody.

It goes back to what George was referencing regarding choice, giving people the opportunity to choose where they want to live.

Um strongline our processes and elevate user experience and satisfaction internally.

Um we we have this this um this saying uh as it relates to customer service.

It's we say wakteo, which is for our our staff, and it means that we are customers to each other, and so it's a way to remind ourselves that we all have to think about being customer service oriented.

Uh we want to launch an exclusive inclusive uh communication strategy to educate our stakeholders on foster community awareness.

So we you've may have seen a lot of a lot more uh postings on our social media platforms if you're um connected to us and you you'll receive a lot of information about what we're doing, how we're doing it, the people that um are a part of uh our everyday uh work and and the dynamic uh programs that we're offering, and so we're trying to enhance our communication through a new communication department that we uh started just uh just in the middle of last year.

And we're building both ways to family income wealth.

Um I think a type of type of there, wealth building and economic advancement.

Um is an important function, we think.

dynamic uh programs that we're offering and so we're trying to enhance our um our communication through a new communication department that we uh started just um just in the middle of last year and we're building both ways to family income wealth um uh I think a type of typo there wealth building and economic advancement um homeownership is an important function we think uh George again mentioned that uh you know there's uh wealth generation through certain ways of of um people uh making certain decisions and one is is is home ownership and so um so we're trying to advance our homeownership program a lot of people don't know that uh our voucher program has a homeownership uh component to it so literally a portion of your mortgage can be paid through the the voucher itself and so it's um it's not kept secret by us but people don't seem to really take advantage of it the way that they could so our approach to housing in the region is we intend to continue continue to pursue uh opportunities to improve and reposition uh our portfolio to create improved living conditions and quality of housing opportunities we want to improve neighborhood conditions to create mixed income communities of choice and and and the reason why we want to do that is we think that you know there's there's there is a certain level of dignity in living and quality of life that you know what people don't have to um people don't have to feel like they live in lower income um uh communities or residences uh they should live uh anywhere with anybody in a mixed income community and so uh as an example uh as some folks know including my staff and you'll probably see this over the course of the next year um I I do not like the fact that we highlight and promote uh our communities as being Lucas metropolitan communities so that when you drive past one of our communities you see this big yard sign or like kind of like a political campaign sign in the yard that says Lucas Metropolitan housing on it you know that you don't see that in any other private market community what you see is the name of the community right and maybe in small print you know managed by or whatever but you don't see this huge advertisement and so I want our kids I want our families to feel proud about where they live and and the community in which they live and we don't have to necessarily advertise that they live in a public housing community and so I want also to give them the opportunity to live in mixed income communities.

So we want to transition to more sustainable and diverse funding models as I said before so that we can serve our our capital needs so these are some of the projects that we're currently working on the over the next year and uh into 2027 the uh is is new so I just did it in there it's actually not public housing we we just acquired that property and uh we're gonna be doing um a sizable amount of renovations and interior renovations and some exterior but mostly interior renovations um for for the purpose of of course uh enhancing the quality of life of the residents that live there um McClinton Roman you'll see off of Nebraska you'll see over the next year um some significant changes in the aesthetics the outside exteriors uh we're also doing a lot of lighting work and some we're gonna be putting in air conditioning you'd be surprised that some of our communities don't have air conditioning so in the summertime they don't have the ability to really you know close their windows and and you know cool themselves off through uh and which we're generally accustomed to doing and so we're gonna be making some significant improvements to the Clinton on for um for our families there.

Viste owner which is uh right next to us there you're gonna see some exterior improvements to that particular building as well including new windows along with uh the first four improvements that will actually uh make it a very comfortable lifestyle for those that work at the or live at that building rather um port Lawrence there'll be uh lighting upgrades and some water heater valve replacements um speaker terrace uh there's a typo and speaker uh it's S-P-I-E-K-E-R-W right now this pre-development phase uh speaker and why will over the next two to three years uh you'll see a lot of activity over there uh we'll probably start with speaker and we'll probably take down speaker and we'll we'll be building other spaces for folks to live in that area new spaces for people to live in that area and then we'll move to Weiler and do um both innovations and some deconcentration of poverty as you can see there are 425 apartments over there.

That's just a lot of units in one place.

And it's not it's not eliminating as much as it's we're figuring out how to do some replacing, and that'll take a little bit of time to figure out.

We're gonna have a grand opening uh this May, I believe, May 28th, I think it's set for.

So uh we'll see if that happens, but uh because we're still working on the the lease up piece, but it's a brand C building.

It's just uh another demonstration of what can be done of if a collection of um groups or collection of organizations can come together and um pool their resources and then their brain power to make that happen.

And the time is we're gonna be doing some HVAC system upgrading, some lighting upgrades, and then some exterior work.

Um that's we have a lot more going on, but for the public housing piece for 2026, um, at least in Toledo for 2026 and going into 27, those are our main focus areas.

And then the the part that I think is all that's exciting as far as I'm concerned, but part of it is you know, us really not wanting to be needed.

Part of the excitement is hopefully getting families to not need uh LMH.

And so one of the ways in which we do this is we have a financial opportunity center.

We'll the only one, quite frankly, in the state of Ohio that's um uh housed at a in a housing authority, or at least we were the first.

And so I don't know all that, but um you know, we we do have an interest in homeownership, we do have an interest in having our uh our residents and not even the you don't even have to be a resident, but having our residents and otherwise um become uh credit worthy, um have residents that can uh obtain a mortgage, uh be able to identify a house that they would like to live in.

We have habitat for humanity here.

Um we we have this desire, I think, um, among a lot of different groups to have families uh become homeowners, and so um our financial opportunity center is another method in which to help families get to that uh get to that destinate destination and and we have to thank LISC because LISC actually helped seed the program um and continues to provide some financial support for that program to continue.

So with that, uh are there any questions?

Or again, you're taking them later.

Okay, no problem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Singor.

So we'll open it up now to questions.

If you have a question, I want to took the mic.

If you have a question, you want to step up to the podium here, state your name, and um ask your question.

Hey.

Hello.

Um my name is Laurie Hammond, and I live in the old west end of Toledo.

And I have a couple of questions regarding the nurses and the new residential uh developments that have been built, such as the Glen, the Grand Yeah, the Grand.

Um I was at the uh vacant housing registry press conference, and they referenced that that particular property uh was a income-driven, but it's not.

And if we're looking at housing that goes up to 120% of AMI, but the rent is starting for those pro those units, two bedroom at $1,300.

So I'm just wondering like how is that considered?

They're not going based on income, they're not uh subsidized, nothing like that.

It's it's just out of place to me.

Yeah.

Um, I wasn't in on that project.

Okay.

I'll just say that.

So what I can do is I will um get the appropriate person to reach out to you.

I'll explain that process because I had um I'm on the CDBG side, and that was done with other funding.

Okay.

And so I don't know all the details that went into how they determine the income and all of that for that particular project.

Okay.

And I can find out for you, and I know how to reach you out, make sure we get that answer for you.

And then I have one more question, I'm sorry.

Um with finding um the homelessness and finding residents.

I I am all for housing our homeless.

And she's gone, and I guess I could reach out to her, but my question would have been are there coaching opportunities for those individuals that are transitioning from homelessness to permanent residences where they are being checked in on, uh making sure that they're keeping the properties up because we do have a lot of out of state investors that are willing to rent to uh a transitioning family, right?

But they're not keeping up with the properties.

Um I actually live right next door to a situation just as that, and when I tell you that they're tearing it down brick by brick, you know, the the foundation, everything, but the owner is not keeping up with it.

He has a project manager and they're just collecting the vouchers.

So how do we figure out a way to transition the homelessness, the homeless individuals or unhoused, I'm sorry, not homeless, the unhoused individuals into permanent housing into being more involved with their lifestyles.

I know that they do provide wraparound services on uh you know, like case management and different things like that.

I don't know the extent to your what you're asking.

Um we probably would talk to co-compliance because they would be more involved with that as far as if there's issues with structural issues with the housing and um other maintenance issues like that, we would probably need to uh talk to co-compliance to get more information on how that is, but I know they do provide wraparound services, the detail, the extent of it, I'm not sure and how long they do it.

I think it depends on the funding and how much that is allocated for you know helping that particular family.

So that would be more of a Julie question on the unhoused.

And I do have our contact information, I would reach out to her and she can go into more detail on that for you.

And since she mentioned code compliance, and not code compliance, and you could probably direct me.

Um, but we're talking about uh allowing individuals to become homeowners in the old west end north of central and uh west of Detroit Avenue.

There's a lot of properties that are being demolished, and so we're left with all of this green space.

I mean, I know land bank comes and they look at certain properties and so on and so forth, but I know of at least one property that was in the process of being renovated and they demolished it.

So how can we stop so many demolitions and then leaving these parcels vacant for 15, 20, 25 years in some of these cases?

That might have to be like a coordinated effort between fair housing, our department and co-compliance to um initiate something like that.

I know there are some planned demolitions coming up in the NERSA areas.

Um I just found this out like a couple days ago.

Yep.

So I don't know all the details of it yet.

Um, but I'm sure there's gonna be some type of a task force or something that they'll look at and see how we can instead of maybe always demolishing, maybe there might be a potential to save it.

But I know there are some houses that they are looking at that they will be demolishing what those units are, they have not um relayed that to me, the identification of those yet.

Okay, so thank you for your time.

We could talk to Director Clemens who is working with co-compliance on that and um find out.

Perfect.

Okay, Monica.

Yeah, I didn't have a lot of answers, sorry.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Go up and uh please state your name.

Be easy on me.

Hi Monica.

Hi.

Uh yeah, buddies.

Yeah, I live in the uh old South End of Toledo.

And just two real quick things.

Number one is when we determine the NURSA designation.

I think it's fantastic.

Um is it was there like a profile that was built to you know like income housing age, you know uh income, those kind of things.

Like a profile that was developed uh for the old South Then I don't know if you or someone knows it, or or is it an information available that I can get my hands on?

It should be in the nurse of plan.

It has the demographics, it has the income information, but that was from 201 and 22.

They base that off of.

So all that information is in the nurse plan that is on the city's website.

Okay.

So they did like an extensive study of the areas before they because we had to there's a long process that we have to go through in order to designate a nurse.

And so one of the things they look at is the housing, they look at the income, they look at the demographics, they look at all of that information, and all of that is available in that nursery plan.

I don't know it off the top of my head, but it is available in there for you to review.

No, and we can recertify it every five years.

So we just did that with our new five year plan.

So it's set forth for the next five years.

If you send me an email, I can send it to you.

Any other questions?

Yes, no.

Okay.

And you can request it from another library to have it sent to you.

There's it's also on the website of Fair Housing, um, LMH as well as the homelessness board and the Lucas County Board of D D is on their website as well that you can go in, download it, review the action plan.

We are doing a 30-day comment period, then it runs through April 24th.

Um all written comments should be sent to the Department of Housing and Community Development at one government center, Toledo, Ohio 43604, and just put it to the attention of 2026-27 action plan.

Any public comments that you have.

So with that we conclude the first public hearing.

The second one again is going to be next Thursday, April 2nd at 5 30 PM, and it'll probably be pretty much the same presentation.

And have a good night.

Beat the storm.

Is it coming?

Hey Monica, that presentation that you did.

Um so does your narration come with it?

You did such a doggone good.

Oops, did such a doggone good job?

Yeah, yeah, the way you talked about everything.

I'm sure you probably it doesn't come with that, but uh I just thought it was really good information.

All right then.

We'll see ya.