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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAHAB Meeting Minutes March 2024 in ORANGE COUNTY HOUSING DEPARTMENT Orange County Affordable Housing Advisory Board(AHAB) Minutes Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 6:00 PM Chamber of Commerce Conference Room Members Present: Kyle Myers, Lynn Nilssen, Dion Graham, Sarah Adams,Andrew Robinson, Hasan Abdullah, Mariela Hernandez Members Absent: David Parish (excused), Matthew Ferguson (excused), Mary Towell (excused), Holly Meschko (excused) Staff Present: Blake Rosser(Interim Director, Housing),Alma Alegria (Community Development Specialist, Housing),Thomas McCallister(Community Development Analyst, Housing) I. Call to Order 6:10 II. Approval of minutes(5 minutes) a. Sarah approved; Kyle seconded. III. Updates(10 minutes) a. Board Updates i. none b. Staff Updates i. none IV. Outside Agency Application Scoring a. CEF i. Lynn: I scored low because CEF serves both Orange County and Durham County, therefore I am not sure funds will be used towards Orange County residents only. ii. Blake: We may ask for clarity, but it is safe to assume funds will be going towards their office in Chapel Hill. iii. Sarah: is there an overview of total scores for all applications? iv. Thomas:Yes,we can look at the average scores. v. Blake: We can look at the score range.The range is 85-94. b. Empowerment i. Thomas: does anyone have comments on the scores? ii. Lynn: No one seems to have comments. iii. Sarah: what are the blank columns? I sent all my scores to Thomas. I will resubmit them. iv. Blake: In column H,there's a 8 which I don't understand why it is partially scored. We should remove the 8 so the rest of the scores are not skewed. v. Andrew: should we honor the score instead of removing it? If they purposely put a score for line 27 it should reflect the score they gave in that area. vi. Blake: it comes down to the formula that is used to average the scores. vii. Kyle: is there a way to validate the score that person gave to that line? viii. Blake: we can try to change the formula, but we will have to do that for all applications which will take time. ix. Thomas: would you like to update the formula? x. Andrew: I believe if we update the formula, it should be applied to all applications so it's a fair scoring. c. Habitat i. Thomas: does anyone have comments? ii. Kyle: I'm interested to see what other people thought of the costs of this program. iii. Kyle: my take on the cost of this program was that it was not fair or appropriate.That's just the maximum cost per person. iv. Sarah: that was a difficult part of the scoring. It's hard to compare apples to apples. v. Lynn: I had to look at Peewee and Empowerment's costs to try to understand the magnitude of the funds requested. I put a spreadsheet together and my recommendation is that something like this is used for the future. It would be great to know how many employees they are hiring for these projects. vi. Kyle: If I'm being honest, I don't have historical data so scoring them all their missions are great. I went back to review what my scores were saying and make sure they were representative of my voice. Habitat has a very high per individual cost, so money doesn't go very far. vii. Blake: My concern is that the purpose is to score objectively. viii. Kyle: I have them a one. ix. Andrew: are the score cards locked in? x. Blake: yes, they're locked (in reference to editing spreadsheet) xi. Sarah: one thing that was not clear to me is that there is about$2 million, so the organization that gets the lower score gets no funding? Or just little funding? xii. Kyle: Last year they highly valued Habitat and least valued Peewee. xiii. Dion: how often will the board be scoring outside agency applications? xiv. Blake: Once a year. xv. Thomas: We'll look at the average scores and if no one has questions, we'll move forward to the next one. d. HOPE i. Thomas: does anyone have questions? ii. No one has questions. e. The Marian Cheek Jackson Center i. Lynn: Should Marian be receiving OC funding since they're receiving funds from Chapel Hill municipality? ii. Dion: Carrboro and Chapel Hill residents do still pay county taxes. f. Peewee i. No one has comments. g. Rebuilding of the Triangle Together i. No one has comments. h. Lynn: So the scores go to the BOCC, correct? i. Thomas:Yes,they go to the BOCC. j. Lynn: My comment just like for he CIP funding, it would be great to provide more details on how outside agencies are using the funding. I would like to visit these agencies and learn more about what they do. k. Kyle: There is a lot of this I don't understand but to your point there is some consistency to agencies that receive funding. I will score based on execution, impact, and doing the most they can with the money. You are right this is a lot of money so we have to use our brains. I. Lynn: So,they need money to pay these people but not to complete the rehab job? m. Andrew: I would make a recommendation around making the scorecard the way we want and presenting it to outside agencies, so they know how boards are scoring. n. Dion: should a county employee be scoring these applications full time?Someone who has the expertise versus having the board score these. o. Hasan: The board has changed for the better in the last 2 years. p. Mariela:The same outside agencies have been receiving funding. I think we have to look at what they are doing with the money they're receiving. q. Hasan: Changing the scorecard or coming up with a new point award system would be good lasting change. i. All in agreement r. Hasan: I'm meeting with the economic development board, and I will discuss possible collaborations. I'll present engagement ideas for collaboration. s. Adjourn meeting at 7:32 pm