The Wilmington Board of Adjustment held a regular meeting on Thursday, November 17, 2022, beginning at 1:04 p.m. at the Wilmington Convention Center (a temporary location). The meeting was chaired by Patrick Moore and included six board members, with Graham Mitchell serving as alternate. The board considered 14 agenda items, including appeals, variance requests, and continuances, concluding at approximately 6:17 p.m.
And other members of organizations that have a stake in addressing homelessness. The COC hosts a monthly meeting where we share best practices, educate our local collaborative community on programs and solutions, and network in order to share resources, increasing effectiveness and supporting one another. Anyone is welcome to attend these meetings. And our third emphasis is, of course, on housing. The proven best practice to end homelessness in housing is housing first. This is a philosophy adopted by our local community and a nationwide trend that advocates to offer individuals housing first, meaning that before they have to meet any other requirements, including sobriety, health care, income, etc., they are housed first. The average cost of housing in New Canover County, according to the Washington Post, is 144 a month. This is up 21.8% from 2020. The current monthly Social Security income is $841 per month. In 2023, it will increase to $914 a month. Hearing the difference in these numbers, you can imagine how challenging it is to find affordable housing for persons with low to no income. I would like to highlight some of our COC success stories this year. The housing authority was responsible for issuing emergency housing vouchers through that program this year. We have 27 leased individuals. The COC was responsible for bringing the PATH program back to Wilmington, which is operated by Coastal Horizons, and is operating an effective street outreach program. We use state grant funds to pay for an emergency shelter hosted in a hotel to temporarily shelter COVID-positive persons, and that program is still in operation today. We continue to work with local and state partners to develop a plan to assist homeless persons and families during disaster. These are some of the ways in which we need assistance, bringing all parties and stakeholders together in order to work as one and play on our strengths, investing financially in the centralizing systems of HMIS and coordinated entry to connect a broad range of partners who are working with individuals to reduce or end homelessness. Support and help in local initiatives, including the faith community, as they create grassroots efforts to help unsheltered people. Including the COC on conversations for programs that impact homeless citizens, as I mentioned earlier, the new program rolled out by the county and the city is one example of that collaboration. And seeking education as well as providing education on issues that impact homelessness in our region in order to speak and act in ways that humanize our neighbors who find themselves in crisis. I'm going to turn the floor over now to Reverend Meg McBride, who is going to give you a brief overview. I believe you've gotten some packets that have a diagram of our COC orbit. Uh Meg developed this to give a little bit of clarity to who we are and who is operating within the orbit. There's sometimes some confusion given that our fiscal agent is a future council of governments. So we we would hope to provide a little bit of clarity with this. Thank you. We just put this together today after speaking last night at the county commissioners and decided that this might be a helpful way to understand what the COC does and where it lives. So the COC is governed by its own board. It is housed at the Cape Ford Council of Governments who acts as our fiscal agent, and we are supported by COC staff. The administrative function of our board is actually the administrative function of the COC is divorced from the decision making. And so while our board makes the decisions, uh the COG provides our fiscal oversight. And then orbiting around those basic duties of the COC, which really are data and grants, are these kind of three layers. The first layer you'll see are the COC grant funded agencies. These are agencies that receive federal and state grant money through us. Competitive grant competition that is held two times a year. And they have mandatory participation in the COC. And then orbiting around them are COC members. So any organization can be a member of the COC. I know. I was like, nonprofits, individuals, all court all people that have their own funding or maybe are operating through charging. I'd like to call the November 17th meeting of the board adjustment order, please. But are not members of the COC, but we're in county. Hearings before the board of adjustment are quasi-judicial in nature. Decisions of the board are based on the record of these proceedings. The grant a variance requires a concurrent vote of four fifths of the members of the board. Reverse or modify the determination of an administrative official requires a majority vote of the board. Becomes part of the record. Appeals of board decisions are the superior court and are based on the record. Appeals must be filed within 30 days of the date of the filing of the board's order in the planning division.