[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, so welcome to the Medford Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Wednesday, November 6th, 2024. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Kayla Lessin. Roberta Cameron. Carrie Weaver. Penelope Taylor. Here. Lisa Sun. Here. Mayor Brianna Longo.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Here.
[Roberta Cameron]: and Lisa Ann Davidson here. Tonight we have, in the last meeting we discussed inviting individuals to talk about various housing resources available in the city. Today we'd like to invite the city's community block grant, yeah, community development block grant manager, CDBG, Laurel Siegel to talk to us about CDBG and the housing services that are supported by CDBG. Thank you for coming.
[Laurel Siegel]: No problem. Happy to be here. So Aditi said that you had some questions for me. I can give you a little bit of a basic background about the funding. I'm not sure exactly what you wanted to know. So Medford is an entitlement community, which means that we receive direct funding for CBPG from HUD every year. Our current funding is a little bit under $1.4 million. It's $1.384 million this year. Of that amount, we allocate the maximum permissible 20% to administration. That includes paying salaries such as myself and DT, as well as paying for certain studies. Right now, some of that funding is going towards some of the zoning technical amendments and other studies in the city. We also allocate the maximum 15% to public services. That goes to a variety of outside agencies that we provide grants to, everything from transportation services to services for our elder residents, We do currently fund two housing-related programs. Through Housing Families, we provide legal services. And through ABCD, we provide rent and utility assistance. And then balance of the funds is divided up amongst a variety of programs. Some of that is going towards the new rehab home loan program that we've just kicked off. Some of that will go to some economic development programs, And a substantial portion of it goes towards infrastructure projects, parking improvements, roadway improvements, everything. So that's sort of the overarching.
[Roberta Cameron]: Can you do you mind if I ask a few questions? So I'm familiar with CDBG, and it's really exciting to hear that Medford's doing a rehab program. What is Medford doing with their rehab programs?
[Laurel Siegel]: Do you want to actually address that, Aditi, since you're managing that?
[Moogoor]: I'm Laurel, and I'm managing it. So we have a funding of $100,000, and we are planning to provide housing rehab services to up to four homeowners each $35,000 per unit. And currently we have hired community opportunities group which is administering this program.
[Laurel Siegel]: So I mean, we went through the whole initial stage of applications. We ran the lottery about two weeks ago. And so we're working with our initial applicants that were selected for the lotteries. Can I ask how many people applied?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And for just a couple of exams of what the roofs and
[Moogoor]: Heating system repairs, air conditioning system repairs, foundation repair, and window replacement. Yeah, those were the most raised concerns.
[Penelope Taylor]: And do we... I'm sorry, Penny, did you want to say something? I was wondering just how the word got out about the program and how it promoted.
[Moogoor]: We had it in our newsletters and then through mayor's office there was a news release as well and we did outreach at the senior center and then public library.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So I've got a couple more follow-up questions. So with the heating system AC and window replacements, are you working with MassSave to try to get the best bang for your buck?
[Moogoor]: Yes, that's the plan. So we have already spoken to Community Opportunities Group to review MassSave's program and include that as part of the services.
[Roberta Cameron]: And then you saved four homeowners at $25,000 a year. Is it homeowners or actual? are you only helping the eligible homeowner or what if there's a tenant involved, it's a two family?
[Moogoor]: If it's a two family, the homeowner should be residing in one of the units.
[Roberta Cameron]: Let me rephrase the question. So if it's a two family and you'd have 50% of the property eligible, would CDBG funds be used to assist both units, the tenant and the homeowner? are not occupied?
[Moogoor]: So we do have I think one application where it's a two-family unit and community opportunities group is reviewing tenants income eligibility at this point and they said that if they I think overall, they should, if they're not eligible, but if the homeowners are still eligible, they would still provide services for the whole property.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, technically, they could get up to $50,000. No, $25,000. $25,000 per property and not per unit.
[Laurel Siegel]: Okay, all right, thank you. And for the pilot program, it is a requirement that at least one of the units be owner-occupied.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, so it does have to be a rehab program.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: You said it's a pilot program. And I assume eligibility cap is 80% of AMI? Yes. And then about your housing, your rent and utility assistance through ABCD, how much do they usually, well, it's 15% of your grant, right?
[Laurel Siegel]: Approximately. Well, their current grant is about $3,000. They do pair up our funding with RAFT and other sources of funding because the limits on the amount of funding that we're able to provide.
[Roberta Cameron]: And how much do you...
[Laurel Siegel]: to provide for an eligible household? I believe that currently they're providing about $1,200 per eligible household.
[Unidentified]: Of CDBG.
[Roberta Cameron]: Of CDBG, and that's also in addition to, I think that they also get CPA money. ABCD gets CPA to also help them. Yes, yes.
[Unidentified]: And yeah, and others. Exciting. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions on CBPG?
[Penelope Taylor]: I guess I'm curious, do you get info on how many people are accessing legal services?
[Laurel Siegel]: Absolutely. Yeah, they're required to provide quarterly reporting to me on exactly certain metrics that we need to collect on race, ethnicity, and income level, but also just confirming whether or not we're meeting the benchmarks of their contract for the year.
[Penelope Taylor]: Right. Curious if we know how many people access legal services in the last year?
[Laurel Siegel]: Off the top of my head, you know, it's not huge numbers, but I want to say for housing families, Oh, I don't want to speak. We have a number of different grantees, so I don't want to inadvertently inflate their numbers with somebody else's. People are using it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. They're making good use of the funding.
[Penelope Taylor]: And do you know if those get referred just in early stages of eviction or usually later stage or kind of whenever someone comes with the... Yeah, I think it's a wide variety.
[Laurel Siegel]: Great. Thanks so much.
[Roberta Cameron]: Absolutely. And self-certification, or do you do the income documentation?
[Laurel Siegel]: I mean, it varies from subrecipient to subrecipient. We do provide the self-certification form, but certainly some of the agencies like public families, they tend to go a little bit deeper because, and certainly ABCD, where they're providing the direct financial support, they'll go a little bit deeper into verifying the income status of the applicants.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you. One question to the chair. Since we're bringing it to you from some of those, I don't know, that would actually be CPA. So CDBG. Oh, how could we as a affordable housing trust collaborate and with CDBG to pursue our endeavors? Obviously, I guess, you know, is there anything in the planning or does someone will do anything? I mean, does anybody have any thoughts on that or is that just something where
[Roberta Cameron]: That is a great question because it's similar to what I was thinking of. I look at performers that are coming in from developers who are seeking money through the Somerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Somerville Home Money as well. So sometimes the city of Somerville is able to put in CDBG money for acquisition funds, and then we couple it. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Then Somerville couples it with other funding sources.
[Laurel Siegel]: So yeah, absolutely, it would be an eligible use. It really is a matter of what our plans are, how much our funding continues in the future, and what our other demands are for these funds.
[Roberta Cameron]: Some of us right now are looking at taking out a Section 108 loan in order to help fund a project over at the North Street.
[Laurel Siegel]: housing thank you the housing development and that is a possibility here as well through the chair i i'm curious you mentioned kind of eligible projects so if there are any kind of top lines with eligibility parameters just in as we're brainstorming or if we can figure out how it all fits together yeah i mean it's certainly and you know affordable housing is is definitely an eligible item for cdg that's you know it's clearly within the wheelhouse of what is eligible there. So, yeah, through to you.
[Roberta Cameron]: And then through the chair, the, so I apologize, I didn't hear the beginning of your presentation, so I don't know if you already covered this, but I'm curious to know, what is the amount of funding that there's potentially discretion, so I know that a percentage is used for, So certain things and then a percentage you have some discretion over and is that amount that you have discretion over already really. programmed through your action plan?
[Laurel Siegel]: Yes, I did discuss that a bit up front, but I'm happy to go back over that. When it comes to the action plan for the current year, yes, it's all fully programmed. We receive a little bit less than $1.4 million After we allocate towards administrative costs and public services, the remaining funding is just shy of $900,000 that we're allocating among the various projects. We are actually in the midst of developing our next consolidated plan for the next five-year period. So we're working through the consortium because we're part of the North Suburban Consortium that is done through that as opposed to individually as Medford, community and that will establish what our overarching goals are for CDBG over the next five year period. So that will help inform how we use the money going forward.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Certainly. And would it be appropriate at this time to also think about or look at how much home funding is potentially available and what is the way that, what is Medford's relationship to home funding?
[Moogoor]: Yes, I'm going to talk about that in the next agenda, but happy to say there's approximately $1.7 million allocated for affordable housing development, but this is divided among the eight different communities. And $100,000 is allotted for one assistant unit, home assistant unit.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, you said $100,000 for one? Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: and a consolidated plan would address both CDBG and HOME.
[Roberta Cameron]: So this is your fiscal year 24 at 1.24? It's fiscal year 24, yes.
[Moogoor]: But though I think currently we are in program year 23. I don't know how they are working that out. It's a little confusing. But that's how, I think they are one year delayed by the actual program year.
[Roberta Cameron]: Wait, where is slowly into the home money?
[Penelope Taylor]: Sorry, I guess I'm curious about the process of considering programs. I know you're like, program out for this year, but like, do are you approach? Do you seek them out? Just kind of how that what that process looks like.
[Laurel Siegel]: I mean, you know, and bear in mind, I've only been doing this for about a year and a half with the city. So I've only really been through one full cycle. But, you know, I think it's a mix of awareness of projects that need funding, just through conversations, you know, throughout the building. But also as we start approaching developing the annual action plan for the year, we reach out to different departments around the city to talk about, so, you know, sort of We have the awareness, and then we sit down, we have a team that sits down and says, okay, this is the funding that we expect to have. These are the demands. What do we want to prioritize for the year? And certainly the mayor is part of that conversation.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, it's good to have Laurel here. She knows the group is active, and if we have ideas, yeah, we'll hopefully be on our radar after myself, her DP, and the committee.
[Roberta Cameron]: I wonder, then, If there's a way, so thinking about how Summerville uses CDBG to supplement funding from other sources for affordable housing, but often those opportunities probably come up on a shorter timeline than being able to anticipate them a year in advance for the action plan. I don't know, maybe that's not true. I wonder if there's a process for allocating maybe an event and like how what what funding might be available to consider for that purpose. I think that's through your action plan. Like you have to be able to say, this is what we're going to do. We're going to put in acquisition money with our CDBG. Exactly. Which sounds like this is where you're just starting that process right now.
[Laurel Siegel]: Exactly, because we're anticipating having the drafting of the consolidated plan finished by late February, which then will move into the action plan, because all of that has to be approved by May 15th. Um, by the city and then submitted to HUD for their review and approval. So, yeah, absolutely. If we anticipated wanting to spend any funding from CDBG on the trust for next year, we'd have to put that into the action plan for next year.
[Roberta Cameron]: I think I saw an email to me that they're looking for input. So did you send out emails to everybody in the trustees? Can you resend the email just in case? Yes.
[Moogoor]: Absolutely.
[Roberta Cameron]: And that's what you're using to start trying to put together your action plan is what is the survey and what is the community saying?
[Laurel Siegel]: Exactly, to set the overarching goals for the five years, and then from there we'll develop the individual action plans for the coming year.
[Penelope Taylor]: It looked like today was the last day to take that survey, so I don't know if there was an extension. They had just extended it to November 29th, so we have a little bit more time.
[Laurel Siegel]: Well, you're thinking about it. Yeah, exactly. It's lengthy, but not, you know, it shouldn't take more than 10, 15 minutes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And now we know what it's actually going to be used for, for people who were not sure what a CDBG was. Thank you. Does anybody else have any other questions about CDBG?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for coming on.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: It was helpful.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, on to home. So Aditi will talk about the North Shore Suburban Consortium NSC home program.
[Moogoor]: So Medford is part of Home Investment Partnership Program, which is administered by HUD. The program provides funding to build, buy, or rehabilitate affordable housing units. Medford is part of the North Suburban Consortium, which is a group of eight communities that collectively apply for home funds. Medford, Arlington, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Revere, and Wintrow are the eight communities that form the consortium. So each community has an NSC representative that serves on the board of the NSC. Daniel has been serving for a long time and recently have taken over the position. So home funds are allocated. I'm sure most of you know about this list. Home funds are allocated to participating jurisdictions. Participating jurisdictions could be local governments or state governments who are eligible to receive funds of at least $500,000 based on a certain formula calculated by HUD. So in case communities that are not eligible to receive that dollar amount, they can form a consortium, which is why NSE comes into picture. In addition to receiving the minimum funding of $500,000, the participating jurisdiction has to provide a local amount of $750,000 to its home program. So under NSE, there are probably three main home-funded activities. The first one is affordable housing development. So home provides funding to develop home ownership projects as well as rental projects. For home ownership, households have to earn income at or below 80% AMI. For rental projects, at least 90% of the tenants have to earn income at or below 60% AMI. And per unit subsidy that NSC provides is $100,000. And then... So there's also a purchase limit that is set by HUD for Medford, specifically a one-bedroom unit. This is for home ownership. One-bedroom unit is $606,000. A two-bedroom unit is $775,000. And a three-bedroom unit is $939,000. And a four-bedroom unit is 1.1 million. So often when a home, Ownership development is rehabilitated. Developers have to ensure that it doesn't exceed the homeownership value that HUD has assigned. As mentioned earlier, there's about $1.75 million specifically for homeownership and rental projects for the program year 24. The second part of the NSE funding program is our down payment assistance. We briefly talked about this during the CPA application. So NSE offers up to $100,000 down payment assistance for non-subsidized properties and $5,000 for NSE subsidized property. This is a deferred loan, a five-year deferred loan with 0% interest. And each anniversary date, 20% of the original down payment assistance is forgiven. And in five years, the loan is completely forgiven. $80,000 is allocated for down payment assistance program. And then the third part of the NSC Home Fund activity is the CHODO operating assistance. I think the North Suburban Consortium has three different CHODOs. Medford has its own CHODO, which is the Medford Community Housing. So CHODOs are private, nonprofit, community-based service organizations that develop affordable housing in a particular community or it can be City-specific or regional, like the neighborhood developers is a regional CHODO, whereas Medford Community Housing is specific to our community. They receive $25,000 per year as operating funds. That can involve salaries, employee compensation, insurance, utilities, rent, and so on, basically for the functioning of the organization. Medford Community Housing is currently building three new units. It's the Pell's Way project. And in addition to receiving CHODO operating assistance, NSC has allocated 15% of this home punch, which is around $300,000, set aside specifically for CHODOs to develop affordable housing. So broadly, there are three different programs, equitable housing development, down payment assistance program, and then H.O.A.D. manuals. And as Laurel mentioned, even NSE is doing a five-year consolidated plan. Yeah, hoping to finalize by end of February.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So the CHOTO, it's actually required by home funding to put 15% to CHOTO, CHOTO operating, and then you have an option to do CHOTO operating dollars, which is what you're doing with the 25,000 per. Yes, that's not often. I think every year they do get $25,000 as operating.
[Moogoor]: Exactly.
[Roberta Cameron]: Like home requires you to do CHODO products, projects, developments, but they don't require you to use CHODO, to give them CHODO operative.
[Roberta Cameron]: And you said there's $100,000 for DPA, up to $100,000 for down payment assistance. $10,000. I'm sorry.
[Moogoor]: for a unit that has not received home funds, but for a unit that has received home funds, it's $5,000. Okay, $10,000.
[Roberta Cameron]: That makes more sense, because you said it was $80,000.
[Moogoor]: Just to clarify regarding your previous question about Chodo. From my understanding, I think each community may not have a Chodo. HUD does not require each community to have a Chodo, but if you do have a Chodo, then the Chodo must receive $25,000 operating assistance.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Which is one question. Are we getting close to the point where we would have enough to have our own home fund in Medford?
[Moogoor]: Um, I'm not too sure yet. But I can ask Maldon or Daniel specifically.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. That's the goal. We're getting there eventually, right? With population. Yes.
[Moogoor]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: The question to the chair is, is it competitive Among the communities, how is the money distributed between the eight-member communities?
[Moogoor]: It can get competitive sometimes, but the money is on a rolling basis, so whoever comes first can apply. As long as there's funds, they keep spending the funds, yes. But also Walking Court, which is a project by Medford Housing Authority, recently it has saved, I think, nearly 1.8 million. Okay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And they do try to spread it amongst the communities if we hadn't received anything out of the Felser project over the years.
[Moogoor]: And NSE has told ARPA funds, which is why they were able to bring in more money.
[Roberta Cameron]: I was going to say, 1.8, that must have been multiple fiscal years.
[Moogoor]: And ARPA.
[Roberta Cameron]: Or program years. I have to say program years, because HUD does their years don't start until October and everybody else. So the 1.8 for the Bellsway was probably, I'm sorry, was that a combination of home funds and home ARP? Yes. Okay. And do you want to do a quick Quick summary of HomeARP for people that don't know what HomeARP, am I putting you on the spot?
[Moogoor]: I'm not familiar with HomeARP.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. Is it ARPA? Yes, it's ARPA. It's not ARPA, it's ARP. It's A-R-P, Home American Rescue Plan or something like that. I forget what it is. But it's very different from HomeBalloon. It is home money is used like we were saying home money is used for development and there's really a requirement. And this is something that I want to double check because my understanding is that you have to put 15%, whether you have a child or not. At this moment in time, you have to designate 15% to a Chodo and there's a lot of PJs out there that actually lose that money because there are no Chodos. But the whole ARP money, is really, they have different requirements. You can use it for development, but you can also use it for services. You can use it to pay for rental assistance and payments, short-term rental subsidies, et cetera, et cetera, only if you put it in your plan, and the plan is due December 22, 23, I think. So if it's not in your plan, it depends on what your plan was, and I don't know what the NCS's plan was on the platform.
[Moogoor]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I don't know, but it's different because it has requirements, but it doesn't have such the requirements as the home ARP does, and the home ARP has to, there's Qualifying QPs, qualifying participants, where you have to serve all of them. And it's not just like one population. It's to prevent homelessness. It's to rehouse the unhoused. It's veterans, victims of domestic violence. And then there's another category, which is hard to define without having it in front of me. but those units that are being billed with the combination has to have, has to serve all of those qualifying participants.
[Moogoor]: I think that makes sense because initially Walk-Dean could apply for whole funds and then NSC recommended applying for whole amount of funds because they were qualified.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It comes right up when you Google it. So this is the... It's fun reading.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. Anybody else have any other questions about the home program? Oh, I do. So has the consortium thought about using some of their home money for tenant-based rental assistance programs?
[Moogoor]: Not that I know of, but maybe after we finalize the consolidated action plan, they may introduce new programs.
[Roberta Cameron]: And then for those who may not be aware of what the tenant-based rental assistance programs are, is you can use your home money and you can actually make a Section 8 program. For a lack of a better description, it can be made very similar to a Section 8 program. You can't enter into a lease for more than two years, which not many people do, but it's a nice way. When Semerville did it, started 20 plus years ago, they did it where they capped the rental assistance for two years. So it was like the best way to explain it was like a Section 8 with a time clock because you still pay the 30% of your income towards rent. You have to have a complete tenant selection plan. But if there is some willingness and openness to kind of looking at using some of their home money for a tenant-based rental assistance program. I think that might be the case.
[Unidentified]: Just one question about home ARP. Is there a deadline for home ARP? Is there an overall, it has to be out of credit?
[Roberta Cameron]: It has to be spent. Let's see, I've got contracts going on until this I think it's 2030. It says the allocations were announced on April 8th, 2021. Yeah, and then I think you've got 10, and then I think it's 10 years, I think it's 2030 because I'm just thinking about the contracts that I have, and they're three-year contracts, so they start in 24, it goes to 27, and then I still have, and Somerville still has to do another RFP because we've got all of our service providers asked for all of our money, so we'll have to do another one. I think it's 2020. I think it's 2030. Okay. Thanks. Does anybody else have any other questions? Okay, so we're going to go to the next topic, which is the action plan. The subcommittee is myself, Penny, and Roberta. Do we want to give a quick little update on what's happening with our action plan?
[Penelope Taylor]: I think it's a little update, which is the thing that we're getting updates on data and policy movement and compiling those. And what we've really been working on is setting dates and times and setting up the stakeholder meetings that will happen over the course of the rest of the year. So, I think there might be a couple contacts. We're still. wrangling up, so potentially we'll do some one-off to ask the other members to stay in contact, but we'll be inviting folks who pick dates for the meetings and are planning out the ask in those meetings. So I think that is perhaps the top-level update of what we've been working on.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. So overall, the steps that we're looking forward to in this process are doing stakeholder outreach, that is the plan that Penny was just talking about, and we'll do public outreach in January. We outlined a timeline, we presented it at the last meeting, so we'll be over the next month thinking about how to advertise a public workshop And also right now we're gathering some background data on demographics and housing data in the area. And I hope that we might be able to at our next meeting, have a report from city staff on the, where we are with respect to implementing the master plan and the. the housing production plan, just to get an update on all of those things. So we're looking at the background and then we'll do some outreach to gather the needs. And that's the steps that we're taking right now.
[Moogoor]: Would you like to discuss the stakeholder list now?
[Roberta Cameron]: I have to say that I'm sorry, I went out of order. If anybody's looking at the agenda, I went out of order. I skipped the declaration of trust.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm so sorry.
[Roberta Cameron]: We'll get back to that.
[Penelope Taylor]: I will say the yellow highlight ones are still in progress. Some of them, it looks like we've been pulling them in more. The people have been, yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: I need to go back and see if I have the numbers for these. So I'll make a note to go back and do this.
[Penelope Taylor]: So maybe if we could all do a college try to fill out as much information by the end of this week, I think that might be a good deadline for us. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: But would it be helpful, maybe, mostly for me? Because I can get these if I contact people who then can get them. But I just, maybe just give me like, you know, one through You know, that would be helpful for me, so I could just focus and overwhelm everyone. And I think you could see where my skillset, my line of other people's skillset might be.
[Roberta Cameron]: If other people take a look at that list and know any organizations or stakeholders that we've left out, please.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And you're reaching out to the stakeholders just right there to obviously gather information. But would that be the list you invite to stakeholder meetings? Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we scheduled two stakeholder meetings, and we'll ask people to attend either of those two meetings. They might be thematically divided. I think we were we landed on having a meeting where we're targeting people about housing development and a separate meeting where we'd be targeting people about housing support services. Or it's possible that if that separation doesn't work for people, we might cover them both in both meetings. And we're sending out an email, introduction email, and a do, what is it called? A doodle poll. A doodle poll, so we can at least see who's coming, and then try to gauge the meetings by the attendance.
[Penelope Taylor]: And the combination of our action plan working group and a DT will be attending these meetings. Or other staff, yeah, great. Our excellent staff, so thank you all.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Okay, we'll go back to this with the declaration of trust.
[Unidentified]: And thank you again for all your work. So these are comments from outside counsel. I have reviewed them and maybe we'll just, you know, Quickly, I think I'd say a lot of them were very good comments and needed, but mostly form, form these comments, you know, a lot of periods and section, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't do the section on my computer for some reason. So that was all great that she put that in.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I made sure the chair was turning to this, is this 2KB? Yes.
[Moogoor]: Sharon? Sharon. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think removal is still... Okay, I just received a response. So, let me read that out. So, with respect to removal, there's no requirement for the city council to hold a hearing. Mayor can hold their hearing. That's what KP law suggested. And then, mayor begins the removal process by filing a written statement with the city clerk, setting forth the specific reasons for removal, and a copy of that statement is then delivered to the person to be removed. The member to be removed may then file a written reply with the city clerk. At the removal hearing, the mayor or her designee would hear evidence concerning the cause for the removal, in which generally or relatively, Sorry. Yeah, they are giving examples what could be the reasons for removal and that could include missing meetings, evidencing a conflict of interest, or a similar concern. There will also be due process considerations to take into account, which provide the board member with notice and an opportunity to be heard on the matter before the removal decision is made. So I think Neer is the one who will be holding the hearing next. Just looking for the other comments. I think the others were resolved in the last meeting. Yeah, yeah.
[Unidentified]: There's one paragraph. Yes, so this is just saying that People who sign things and documents on behalf of the trust, this is evidence of the board's will, basically. So, correct authority, that's it. So, yeah, I think that was it.
[Moogoor]: Signature of the Court of Trustees.
[Unidentified]: Any other comments?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think we have a declaration of drafts.
[Penelope Taylor]: I'm like, what's happening? Last time we reviewed this, the question of if anything related to policy advocacy would wind up, should be in this declaration or not. I don't know if we've got that addressed. So we put in number 17. OK, that's great.
[Unidentified]: Love it. OK, thank you. Try to be broad. Great.
[Roberta Cameron]: Does anybody have any questions and comments?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just on the process, so this will be cleaned up, and we'll get to read it one more time, and then just probably sign at the end of the next meeting, assuming there's no other changes in the meantime.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. And before we do that, sort of tagging onto your process, do we have to vote on it?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is it something that we have to vote to accept? After it's cleaned up, we should probably take a vote to accept at the next meeting and sign assuming we get a unanimous vote. So I don't know how you'd handle that at the BCCSO, just in case there's anybody that wants to change or ask a question, ask Karen a new question. So he's going to try to get a final document for the next meeting.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you again. Thank you. We're moving along.
[Roberta Cameron]: That was great. Check it out. And the next item on the agenda is funding and grant applications. The trust gave a presentation to the Community Preservation Committee on October 22nd to request funding for $250,000. And we hope to get from the committee on the status of the request on December 10th. Yay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Chair, I'm sorry, that one, the committee will vote on the whole plan for CPA.
[Roberta Cameron]: Sorry, I am thinking of two CPA committees right now. At the meeting, the November meeting, the committee is going to begin deliberating, and I think they intend to make their decisions in December. That's when they're going to vote on it. Yes. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Can you put in a good word for us?
[Moogoor]: Good job.
[Roberta Cameron]: And then the trust has applied for the Citizens Housing and Planning Association Chappers Municipal Engagement initiative through the program. Aditi will provide more information about the application, please.
[Moogoor]: So it's CHAPA, Citizens Housing and Planning Association. It's a non-profit organization that provides technical assistance to local communities. And so we thought it's a good opportunity to apply to this technical assistance program because we have a newly established equitable housing trust and we are developing an action plan. So we do require community support. And this program provides community engagement strategies and also facilitate public education efforts to gain support for equitable housing within the community. And so in partnership with Housing Medford, we wrote a grant application. Medford is already a municipal engagement initiative community. In 2019, CHAPA helped Housing Medford to establish, I mean, it helped Medford to establish a local housing advocacy group, which is Housing Medford. So as part of our housing production plan, one of the strategies is to collaborate with Housing Medford to reach out to community stakeholders and hear from them what are their needs and how the city can support in building affordable housing. So we thought this is a good opportunity to seek their support in moving forward with these initiatives. I'm not sure when we'll hear from them, but fingers crossed. chair how much do we have requests uh it's a technical assistance so there's no funding yes it's a year-long staff support oh wow oh you're long yeah i didn't know that so assuming we're gonna go on positive air and we get approved
[Roberta Cameron]: The technical assistance person could help us with the stakeholder meetings and the community meetings to try to help form our action plan.
[Moogoor]: Yes, that is the aim. So we've outlined three main goals. The first goal is to gain community input for the Affordable Housing Trust Action Plan, particularly from harder-to-reach populations. And then the second goal is to educate the community about the trust mission, trust role, and the need for equitable housing, and how the community can support the creation of more equitable housing. And the third goal is to have a continued engagement with the community to convey the surplus city on lawns for affordable housing. Yeah. Hopefully, we'll hear a positive response from them.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for all your comments. Yes, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Does anybody have any questions on the funding application? That brings us to the end of our agenda. So here is a housekeeping question because this is a public meeting and it is a public meeting. It says that we're supposed to go to 730.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, you don't have to go to the end of the meeting.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. You don't start early. Okay. 4-6. All right. Excellent. So I guess we need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Moogoor]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Roberta Cameron]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Moogoor]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Moogoor]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Roberta Cameron]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Roberta? Aye. Carrie? Aye. Penelope? Aye. Lisa? Aye. Maya? Aye. Lisa Anne? Aye. Meeting adjourned.
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