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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAHAB minutes 012317Affordable Housing Advisory Board Southern Human Services Room A/B 2501 Homestead Rd Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Tuesday, January 23, 2017 Minutes Members Present: Patsy Barbee, Chair; Eleanor Kinnaird, Nannie Richmond, Tammy Jacobs, Daniel Bullock, Joshua Brown, Narayanan Venkatakrishnan Palikad, Alex Nickodem Excused Absence: Arthur Sprinczeles Unexcused Absence: Adrian Moreno, Noah Oswald, Kolby Herndon Staff Present: Audrey Spencer - Horsley, Director; and Angela Rockett, Administrative Assistant, Alicia Jones; Housing Program Manager Guest: Carol Conway, Chair; Parent Advocates for Adult Children with I /DD Welcome /Introduction The AHAB Chair Patsy Barbee, called the meeting to order at 6:08 pm. Approval of Minutes Daniel Bullock made a motion to approve the minutes of the November 8, 2016 and Nannie Richmond seconded the motion. Nannie Richmond made a motion to approve the minutes of December 13, 2016 and Tammy Jacobs seconded the motion and the minutes were approved unanimously. Departmental /County Report Audrey Spencer - Horsley discussed that the BOCC had approved the project evaluation criteria for the bond of county owned land. During that process if was discovered that the OCHA board owned two of the properties and the OCHA board approved including those two parcels in addition to the ones that were identified as county owned for RFP for projects for affordable housing. They also approved the targets. The BOCC decided not to have CAPS on the amount of funding or the number of units except for people with income between 60 and 80 percent. The AHAB will select two members to serve on the project selection team. Ms. Spencer - Horsley explained that when the proposals are released, there will be a workshop so people can ask questions. Once the proposals come in, the team will review and make recommendations and they will come back to AHAB to discuss and make comments. The BOCC will receive them from the county manager and she will make recommendations to the BOCC. The initial amount for proposals is 2.5 million. Ms. Spencer - Horsley stated that the annual needs hearing for the consolidated plan is tomorrow night. This plan is required by HUD. She discussed HOME funding which is affordable housing money. That RFP is going through the joint application process with Chapel Hill and the money they have for affordable housing. Chapel Hill also acquires Community Block Grant funding that can assist with a lot more activities than the funding that HOME receives. The consolidated plan is much broader than the affordable housing strategic plan because it includes non - housing things. The county affordable housing strategic plan focuses more on housing. We are applying to the state for additional money for rehabilitation and urgent repair. On Sunday, January 29th there will be a forum @ 3 pm on Religious Freedom sponsored by the Human Relations Commission at the Whitted Building Room 230 in Hillsborough. Ms. Spencer - Horsley asked the AHAB board to attend if they are able. Speaker Audrey Spencer - Horsley introduced Carol Conway from Parent Advocates for Adult Children with I /DD. Ms. Conway explained that I /DD stand for Intellectual Developmental Disabled. Ms. Conway son is disabled and an adult. She shared that it causes tremendous strain on the family. Her son is largely non- verbal, developmental issues internally and IQ under 50. Her son is in a group home in Chapel Hill with 24 hour care because of his manic behavior. His behaviors were so pronounced that the group home talked about him to move on to something else. Ms. Conway talked with other families talking about housing opportunities for their adult children. The group merged with another group and together they formed a group called Parent Advocates for Adult Children with Intellectual Developmental Disabilities. They have four goals; create meeting space, identify housing options, develop needs profile and advocate for those needs. They conducted a survey and based on the results the average age of adults with I /DD is in there mid 20's and living with their parents. Half of the parents want their adult child to move into a new housing setting in less than six years. The majority want their adult child to be placed in town renting a unit and preferably with a roommate for friendship purposes. Ms. Conway spoke about the housing gap. There are 185,000 in North Carolina with I /DD. Most of these individuals are living at home and are invisible to the Orange County housing system. They will never achieve economic independence and never graduate from the need of affordable housing. There are four trends that affect the housing gap. Two are demographic and two are regulatory. She stated that one of the demographic trends is the I /DD population is living longer creating the need for specialized retirement centers. The second trend is the I /DD population is going to grow. Ms. Conway indicated that Orange County attracts a lot of the autism population because of UNC expertise. She explained that on the regulatory side one trend that deeply affect our housing need is that HUD is redoubling there effort to deinstitutionalize and desegregate the special needs population. This pushed Medicaid to offer supportive living. This feature provides the daily support that innovations waivers provide. The intent is to put them in a community in a 3 bedroom unit. There will be one bedroom for person with I /DD, one bedroom for caregiver and the third bedroom for a second person with I /DD. She explained that NC Housing Finance Agency had access to section 8 -11 money that can no longer be used for the I /DD population. Ms. Conway summarized that they would like to see that some percentage of affordable housing units be part of the formula for people with I /DD. Have a benchmark with 5 -7% of affordable units filled by people with I /DD adults. Most I /DD adults want to live in close proximity of each other and setting aside a number of units in mixed use large developments would be a happy compromise. Finally, help educate them on how to access the affordable housing opportunities that the AHAB is involved with. Ms. Spencer - Horsley encouraged Ms. Conway to tap into the resources that are available. Other Business Ms. Spencer - Horsley stated that the Department on Aging is working on their 5 -year master plan and would like for a member of the AHAB to serve on the committee. She also mentioned that there are applications for the board to review if they want to make recommendations to the BOCC. There are four vacant positions. Ms. Spencer - Horsley explained the available parcels that the county own. The land that is going to be available for the RFP is going to be very small parcels. The three parcels that had the most potential have been taken off the table. The Green Tract will follow a separate process through the towns and the county. Southern Human Services campus was another site taken off the table. The other land is sixty acres near the Green Tract. Tammy Jacobs wants the AHAB board to think about how they want to address the BOCC to ask why the three major tracts were removed. Tammy Jacobs will do a draft letter to the BOCC for the AHAB board to review. The next meeting will be Tuesday, February 14, 2016. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:26 pm. Respectfully Submitted: Angela Rockett, Administrative Assistant Audrey Spencer - Horsley, Director Housing Human Rights and Community Development