Regional Affordability Committee Meeting Transcript – 11/20/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 11/20/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 11/20/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [2:04:39 PM] >> Garza: Good afternoon. It's November 20, 2017, the time is 2:04 and I'm calling this meeting together because we have a quorum. The first item on the agenda is approve the minutes for September 15 so I'll entertain amulet. Moved by member Greenberg, seconded by Charles Chad well. All in favor? >> I just want to make sure we were accurate that councilmember troxclair was here. Was she here? She is listed as being here, so -- or having been there. >> You are correct. Was she? >> Garza: We can table that and if someone from staff can confirm her attendance on September 25th so we make sure we get that right. So let's go ahead and table that for now until the end of the meeting. The next item citizens communication. I have one person signed up for general -- two? Your name is on here, I'll call you up, Mr. Peña. Mr. Okie, you have three minutes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Don't start the time until I get here. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you, madame chair. I am bill Okie. The blog writer for Austin affordability.com. And something very exciting happened on November 2nd, better than my wildest dreams. I've been working on affordability and doing research for, I don't know, six or seven years, and I met with county judge Sara Eckhardt on that day and I made a bold proposal that we needed a leader to step forward and lead a joint city of Austin effort to go big on affordability and the work groups like yours have done, take those reports and pull out the recommendations and put them into a time frame and implement them in an action plan. [2:07:04 PM] Judge Eckhardt thousand stickly embraced this -- enthusiasm as stickly anticipated this proposal and she will be making an announcement early next year and she's been in touch with city officials behind the scenes. I'm not sure what the status of that is, but there are so many elements to affordability, such as housing, workforce development, protection of seniors, protection of long-term residents, and, of course, the creative arts industries is a perfect example of what's happening right now. We're about to lose the pump project, which is an essential piece of east -- the east Austin studio tour which is nationally recognized and I put out a blog piece on that appealing for fill fill and throw businesses to come forward and stemming the tide to these artist facilities in east Austin. There are just all kinds of opportunities for us to raise affordability to the same level that mobility raised during the year of mobility in 2016. I am both humbled and honored to have this opportunity to get this kind of support on behalf of the citizens of Austin who are struggling with poverty, struggling with low wages, struggling with high rent, businesses struggling to hold on to their iconic businesses that are loved and respected by the people of Austin and Travis county. And I'm willing to continue to work, to continue to volunteer. I am at your call at any time. If there is anything I can do to help with the projects that your committee is working on and to offer suggestions of my own. [2:09:06 PM] County judge Eckhardt has some wonderful suggestions of her own for efficiency and cooperative efforts between the city and the county. The other thing we need to do is compile the -- the cost of the budgets and the bonds and all those things for the next five years to ten years so that we can head off an an afordability brick wall I think we're coming to. If we can see what that looks like in the next five or ten years, perhaps we can convince the legislature through cooperation with other cities and counties that something has to change with robin hood, with property taxes balanced on the backs of residential ratepayers. I want to see this happen with a positive spirit, and although my blog gets a little sarcastic at times, I can assure you when I work with public officials, I'm all about compromise and cooperation and I thank you so much for being a part of this affordability effort and I thank you for all the work you've been doing. >> Garza: Thank you, Mr. Okie. The next speaker is Gus peña. You have three minutes. >> Thank you, councilmember. Chair. You all have a lot of titles so I'm going to have to remember this is not city council. Gus peña, produced native east austinite, proud united States Marine Corps. Chair, first of all I would like to thank chair Garza for your work on capital metro. This is having to do with affordability, having the buses run this way, that way, that is affordability crisis. And hello to Dr. Nora Comstock. We've known each other for many years. Way back I said define affordability and Mr. Saldana knows me, way back before him, Roy butler, may he rest in peace. [2:11:14 PM] But the issue is this. We need to find a true meaning of affordability. What's affordable for maybe anybody here is not affordable for me or anybody else. I mean we're poor low ses, socioeconomic status and we pay taxes. The issue is it's getting worse and worse and I got this why Austin would lose the affordable housing battle. This is a good article dated September 14, '89. Also I have Austin sues state for affordability on housing. A lot of people are not accepting vouchers. Our military voucher is one of the best, it's money right there, but as I told Michael Gerba, you can give knee a -- give me a voucher but will everybody accept it. Walter morrow is seek to go buy my old Allen junior high property, but people need to he on -- I'm a former irs investigator. You need to look at affordability and some of the units ain't affordable to us. I know strongly Brigid Shea, I worked in your campaign also, the issue is this, we need to make this city affordable for the less fortunate and it ain't happening. I'm not saying we're losing the battle, but we have to do a better job of supporting and advocating for affordable housing, affordable gasoline, affordable electricity, form whatever. I'm proof positive that I'm a poor person, but I'm here struggling with the city, the county commissioners court and the ledge and wherever I can go for the betterment of the people's lives. If you have a good housing unit, you are going to be comfortable, you are going to have a better -- you won't be ill that much longer, you will -- you will respect yourself more. [2:13:22 PM] But I want to say and I'll close with this, I want to thank you all for the hard work you do. Thank you, again, chair Garza, for your vote over there and keep up the good work and please define affordability and let's make it affordable. Thank you. >> Garza: Thank you, Mr. Peña. Those are all the speakers for just general citizens communication. If there is not any more, we're going to take up item 4 first because we have the presenters. Would you like to speak before or after? [Indiscernible-no mic on] >> Garza: If I could have Mr. Chew and Mr. Fukes. And just for the sake of being a public meeting could you introduce yourselves and give your titles, please. >> Hi, my name is judge Nicholas [inaudible] Justice of the peace in precinct 5. >> Fred fukes, attorney with Texas Rio grande legal aid and I teach a housing unit each spring. >> Garza: Do you want to give context -- you don't have to. >> No, I'm happy to. Thanks so much, chairman Garza. This really I think caught my attention with a post someone had put up of a story how a veteran had been evicted and his belongings were put on a curb and people started coming by and taking his belongings and someone tried to stop them and called police. It was a tragedy on top of a tragedy. And at that point I started asking what is the size of the eviction issue, how many people are being evicted. [2:15:25 PM] And it didn't seem like there was any central place for that information was being gathered and so we asked our county staff to just query at the JP offices, there are five around the county and they operate as independent entities, just to get an understanding of the numbers. Our staff did an excellent report and I won't be able to give you a recap. I thought someone from health and human services might be here to do that, but it is in our prior meeting backup materials where they looked at the nature and the size and the number of the evictions. They did a scatter map of where they were occurring, which was very revealing. At that meeting I think Robert Doggett from the legal aid entity was also present and talked about some remedies that each of our respective governmental entities could consider. And so this is really just a follow-up to try to deepen our understanding of it and get a better sense of what if anything we each might take back to our respective jurisdictions to try and address the problem because it's a big issue. >> Garza: You can go ahead and start. >> So the notice I was given was just kind of I was here to discuss kind of the -- any types of questions that you may have about evictions. So in terms of a presentation, mine is just mainly focused on the practical aspects of how a he eviction works, how it's done and that will help lead you into policy decisions later on. As commissioner Shea was saying, each of the five justices of the peace in Travis county operate independently, but there are certain rules and procedures that have to be followed statewide so that that kind of gives us the consistency. But -- and justice of the peace courts are the courts that will eventually hear an eviction. [2:17:29 PM] It may not end there, a case can be appealed up to county court at law in which case it has a new trial and a new setup. But the majority of cases we hear, 80% of them, start out in JP court and get resolved in JP court and don't necessarily get appealed. Out of those cases, I would say probably 90% of just my docket alone, and I represent central Travis county. I can't speak to the other jps, but I imagine that they see the same trend too, that 90% or higher, maybe 95% are unpaid rent cases. Meaning that the landlord is asking to evict the person because they are behind on their rent. Instead of, for example, lease violations or picking up a criminal offense that's a violation of lease or some other reason for an eviction. The important part about I think eviction proceedings is an understanding that it's not necessarily -- Fred kind of knows more about the clientele because they represent folks in this, but the cases I see in terms of unpaid rent aren't necessarily cases where they are just behind that first rent and then on -- and rent is due on the 1st of every month, it's late on the 3rd and so by lake day 10 they file an eviction. Usually what I see they are behind on rent for two months to a month and then the second month, but by the time they show up to court for their case, they are also behind on that. So in terms of any kind of policy-making decision that the different entities that you represent discuss, I think an important discussion isn't just a solution in terms of -- if we give them housing assistance for one month, I don't think that would be enough to necessarily prevent an eviction from happening. [2:19:37 PM] It would probably need to be something more align with two months minimum, I think. And I think folks that have more experience maybe are better suited to give out a specific number, but definitely one month wouldn't solve that. Another issue that I see here and something that I got in touch with commissioner Shea because she represents a vast majority of my precinct, is that I initially know that Travis county has a housing assistance program where if you are in an emergency situation at risk of losing your housing, you can apply with Travis county to get a one-time payment of your rent. Now, that is not -- hey, judge. Of the rent, it's only a partial payment. It's tiered towards -- towards, I guess, people's dependence and things like that and how many rooms they have and things like that. I think those -- those numbers may not be keeping up with inflation, especially with the affordability part of that that we're seeing in terms of the costs different in our town. Also the one problem that we sometimes have are folks -- are landords not accepting payment and that's because either it takes too long for them to receive the actual physical money or it could be for a variety of reasons. And that may not necessarily be because the landlord thinks, oh, I don't want to take the voucher or the assistance. I think the vast majority of landords that I see, it's kind of a timing issue. They wait for about 20 days or so after they are behind rent. They file the eviction. By law we have to set that eviction hearing within, I think, seven to 14 days. [2:21:44 PM] We set them approximately ten days after the filing. So at that point we're kind of two months almost of back rent they are behind and then the landlord has to make a decision to accept this rent -- or this assistance program, but at the same time they have to wait another 15 days in order to do that. I think the big part about this is harking on if there is any kind of change in terms of any kind of emergency assistance program or revamping any kind of emergency assistance program or vouchers or adding a new one, implementation is going to be important. Shortening the screen time would be key to its success and also shortening the time for payouts to once you are accepted to check to the landlord or actual physical moneys to the land board would be a critical aspect. That's kind of my two cents about the topic. I'm here to answer any questions. I do want to introduce my colleague judge Yvonne Williams who represents precinct 1 over at justice of the peace precinct 1 who represents most of eastern Travis county and has been a leader in eviction proceedings and I've learned a lot in my early judicial career from her. >> Good afternoon. How are you all doing? >> Great. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. One of my most preeminent attorneys, by the way, when it comes to the subject matter. Just to piggyback on what judge chew just said with the Travis county voucher system, also it seems to be stuck at $418 no matter what your rent is. That means obviously it doesn't take care of even one month's rent. And with that the other proceed proviso you were looking for, you cannot evict anyone. [2:23:51 PM] I tell people all the time you are already in eviction court. And it's kind of a catch 22. When you are holding on to the voucher to decide whether or not I'm going to accept it toward the rent, which they know they are not going to get for 30 days, I'm also being told I can't file an eviction proceeding for 30 days. I'm not sure how much sense that makes because the eviction is already in progress. I've mentioned this to the folks over in that area, now, I suppose it's up to you all to decide what the 418 really means. Somebody must have decided in their wisdom $418 was a good help. It beats our churches because typically what I see is churches for $100 or $200. Say Vincent de Paul. The veterans are paying almost all the rent but that's for veterans and I don't see them that often because the veterans program is truly taking care of the veterans. But for the average person that is just missing rent because they got sick or they lost their job, the Travis county voucher system is 418, and I guess -- I guess my question that we ought to throw out for everybody is someone must have decided that that meant something. Because it seldom means anything to the landords who are in court saying I can't do anything with $418. The rent is $1,000 and they are already two months behind, including two days into this new month. So that's my take on that, that -- but I guess for everybody that comes in, I'm assuming that there are landords accepting it because the tenant can put the other part to it and maybe we're seeing, and I don't know, we don't have those figures, maybe sheer seeing the person who can't put the 600 to the 400 to make up 1,000. It could be that's who we are seeing in court at the end of the day. Because if you are going to give out those resources, that's money that's being held up that people are not accepting. [2:25:53 PM] Now, I force landords -- by force, it's a -- kind of a loving force, to say yeah, you are going to accept the 418 because they have pieced together the rest of the rent. So if you are evicting for nonpayment, and by now they are telling me that you can pay, then you are going to piece together and take that and you can't say that you are not going to final an eviction because, again, the eviction is already filed. I don't know if you mentioned numbers. >> Not specifically. >> Just for the record, you know, we have -- I heard in terms of new cases being filed, somewhere in upwards of 2,000 for 2012 on down to now. For some reason I went down a tidbit in 2015 and 2016, but still close to the 2,000. >> And that's just in your court. >> That's just in my court. >> That's for a calendar year. >> Yes, ma'am, that is a calendar year. If you go in office of court administration records, you will see that. Judge Slagle has the largest number because he also has the largest -- >> Geographic -- >> So his are more than 2,000 a year. >> His come you 'to about 2400 in one year. We looked those up right quick. He's been -- this past 2016, I see him at 2309, for instance. >> Uh-huh. >> And judge Gonzalez's numbers are close to mine, between mine and judge Slagle's out at precinct 4, out in Mckinney falls area. And I've seen the increase go up. Of course, some of my district was carved out a tidbit and some more large apartment units were given over to precinct 2, judge Slagle's precinct on burnet road because a the look of on rundberg were shifted over to precinct 2 and most of these are apartment convictions. [2:28:08 PM] I'll stop there so I can go on. You tell me what you want to know. I just wanted to give you some figures in terms of if you really want to know. If I was to count them, two, four, six -- looks like close to almost 8,000 evictions were filed in Travis county last year, if -- I'm just eyeballing it. >> Right, from when I ran the numbers from our meeting, commissioner Shea, that's -- that's what we're usually seeing in terms of that. Understand that doesn't mean 8,000 people kicked out of their homes. A lot of those, especially I think judge Williams has led the way and I've mimicked here is trying to evolve the cases without evictions. For example, you've paid your rent, we're going to suggest the parties dismiss the case. If you need time and just needed a week to come up with the money, we'll give you that week or short period of time and you should be able to dismiss the case. But, I mean, out of that 8,000, it is true that a large chunk of those are -- do end up in evictions, but not all of the 8,000. >> Let me add this. There are certain amount -- sometimes there is the -- there's the landlord that will use us to collect rent. Now, we can't prove that, but to be very honest with you, they automatically shoot out eviction notices on day one that's beyond late. And what was what happens is they resolve it before they get to us. And so I might have a docket of eight cases, say, from one landlord. But by the time court comes, they've resolved five of them. And, of course, they've had to pay them the court costs, but the three left -- and I know they are using us to collect rent because the three left, they are very easy to get along with. [2:30:12 PM] It's like if you are -- just pay the rent. Court costs, we're good to go. That's off the top where there are others that come in on the second month so now we're looking at two months behindment I'll be honest and I don't know if it's fair to them, but there's a certain dynamic that says we're going to use you to collect rent and, of course, they get the rent and the court costs and no one ever comes to court. I don't know if you are seeing that too. There is that phenomenon. That would have to be counted into a lot of new cases. >> Garza: The tenant pays the court costs? >> Yes. >> How much is it? >> 116 -- 121. >> Per eviction case? >> Close to 200 if there are two parties on the lease. Because you have to serve petition parties. It's service -- serve both parties. >> Service fees. >> You said it's been about 2,000 since 2012? Did I miss -- >> Each year. >> So how -- >> In my precinct alone. >> So has anyone seen a trend of it going up since 2012 or has it been pretty constant? Gone up. To be very honest, the figures I'm looking at in my court, they are pretty constant. Mine dipped by about 100 for some reason one year and I think it's because of the switch of the apartments on rundberg, but I -- otherwise my understanding. >> That's similar to what I'm seeing. We're fluctuating between 100 to 50 [inaudible] For a whole year. The jps, I think -- [lapse in audio] It's hard to say if that's a trend or a bad year that just readjusted itself afterwards. [2:32:30 PM] It's not like there's a big jump of 2,000 in 2012 and there's 8,000 now. It's kind of stayed the same depending on how you are looking at everything. >> Garza: Before we go to questions, I'll start on that side and go around, can you just give, either judge, a brief time line of how, like, so -- at what point can someone file an eviction notice. From that is there an average 15, 10 days? Can you give a time line of how eviction happens? >> I think -- I'm going to hand that over to Fred fukes who is with legal aid. He represents folks who are being evicted and he will probably best be to talk about that part of it. >> Fred fukes. Both of these judges obviously know the time line. I'll briefly go over as you requested. But if I might just step back a second and you may have heard it was in 2015 Matthew Desmond wrote the book "Evicted" and his basic conclusion was that poverty doesn't result in evictions, evictions cause poverty. And that is certainly what we see in our office and you have to distinguish as judge chew said. Earlier many evictions were nonpayment of rent, but there's a certain percentage that are nonrent breaches, many of which involve clients with mental disabilities, some of which are very serious, many of which are single parents where their kids get in trouble or grandkids, and those are the kinds of evictions we really try to focus on and keep families from losing their housing. But the eviction process is a very fast process. At least from the perspective of lawyers who represent tenants and the general civil legal process, the standard lease provides rents due on or before the 1st. [2:34:45 PM] Standard lease gives the tenant a grace period through the 3rd of the month. If the tenant hasn't paid by the 3rd, a late fee can be imposed. And this is where I'm going to make a recommendation later. The late fees in Travis county have gotten out of control. It's not unusual to see $100 late fee, a $75 late fee. A $50 late fee if rent is not paid within the grace period. And so that the late fee then kicks in on the fourth day of the month, and under the standard Texas apartment association lease and the realtors lease, which are the leases that are used, that late fee, then there's an additional daily late fee that's generally set at $10 a day up to 15 days. So the late fee may be $75 on the 4th and an additional $10 a day late fee for 15 days so that's 150 plus 75, 225, and it becomes more and more difficult then for a family to work its way out of the eviction situation when a landlord is unwilling to bend on the late fees. Sometimes they will, many times they will not. So when the tenant is in default, not paying by the 3rd, the landlord can give a one-day notice to vacate. The law says a three-day notice unless the lease allows for a one-day notice, the standard lease allows for a one-day notice to vacate. The vanned lord can give that on the fourth day of the month, file the eviction suit on the 5th or 6th. From the date it's filed it's espoused of that there be -- disposed there will be a trial within 21 days. Unless there is a seven-day continuous. So in the process from the 4th of the month, the landlord files on the 5th of the month, 20 days later it's the 6th of the month, the hearing the latest it can would be on the 26th of the month. [2:37:02 PM] If the court evicts the tenant, the writ of proceedings can issue five days later unless the tenant files an appeal within those five days, and if the tenant files an apeel, the tenant has to begin paying rent into the court registry. Then the case goes to the county court of law. The judges can tell you better than I about the percentage of cases appealed. I think it's very small. Those figures I believe are kept by the office of court administration. So it's a very expedited process and if -- as judge chew said many times the landlord may have depended on the landlord and may have waited to file until a tenant is delinquent in that second month. But those late fees continue to accrue and if the landlord is going to insist on late fees on getting the eviction resolved, the tenant is going to have to come up with that additional money and that's oftentimes where tenants are seeking help then from the county, the city programs and the churches for assistance with paying the rent to remain in place. You know, when you get to the point where you've -- want a few concrete suggestions small and big, I've got some suggestions, all of which can help in very small ways. None of which is -- none of which are a complete panacea. >> Garza: Can you go ahead and get to those? >> Sure. And some -- just very quickly, I've written out about five suggestions -- five suggestions. With respect, and you heard both judges talk about the vouchers for payment that tenants who face nonpayment can go and seek to obtain financial assistance from the county. One suggestion would be that there be better transparency I think for all nonprofits about the exact process and where tenants need to go. [2:39:08 PM] We just send tenants and say go to the county. We're uncertain in every case whether they are going to be assisted or to what extent. If there were some better transparency about who might be assisted and the amount of assistance, that would be one small thing. The other thing and judge Williams mentioned the fact the voucher. If a landlord agrees to take assistance from the county that is correct county voucher says the landlord will not evict for 30 days. But that language should specifically state will not file an eviction, a new eviction for 30 days because some landords will file that, the cases sit in court and wait there 30 days. And if the tenant hasn't paid, proceed with eviction. So it's a small way if you provided -- change the form, and part of that is also expediting the payment. As judge chew said, some of the landords don't want to wait to payment. And there was some way the county or the city could expedite the payment, that would certainly help along with making clear that the form is specific to the landlord that if they accept that payment, they are going to have to wait 30 days until filing a new eviction, which means it's less likely that, in my mind, the tenant is going to go into default. If you want to look at a bigger picture, more significant steps, the city, although I understand the county doesn't have ordinance powers, to the extent the state legislature doesn't try to pre-empt your ordinance, could certainly enact a right to cure provision. So that a landlord before the landlord files in court, the landlord would be required by the law to give the tenant an opportunity to cure that delinquency. [2:41:08 PM] Other cities around the country have done that. Many states require an opportunity to cure a default. So if a tenant doesn't pay by the 3rd before the landlord can file suit, in many states the notice has to give a ten-day notice to cure or we're going to file suit. In some cases such as Baltimore, a tenant can redeem their tenancy at any time following nonpayment of rent judgment by the just -- justice court by paying all that's owed, the rent, attorneys fees and late fees. So you could certainly -- there might be problems in Texas with allowing a redemption after the court judgment, but I think cities can certainly without running into pre-emption problems require a landlord before he files an eviction suit gives the tenant a notice saying you are delinquent. Ten days to cure, if you don't we're going to file an eviction lawsuit. I think cities -- one of the big problems, as I said that we see are these late fees. If the tenant falls behind, the landlord says we'll settle but we want our late fees. Some of them, quite honestly, because the way the state law is written, give the landords a lot of leeway on how they are going to set that late fee, but one of the things that could be done, I think, is that you could certainly provide landords cannot evict for late fees. That doesn't run counter to the state statute. It allows the landlord to assess whatever late fee they assess. But if you provided that they could not evict for nonpayment of the late fee, and I think a city can do that without running into pre-emption problems with be eviction because the tenant didn't pay late fees. [2:43:09 PM] It would remain, and when the tenant left, the landlord could take those out of the security deposit or keep it on the tenant's record because the state, quite frankly, controls the amount of fees so the city couldn't enact an ordinance respect to that, but it could enact an ordinance that says you cannot convict because of late fees. Hud already has that in connection with its section 8 complexs, Marshall apartments, Springdale gardens apartments, lupine terrace apartments. All had project based section 8 complexes and hud prohibits landords for the tenant failing to pay late fees at those complexes. Another part of any ordinance with respect to late fees would be with respect to section 8 voucher tenants. It's not unusual to see a tenant who has a section 8 voucher who has fallen behind on their portion of the rent. And the late fee is the $75 plus $10 a day. By the time they get to us it's up to $225. And their portion of the rent may only be $200. Yet they get assessed the entire late fee. Nothing in the law addresses that. I certainly think you could legally as a city at the state level, you could certainly at the state level say the late fee must bear some relationship to the section 8 voucher tenants portion of the rent. Best solution would be at the state level, next best is for a city to do that. And finally, when lawyers get involved in representing tenants, it's been shown on a nationwide basis that that makes a difference. And many times cases never get to court that these two judges never see because we've gotten involved early and we're able to resolve the case. [2:45:17 PM] But it's difficult when -- for the judges who have very, very heavy dockets and have to go through many cases to often sort through the arguments made by a pro se tenant when there's a dispute involving rent. So funding -- ultimately for lawyers is critical. That's been in New York City has -- has developed a plan and so has Philadelphia that would require actually appointment of attorneys in every eviction case. That's -- that's big, bold thinking on the parts of those cities. We're a long way from that on a national level. And then one final thing and I'll be quiet. And that is. And this strays a little from your topic, but I think it's a concern especially for the city and county and that is we've got a number of low- income housing tax credit complexes in Travis county and the city of Austin. And at least two of them now are -- have given notice that they intend to opt out of the tax credit program which requires affordable rents as soon as they are able to do so. Country club creek gave notice about a year ago. After three -- and also fort branch at Truman's landing at 5800 technique center gave notice on September 11, it's a 250 unit apartment complex. Country club creek is 212 apartments. Those are, quote, affordable rents and if we lose those, that's going to be -- if those landords opt out, as they are legally entitled to do, then after -- after three years if no one steps forward to try to buy that and keep that affordable, those are going to be lost units and it's going to further make the city less affordable. [2:47:35 PM] So to the extent that there's money available where the city might be able with the county to get involved in trying to purchase country club creek or purchase fort branch at true man's landing, that is an option that they might be able to work with the housing authority or might be able to work with a nonprofit partner to keep those units affordable. >> Garza: Thank you. That's all very good policy recommendations. I appreciate that. Does anybody have any questions? Paul? Mr. Saldana? >> Thank you. Very informative. One of the questions I had, and commissioner Shea sort of alluded to this, is that, you know, for some reason or another the tenant can't afford to pay and so they get evicted out. Then in essence in many cases, and you spoke to particular cases I'm concerned about, the single parent or those kind of things, tenants who have mental illness, they they become victimized twice because of personal belongings being placed out in public for public display and then taken away. Are there any mitigation plans [lapse in audio] All the units and there are probably some more public housing units, but every last one but one are in my area that he called off. [2:50:32 PM] Sue you have a mental health issue, a person not taking his meds and the landlord says I know that, but I've had enough so he's got to go. So where is that person going to go? If legally the case has been made for a removal, for an eviction, then that call has to be made. That could be some stall in having a seven day that we take it upon themselves to say can you work this out. But unless they are in touch with their counselors in the case of, say, folks that we know have assistance and already on it but just are not availing themselves, that can be some stalling. But I think our role basically is to make it known and I make that as publicly known as possible. In fact, the landords also commented when I first got on the bench is that the appeals went up because I had that marquee going in court. And they said, well, you know, our appeals went up since you took the bench because I'm giving you people information about appeals. But within my role I still know what else I can do. I would love -- by the way, all of these recommendations are perfect and they are very well on point. So -- >> And so mirror the judge's statement, the stuff we can do is necessarily the -- we can negotiate with the landlord and tenant within the premise of open court. We can't under our judicial ethics rules can't call up tenants and landords and start negotiating out cases and doing things outside the courtroom. The most important thing I think is having ways to either point people towards those resources or having resources available that if we could find some way that instead of saying, hey, you go here and then fill out the application and deal with that. [2:52:42 PM] If there's a way for us to have a mechanism where somebody was sitting in our courtroom, I could just point to them and say, okay, if you want to talk to this person, you could go ahead and -- like a social worker or something like that. Hey, talk to this person right here and maybe they can get you set up with something. That's resource intensive, I know, but that I think would be very helpful in terms of getting folks into the next phase transitioning to some other facility. To also harp on Fred's comment, I think a lot of that too is if we're able to appoint attorneys to all these cases, I think our resolutions without evictions would go up. I think if folks do get evicted, they would know the important ways to do that. Or also -- proper ways to do that. Or also to exit out in an efficient manner that while using everything that they can in terms of appeals and their rights there, but we can explain to the litigants at a certain amount of stuff, but at some point it becomes us giving legal advice and we're not allowed to do that as judges. We get up right to that line a lot of times, but if there is some way to even do that attorney appointments, that would be the best thing, I think. >> Before you say what you are going to say, let me interject that more and more within the past three to four years, we're finding that because buyers are buying -- people are buying out -- corporations are buying out apartment units, we're finding people sitting in court really don't have the -- no one in Austin, in fact, will have the final say so. And they say it often. They say look, I've got to call someone in Philadelphia about -- because they want these folks out and that's that. I've been sent to court to put people out because they know they will get people in. [2:54:46 PM] And so more so the decision is being made not even in this county on whether or not there is a negotiable matter. Just to piggyback on that. >> Just to your point just a bit, Mr. Saldana, so Texas law says if the writ of possession is issued by the court, then the constable has the duty to either set it on the curb or the constable or the sheriff can hire a warehouseman. In Travis county they've never used a warehouseman report mechanism. It's used in Harris county some. But the Texas legislature did enact a law in 2015 or '17 that allows a city, a city to adopt an ordinance that would allow for storage of the tenants' belongings in a storage container, but that has to be adopted by municipal ordinance. I'm not aware of any cities in the state that has yet done that. But that option is available. As a result of some advocacy in the Texas legislature. But that has to come then through a city ordinance. >> Got it. >> With the warehouseman aspect, I know the constables have tried to reach out to different storage facility units in town, but nobody will be interested I think in the storage unit business end of it they don't see that as a profitable business so we can't get anybody to bite on this. There's actual will of the constables to do this, but there isn't anybody on the warehousing end. So if we could find a warehouse that would do that, that would be all right. >> Because of the legal aspects, but I like the resources, judge Williams that you provided, if all the judges could adopt similar -- we're trying to adopt. [2:56:58 PM] >> I know the city, you guys have the tenant relocation ordinance and some requirements. I'm wondering if traps that -- the net could be widened more to look at some of the recommendations that we heard today. And I also know from a legal perspective that the city has adopted dollars to help immigrant families, those who are facing issues with immigrant status and I'm wondering if perhaps something similar could be adopted to provide the warehouseman scenario opportunity. And then I'm wondering also among all of us the family resource centers that the city, the county, the school district funds, I'm wondering within the aspects of family resource centers there could be some things that could be put in place to help families facing potential eviction scenarios or have been evicted since those are funded by the city, the county and the school district, I'm wondering if that might be a good place to start. >> Garza: The ones in schools? >> I notice the school district has has over 2700 homeless students and that doesn't begin to speak to those facing potential eviction. But no need to reinvent the wheel if you already have a mechanism to maybe offer some resources. >> On the relocation ordinance, the city of Seattle just recently in the past couple of months adopted an ordinance that provides that if a landlord is going to increase the rent by more than 10% or is going to nonrenew a lease without cause, the landlord has to pay the tenant a relocation that varies by bedroom size of a one bedroom up to a four fed room amount up to $4,300. It was challenged in court. The trial court sustained -- I mean ruled that the city did have the power to enact such an ordinance, but again, that's pretty cutting edge stuff. [2:58:59 PM] >> May I add, you just reminded me that in Harris county, I know at least eight years ago there were a couple of schools, I think it was within HISD where they actually would open up some schools for homeless. They would literally live in the gym, shower and then by school time, of course the kids and families are out and gone, but then in the evening they would come back in and they -- and they literally live there. Is that what you are thinking about when you were talking about schools being -- >> Potential to be [inaudible]. >> I don't know how long that went on, but I know that they seem to be -- I knew a housing advocate who said that's what they were doing in Harris county. It may have been aleaf too, but certainly the schools, the kids were out so they would be out and going to school. I'm not sure what they use as the definition of homeless is, because every entity has their own definition of homelessness, but because we know that there is a problem with homelessness with schools, and we know that each school district has a traveling sizable homeless population that goes from school district to school district, I found that out just dealing with truancy, that there's a need to deal with that, and that was their answer, Harris county's answer was to just allot one or two schools for them to live. >> Quick time check. We had allotted one hour for this presentation, and we're right at one hour, but we still have two speakers. If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to recognize you, but with the -- okay, go ahead. >> Well, the first one is a comment. We also need to address the relational aspects of this, because I think sometimes we ignore that and we try to do everything by policy, so that would be -- we need to interact with the Austin apartment association. [3:01:05 PM] We need to work with them. Management companies often have poorly trained people in their front offices and they don't provide for language issues and that kind of thing, and they hold the power because they know what's in this lease and that kind of thing. Number two, I think it would beful to have a presentation from our frcs to see what they provide, because they provide a lot of the services that were mentioned there, so I think that would be a helpful thing. And we have Julianna Gonzales here from the Austin tenants association, and I think that organization plus Boston, if you're not familiar with Boston, it's helps tenants organize. Providing that education -- thank you, judge Williams, thank you, judge, these people care, they provide resources, so people have way of addressing their needs. I really appreciate what you are doing. You've helped a lot of families in aid and a lot of people in my district, even though you're not the judges for that area, we have some very caring constables in that area, so I appreciate that. So I think that would sum up my remarks. Yes. >> I did just want to comment a little bit on the eh conviction data that we've got P from our staff of the -- it's about an eight-month period from last staff of the -- it's about an eight-month period from last year payments for assistance. There are larger payments available for people who are involved in the best single source rental assistance program, and I think it offers two to three-month timeframe of rental assistance, and it also includes wraparound services, but you have to agree to be in the program and to participate and work with the county on the wraparound services. [3:03:16 PM] There are fewer numbers of people who are participating in that it's 80 out of the 155. The time for application rental assistance to actually issuing the check is 26 days for the majority of people, for the best single source it's longer, takes 60 days because I think they'd rather do more prequalification for people in that program. They said there's about 760 landlords that participate. One of the concerns we had from the conversation with judge Chu was some landlords were getting payments but still evicting people, which seemed like a really poor use of public money, but they were able to find only ten instances of that. So it's not the majority, although it's a problem if they're still getting public money and still evicting people. I really appreciate you all coming and presenting this information to us. It's to me one of the markers of the affordability crisis in the community, and I agree with what you said that evictions worsen poverty or lead to it because you've got this piling on of late fees and then court costs, and that was one of my questions. Does every -- the numbers that you all gave us of the 2,400, roughly in that numeric range, does that represent the majority of all the eviction cases, or are some of them resolved when people just get an eviction notice and move out? Because they think they don't have any recourse. Or do those cases still come to your court because the landlord still processes them and then makes a finding against the former tenants so that -- >> No, we don't see all of those. The 2,000 are actually filed in court. That's probably any number that has the three-day notice to vacate where the people simply vacate. And so the lawsuit is never filed. Because some people just don't know even though they could fight it, they think oh, I got to go. [3:05:30 PM] That's a number of filings that never get to court. >> So the problem is clearly larger than the 8,000 than here. >> But of course. >> That's what I was trying to get some kind of understanding of the size of the problem. >> Of course. Let's not forget that that's the apartment association, all those apartment, but we're kind of the wild wild west here, the as people who are turning over their own properties, and duplexes. This whole phenomenon where people are renting out rooms. I get a lot of those evictions at 400 bucks a pop, and they're not necessarily the mental health folks. They're just folks renting out rooms. They're evicting people. So I don't know what scale you put them on, but that phenomenon, there's more and more of those going out there where people just take it upon themselves, so I might have a landlord who may own about four or five properties, and it's constantly evicting people in my court. So you have that phenomenon that's going on. The more it becomes conducive to sell and buy, we're seeing more of those single owners. >> I would be really interested to know what some of those trends are, and, again, what kind of remedies the county might have. I think our hands are tied, but we would be supportive of any kind of initiatives that the city would undertake, especially on prohibition and eviction for late fees. >> The late fees, just that in and of itself, because according to the contract, the person who comes in and pays a month's rent, but the contract says I can apply everything towards whatever you owe, late fees and utilities, and then the rest is still remaining rent, and that's the phenomena that keeps happening. >> Just really quickly, it seems that there are three or four different types of problems, and the idea is what data should we be looking to capture and what entity is responsible for catching it, and if not, can we work with the lbj school, or an academic enterprise that could give us a better basis for data-driven decisions, because what you describe beyond being troubling, I am feeling that it's only the tip of the iceberg, if we actually studied it for a while, we'd find a lot more and more difficult things that we should be building programs to address. [3:08:08 PM] >> I agree. >> I wrote down at least four of your comments. I don't know if you guys have this presentation that you can send to us via -- I'll be interested. Of course, I live in Round Rock, Williamson county. I think we're not quite where you guys are, but it's happening. These people get evicted, they come to Round Rock. They're going to Florence, and it's a wave, so we are seeing it. So whatever you presented, if it's a website that you could link to, if you could send that out -- >> That would be very helpful. >> Okay. >> I think our point of contact was Katie, so maybe if Fred can type that up. >> Send that to her? >> I concur that there are many data needs, and I would certainly support any way in which we can pool our resources, and by that I mean get everybody together to get all the data, and because we're looking at disparate sources and types of data, whether it's how many people are in, you know, renting a room in a home versus how many actual evictions, the data also on these court fees would be very helpful and there was some really good concrete suggestions. There were a couple that you noted were probably too leading edge for what we could accomplish here, but some others that I think hold promise. Also, I would say that we can't look at any of this in a silo, so when we talked about people not having the money to pay their rent, and I know that the city and county and others are working on this regional workforce initiative, part of it would be if we could increase their income. [3:10:14 PM] However, that does not address the situation that you mentioned, which is the rapid turnover in our properties, and many of those being to corporations that are outside of here. So another suggestion I would have when I talk about pooling resources is how can we pool all the disparate resources in this community, whether it's the city, and here I mean financial, whether it's the city, county, non-profits, a new non-profit is being formed to try and purchase property, a future bond issue that the city could have on G.O. Bonds, to look at purchasing either properties that are naturally occurring affordable housing that are now being purchased and turned over or demolished, and those properties you were talking about, the tax credit properties that are aging out and that the owners have the legal right within a certain amount of time to opt out. So if we could look at all the different financial resources, too, that would be helpful. >> Thank you so much. I think we have two speakers, but really appreciate you coming here. I think everybody touched on it, and that was the point of creating this committee, to be able to have these conversations and see how but can complement these issues. So thanks for being here. >> Thank you. >> Julianna Gonzalez. >> Good afternoon. I'm Julianna Gonzalez. I am with the Austin tenants council, I'm the executive director there. We talk to about 10,000 central Texas tenants a year. We don't have any formal program focused on eviction intervention or prevention yet. [3:12:15 PM] And that's one of the things I'd like to talk to you about today. We do talk to about 100 clients a month, so about 1,200 a year, who are somewhere in the eviction process, and as you heard today, folks who are in the eviction process that can mean anything from they've gotten a notice to vacate from their landlord, to an appeal in a court. Right? And the folks that you heard from here today know mostly about the moment where the eviction is filed in court on to the appeal. We do see those folks, but we're also seeing folks in the beginning of a process who have gotten the notice to vacate. Often those folks just move and the landlord is not forced to file an eviction in court. So, sort of want to -- two things. Always see everybody. So whereas Texas Rio grande legal aid is highly focused on folks in subsidized housing, we do see the folks who are in those rental rooms, the short-term month-to-month leases, those duplexes, public housing, everything in between. I can tell you that the data we collect on our clients is very granular. So we know everything about every client that walks in our door. I do think having that kind of information would be useful, and I think when we focus on collecting data, we really need to make sure that we're collecting data on anybody involved in the eviction process, no matter how we describe that. At the tenants council, we define it as starting at the notice to vacate, whether or not that results in an eviction, and ending with an appeal, which is among our clients very uncommon because it requires an attorney. We're a big proponent of limiting excessive late fees. [3:14:18 PM] Many times, late fees are built into the rent for the following month. And so if a tenant accrues $200 worth of late fees for January, and pays their February rent, the landlord will attribute $200 at the February rent to pay off the January late fees. Let the circle be unbroken, right? And so we just have sort of a cyclic effect there. There was extensive discussion in the state legislature this year about excessive late fees, and there were quite a number of ideas thrown around there. Right now, theoretically, landlords have to prove that the late fees are tied in some concrete way to the damages by not having that rent. So it would be wonderful if we could make our potential city ordinance match that language. I think it's very hard for the landlord to argue that for a tenant paying $160 a month for their portion of the rent that they suffered 400, $500 worth of damages in those cases, and that would be a small change that could lead to some really significant improvements. As Fred Fuchs mentioned, we mostly see people who are able to mediate things before they go to court. Because they've come to the tenants council, or because they've gotten involved with Texas Rio grande recently. The state of Texas is really unique in the fact that someone is allowed to go with you to eviction court for nonpayment of rent case, and represent you without being an attorney. It's one of the only times you can go to court without being an attorney. You can bring an advocate to the tenant's council with you to court, or you can have an advocate for the tenant's council prepare with you for court, or mediate the eviction situation before it goes to court, by talking to your landlord about the options. [3:16:27 PM] One of the problems we've been seeing is to pull those hundred or so eviction clients that we see per month with a dedicated advocate that can help folks understand where they are in the eviction process, help them know whether they were legally served with the eviction and whether they have any grounds to dispute it. Prepare for court. Understand what the justices need to know from them at court, and then if needed, go with them to court. A lot of times we're seeing Spanish speakers at the tenant's council who are going to represent themselves in court for their eviction hearing. Most frequently, we see clients who are not going to court at all. They either do not know that they're supposed to be going to court or they don't see the point. And so we're seeing a need to staff up our agency with a focus on eviction intervention. We'd really be proud to do that. And then we're looking at partnerships with attorneys who could handle appeals for those cases where a non-attorney advocate is not appropriate. Texas Rio grande legal aid being one of them, obviously. >> I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up. >> I'm glad to take any questions, but otherwise, I think I'm done. >> Anybody have any questions? >> I'd heard there's a blacklist that gets created where if someone is served with an eviction or there's a judgment in court against them on an eviction, that they then become -- it's virtually impossible for them to get an apartment anywhere else in town. Is this the reality, and is there anything that can be done about that? >> Yeah. It is a reality. Blacklist implies that there's a list out there with everybody's names on it, but what happens is that when a landlord who's dealing with an extremely competitive market who's looking to rent out their property, they get to choose who they rent to, so they're much more likely to choose somebody who doesn't have an eviction on their history. [3:18:28 PM] >> Because they ask that on an application? >> Yeah. The two big barriers we see to placing people at affordable housing are criminal history and eviction history. Bad rental history. >> They can't get into affordable housing if they've been evicted? >> It depends on what housing program we're talking about. But I'm just saying generally, it's very difficult to. Once you've got an eviction on your record, you're not very competitive with the market. >> Thank you. You have three minutes. >> Good afternoon. Gus Pena again. Native east austinite. What they're saying is true. I wanted to improve the situation of these landlord tenant eviction processes. My mentor is judge Bob Perkins, judge Juan Duran, former justice of the peace precinct 4s. That's why I got the adjustments. What is said is very true. What has not been said is this also. This is a voucher from the -- it's called the veterans affairs supportive housing from the V.A. The landlords are not accepting this, okay? They seem to think that they're beyond federal statute. If you remember, chair Garza, the director of government relation Austin apartment association, we had a public hearing here last year, and also, the real estate council -- I was going to go to law school, but these various maladies kept me from doing it. The issue is this. We need to have a better statute or laws out there to help out the people who have been evicted. Yes, it will keep them from renting, and it shouldn't be like that, but I will tell you one thing, I heard about and I spoke to a veteran that y'all spoke about, they threw his things outside and evicted him, and that was a violation of a federal statute, because it's a veteran. [3:20:42 PM] Veterans affairs David schulk going to be coming here in Austin, supposed to come here in November, but he was not able to make it. I will tell you this much. This is a country-wide issue, but especially here in Austin, Travis county. I'm a native in east Austin. I have never seen so much mistreatment of the renters, and you're right, if you have a black market, it's going to be very difficult to rent here in Austin or Travis county. One of the things I'm told, Travis county commissioner's court, is you find affordability. What's affordable for y'all may not be affordable for us. I remember, again, I will say over housing, they won't accept the vouchers. We fought former senator Troy Frazier four sessions ago because they didn't want to accept any vouchers, but it's still up to the apartment to accept or not accept. I've learned a lot about the state statutes and federal statutes regarding housing, the investigative affairs also. So I have heard a lot of horror stories, personal also. So what I would like to ask you all to do is really, really take this to heart, that even a federal mandated housing voucher will not be accepted. It's up to them. They can take us to court. Let's go to federal court. We're not scared. We have good attorneys supporting us also. But again, I want you all to remember, and I'll wrap up, is this is a combat here, and we're losing the battle, a lot of people are being evicted and a lot of people are losing homes on the streets. Thank you for the time. Please, we need your help out there. Thank you. >> Garza: Thank you. Are we able to get confirmation on those minutes? >> (Inaudible) >> Garza: Can I entertain a motion to move with the amendment that council member troxclair was not here? [3:22:49 PM] First and second. And all those in favor? Please say aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? So we're going to move to the next agenda item, which is number 3. Briefing and discussion on transportation programs and services offered for people with disabilities. And I'll give a little bit of context. Myself and council member kitchen, who was unable to be here, asked for this presentation because there have been significant changes made to cap metro's -- there will be significant changes made come June that were recently just voted on at our last board meeting, and metro access, which serves folks with disabilities, those who can access that special service, it's directly related to how close you are to a route and cap metro can speak more to this issue. So when we change the routes, it affects the people that were close to those routes. So, for example, the June changes that will be made coming up have affected about -- I think it was 36, I want to say 36 people could not have had access because of those route changes, but we were able to grandfather those people in for a certain amount of time and we're going to look into that issue. So as part of this discussion, we're trying to understand, because the purpose of this committee was to pool resources, learn from each other, see how we can consolidate efforts to efficiently and effectively serve all the special needs that we have in our community. And so we've asked for a briefing from a couple of the different entities that do provide some kind of service, so we can learn what they're providing and maybe we can figure out a way to do this more efficiently. So I'll ask cap metro representatives if they can come up first and explain metro access and the cost and all of that. [3:25:19 PM] >> Hello. Good afternoon. My name is martin. I'm the transportation specialist for capital metro. I'm joined by my colleague Sarah Sanford with metro access eligibility. Originally, this presentation, I think you all reached out to the director of our metro access program, and he's out of town, so I decided to step in for him. A tall person was sitting in this chair last. So as I understood what you all wanted to hear more about was the metro access program, but also a little more about what capital metro offers in terms of our accessibility services for folks with disabilities. So we'll go through that a little bit here. In terms of capital metro just giving a high level summary of the types of services that we offer, we offer local bus service routes, express commuter bus service, coming in from the suburbs. Our metro rapid, that is our rapid bus, if you've seen them, the 60-foot articulated and the 40-foot buses, we offer metro rail services, which is our commuter rail service, and the metro access Ada paratransit service for folks with disabilities. We also do offer a ride share program that's actually seen quite a bit of growth over the last couple of years. In terms of our accessibility services, capital metro was the first transit agency in the state of Texas to go 100% fully accessible. That is, we began to offer low floor buses and wheelchair ramps. That is no steps on the bus, vehicles will lower themselves for easy boarding with the curb, and then all of our vehicles operate with either a lift or a ramp. With priority seating on our bus and rail system, so there is a section on the vehicle where if you are a person with a disability, an individual, an older individual, a senior, or a person who's otherwise using a mobility device like a wheelchair or something along those line, we have a designated area that is a priority request area for you both on our bus and on our rail system. [3:27:45 PM] We have automated stop announcements. We have them both in English and in Spanish. We have them at designated points that are points of interest, major intersections, and we're also required under federal law to do it at intervals that are sufficient enough to orient folks who are blind know where they are along the route. We also offer those upon request. If you board and you're an individual with a disability and you have a requested place that you like to get off, the operator will provide that announcement for you manually. >> I'm with you. >> Cool. We also offer something that is actually quite neat and sort of has us set aside -- sets us apart from our peers around the country. Excuse me. And that is that we offer braille tiles for the bus route and the stop I.D. Each bus stop has its own unique stop I.D., so we offer that in braille at the bus stop for folks with visual impairments. It's also in large raised lettering for folks with low vision so that you know where you are when you get to one of our stops for the purpose of planning. This is referred to as the Austin model there. Are other models out there that do it a little bit differently, but ours is known as the Austin model. We have an accessible mobile app that provides realtime data, trip planning and all those other functions. We used our community of individuals with disabilities to help us user test it to make sure that it was fully compliant and meets the highest levels of standards. Capital metro has adopted what's called the web accessibility guidelines 2.0, so we are ensuring that everything that we do from a technology perspective meets those standards. [3:29:46 PM] And our accessibility schedules, large print, and otherwise for folks upon request. We have level boarding on our metro rail system. So we don't have the issues that some of our fellow transit systems up north might have, where you've got elevators and different things like that. All of our stuff is level and even to the platform. Our ticket vending machines include braille and audio options for folks who cannot see. So a couple of years back, through advocacy, quite honestly from our community, we began a program know as the Ada bus stop improvements program. It started in 2012. So we're five years plus in. The goal here was to try to achieve 99% spilth. That is -- accessibility. That is 99% of our bus stops fully Ada compliant. We've had excellent partnership with our colleagues in the city helping to work through the program and making our bus stops successful as well as ensuring that there are successful paths of travel to and from the bus stop. And why is it not 100%? It's 99, but close. It's not 100. We have topographical issues in our service area where it's just not going to be possible for just a handful to make them 100% accessible under the regs without -- we're just not able to do it there. So we opt to keep the service there for the purposes of offering the service. It just doesn't meet every dotted I and crossed T. So right now we're at about 97%, as of the end of fiscal year 2017, and I believe our board will be getting further update on where we stand here in the next couple of weeks, I believe. [3:31:50 PM] After we get through the bus stop improvement program, the capital projects folks intend to turn their attention more to the -- to bus stop amendments. Bus stop benches, trash cans, shelters, important issues most certainly, and then to look at the new bus stops and buildout for the connections 2025. Capital metro does have some of the largest fares in the country. Very low fares, but we still offer safety net for those, but we offer reduced fare programs, that's a half-priced program for folks who are eligible. Those are individuals with disabilities. Seniors who are over 65. Medicare card holders. I often get that confused with medicaid. Riders with disability. Students under 18 also reduce theirs. And we have reduced fares for folks in the metro access program. So your metro access I.D. Card functions like a reduced fare card, it communicates with the fare box to only charge you half price if you are using that metro access card to ride on our local bus system. A couple years ago in 2012-2013, when we began charging the fare, essentially for all passengers to arrive, there were some folks who certainly were willing to pay the fare, had the money to pay the fare, but they had manual dexterity issues, individuals in wheelchairs who don't have full use of their hands, so we worked with the community and developed an accessible touch pass, looks like one of those stretchy bands that you have around your wrist, but inside is a chip that is a loadable pass, and so one of those individuals, all they have to do is merely get within the proximity of the fare box with their wrist, and it will pay their fare for them. [3:34:07 PM] They don't have to actually swipe the pass. I think that was a really neat piece that we worked through with our community. All right. The travel training program. We offer free travel training services. Travel training is essentially travel instruction for folks with disabilities and seniors. It's an individualized program. We work through their goals what they want to do, and we work with them as long as they need us to work with them, to help them learn how to use our accessibility 100% accessibility system, whether that's understanding how to trip plan, and learn how to use schedules as well as learning how to transfer and just generally utilizing the system. The service is free, and we've seen quite a bit of success with that, and that's always a program that we're really proud of, and always looking to expand. As part of that, our travel trailers help with our safety tether program. Designated securement areas on our buses. We want to Mach sure that when you ride, you are secured. We have standards for that that requires the bus operator to essentially hook your chair to -- we call J hooks on the bus, they ratchet in and hold an individual in place so that the wheelchair does not rock in transit. What the tether program is, we provide free tethers to those points on the frame of the wheelchair for folks so that the operator can easily access those, and it provides for faster boarding and it's entirely voluntary and free to the individual. They just ask us if that's something they're interested in doing. If they don't want to use straps, we mark with yellow tape so it helps the operator know where to secure on the frame. [3:36:10 PM] As far as the Ada paratransit program, the type of service that metro access has is Ada paratransit service, and that comes from the Americans with disabilities act of 1990, and the eligible for that service is based on a person having a disability and their functional ability to utilize our bus system. So that is you have a disability, and how does that impact your ability to use the local accessible bus system. There are folks who, no matter how accessible we make that service, are simply not going to be able to use it, and so metro access and the Ada paratransit service serves as a safety net for those folks. It is an individualized process, so we look at the individual themselves. No two blind people are the same. No two folks with developmental disabilities are the same. No two individuals who use mobility devices are the same. So we look at each individual, sort of where they are. We're not making medical decisions. We're making decisions that are related to their use of transit. This is an origin to destination service. What that means is you have an address from which you're leaving and an address to which you're going, and essentially, we make sure you get there either door-to-door, curb to curb, or door through door. It is an advanced reservation system, so we ask our folks to call at least one day in advance, up to three days in advance. We now offer an accessible online booking system. I believe they can book six days out for that. It is a shared ride service, so folks can expect that they will likely ride with another person while going from their point of origin to their destination. The service area, as chair Garza mentioned, mirrors the fixed route bus system, synonymous with local bus. [3:38:11 PM] It mirrors the fixed route system, so we operate the paratransit service three quarters of a mile on either side of a bus route. So if you plotted all the routes and you built a buffer around that, that's three quarters of a mile on each side. That constitutes the metro access service area. When you're offering fixed route in a particular area, we are also offering complementary paratransit service. If it's a weekend and service is not provided in that area, then the metro access service area is not activated at that time. We have as a couple of years now developed friendship with people at carts, capital area rural transit system. It was really established to try to build a seamless transportation system, try to look at the jurisdictional issues and some of the jurisdictional and other barriers that exist to traveling regionally, as well as coordinating with existing transportation providers, whether public transit or human services or even private transportation providers like taxicab companies and so forth. The focus is to try to find way to close the gaps there, and as part of that process, we have a dedicated trip planning specialist whose primary role is to help folks find transportation options to meet any need that they may have. If they want to go into a different jurisdiction for medical appointments, how is that possible? Are there providers? And what qualifications does one need to meet to be able to use that service? As part of of the office, we established a vehicle grant program some time back. Something we're very excited about. [3:40:12 PM] And what it is is that we -- we use our vehicles, and we have a useful life for them, and after we're done with them, because we can only use them for so long, once we're done with them, they're still perfectly usable vehicles, so the idea here is to help our partners in the city and in the region have access to some of our vehicle resources that we're no longer using. We've had two calls for proposals. In those two calls, we've added 34 vehicles to 18 non-profits. The goal here is to build capacity. You know, initially, we were looking at ways to maybe transition trips to some of our non-profit providers that we might otherwise provide, and they may know their clientele better and they may be able to provide that service better, but now it's really -- the idea is how can we build capacity for more accessibility so that there's more access to accessible vehicles across the region, because that is a big challenge. In terms of transportation gaps, I'm going to tie back into what I just said. But looking at other transportation needs that exist beyond those in the public transit space, we have a great need for a non-emergency medical service. It's not quite transportation. It's a different form of transportation. We have non-emergency medical services in town, but there are gaps and needs that are unmet. As well as medical transportation needs that go unmet, and there is a large need for transportation for folks, especially older adults across the region, and not just in the city, as you all may or may not be aware, by whichever numbers you're looking at, we're either the fastest or the second-fastest growing population of pre- seniors, I believe, and amongst the fastest growing population of seniors over 65. [3:42:15 PM] And then, as I mentioned earlier, there really is a need for more accessible vehicles in the region. This is a national problem. Our taxi companies, our private partners, tncs, those individuals, they're having compliance issues primarily because of getting access -- not primarily, but one of the components is getting access to accessible vehicles to transport folks with mobility devices. That concludes that portion of the presentation, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Garza: Can you go back to that last slide? I guess I'm confused about the other needs beyond public transit, because people use metro access for many of those things. Are you saying -- I mean, people use metro access to go to doctor's appointments, right? >> Correct. >> Garza: So is there something aside from doctor's appointments that is medical transportation that you can't use metro access for? >> Well, there could be times, and Sarah may be able to help in here as well, but there may be times and types of needs that folks would not be able to use metro access for, so say you're particularly medically vulnerable and you may be paratransit eligible, but we may not be able to transport you because you are in something that's more of a hospital bed as opposed to a wheelchair, or something like that. >> Garza: Okay. >> It's not that -- if you're an eligible passenger for metro access, if it is a location within the service area and at the time we're servicing it, we'll take you. We are not -- we're not even really allowed to consider your trip purpose, but we do know that within the city and within the larger population of the region, there are needs for non-emergency, medical, and transportation for older adults. [3:44:31 PM] >> Garza: Okay. And can you just touch on what is the cost to the rider and the cost to the agency? >> Yeah. The cost to the agency is sort of a -- it shifts. But the cost to the rider is $1.75 each way. We don't use a fare box, so folks can either purchase a booklet of passes of 10, so it's $17.50 for a >> A monthly pass is 46.50. As long as you have a monthly pass, you can ride. The cost to the agency -- and I'll look over here, but my take is that it depends -- it's a point in time kind of a thing. So depends on when you look. But I'd say 40 on the low end, 50 on the high end. >> Usually average is on the range of mid 40s to around 50, $51 per trip. $1.75 for the customer, around $50 for cap metro. >> Garza: Okay. All right. We're looking to our other agencies to help us solve that issue. But thank you. Does anybody else have anything on this? >> Hi, martin, sherry Greenberg. I just want to thank you -- >> Hello. I took her financial management class years ago. >> I wanted to first commend you for this excellent presentation, and also to encourage you that if you have any potential solutions for some of these challenges that you mentioned, we are all ears. >> Garza: Thanks. >> I think -- so generally speaking, people are trying to figure this out. How do we -- it's a really high passenger subsidy, like Sarah said, and how can we get that, you know, more cost controlled. [3:46:36 PM] So we're certainly looking at that. I think it's a -- we certainly have folks invested in trying to figure out how we can increase productivity, greater efficiency, and I think there's a real big piece around the accessible vehicle piece and giving those to partners really helps. >> And I think too at cap metro we're trying to look towards technology to assist with that is correct new software, so we can partner out some things to ride shares or whatnot to help lower the cost of things. So we're trying to address multitude of those issues as well as not only vehicles, but the software and technology to schedule people to those vehicles. >> Is there any sort of data base that would tell you, and I realize particularly with the tncs who is driving and what they are driving, but with taxis and the possible tncs, which ones are accessible for people who need accessibility features? >> Other than us reaching out for the procurement process and whatnot, we don't have access to a data base about that. >> I don't know about a data base, but as least as far as the taxi companies are concerned, I thought that, you know, since there's like a medallion -- >> Right. >> We know what their percentage of accessible vehicles are in their fleet. I don't know what that is. >> Yes, for tncs. That's a whole other issue. Thank you very much for this presentation. Really appreciate it. >> Garza: It's on. >> It's on? Thank you, martin and Sarah. That was very informative. I'm wondering how many people we serve and have you seen a growth in the number or a reduction? Kind of where are we going in terms of numbers -- and is it the five-county area, is it just Travis? [3:48:43 PM] >> So the metro access service area is more just Austin city. We have a few outskirts and towards Leander area, but majority of it is in Austin proper. We have a partnership now with Round Rock. They have a paratransit program too so we have a lot of customers that are going back and forth between the systems. So we meet with them at Howard lane. But on the metro access service, there's around 6,000 folks. And that's with our new process. Back in, say, eight years ago the rolls were upwards of 10,000, but when we started the eligibility process and actually had a formal process for eligibility, more so cleaning roles and everything like that, folks had moved, folks were no longer in the area and essentially on the books, so running about 6,000. And yes, there's definite growth throughout the nation right now, there's definite growth with the baby boomers coming and everything like that. Most paratransit agencies are looking for solutions at this point in time because there's still steady growth. We have a 3 to 5% growth right now every year in our process. >> One thing I would like to add to that is that we can -- through our metro access program, we can quantify how many people with disabilities that includes, but a lot of people use our fixed route system that have disabilities, for a number of reasons. And so in terms of who is using our service, we don't really know on that end, but I would say a lot of folks use our fixed route system and that's what we spend resources on is trying to make sure our fixed route system is as accessible as can be. When it comes to gaps, the built-in environment, sidewalks, architectural barriers. That can also serve as a immaterial pedestrian meant for people getting to those routes and using those services -- impediment. [3:50:53 PM] >> Garza: Can you explain the process how somebody applies for metro access? >> Sure. So our process starts with a paper application. A customer fills out a portion of there's and then a health professional that's working with them, whether that be a case manager or nurse, doctor, therapist, fills out a professional verification for them. >> Garza: I'm sorry, do they get that off the website? >> They can get it off the website. They can call us. Most folks, a lot of social workers in town keep stacks of them and use them for their customers so there's multiple ways to get that application. And then we -- once that's completed, they submit it to us. Folks have an appointment with us. We call it an eligibility review. It's a general orientation about the metro access service. They come through our process. Some folks may have a functional transit assessment to look at their abilities to ride the regular bus. So that's done by a third-party contractor on site. Their occupational therapist and physical therapist. Then they will follow up with additional information they may need, and the federal government gives us 21 days to complete this process from beginning to end with customers applying for that. What outcome they get after that they will be mailed a letter or emailed, whatever kind of format they choose for us to notify them. At that point in time if they get a decision that they are not happy with, they have 60 days to appeal that decision. And then we have an independent third-party appeal panel that will hear their appeal if they disagreed with that decision that was made. At any point during the period of time once their eligibility is determined, if their status changes for the better or worse, we ask them to ethics commission us know and come back through the process. If you get some level of service and you've had some events happen and your status has gotten worse, your abilities have gotten worse, we encourage folks to many could back through because they may be eligible for a higher level of service once they come through that process. [3:52:54 PM] >> Garza: Okay. Thanks. >> Madame chair. >> Garza: Go ahead. >> I'm curious and I don't know that we can answer this today, but I'm curious in the process that you use to incorporate your horizon issues. And when I say horizon issues, I'm thinking about the point when carts doesn't serve some of the Travis county area that it serves now that is currently unincorporated, for example. Because a lot of the folks that use that service are folks that have medical needs. So are we -- are we developing cost estimates that will give us some type of idea about what it will cost to add service and are we thinking about potential entities that might join the mixture of support and resources? And another horizon issue might be, as we deal with the significant population transition as it relates to gentrification, that low-to-moderate income families are pushed sometimes further out and sometimes into areas that are outside our service area. And we talked about evictions earlier today. I know when you go up any number of roads, manor is one example where you've got five or six apartment complexes that used to be low-to-moderate income and they aren't anymore. So I want to get an idea how you establish and plan for your horizon issues that we are beginning to see on the ground. >> So a lot of that is driven through our larger planning processes. So something like our connections 2025 are something along those lines, planning processes. In terms of the carts areas and some of the changes that happen there and operating service and things like that, our office of mobility management is a partnership with carts. [3:55:03 PM] And so there's a relationship there. There are conversations there. Carts actually helps us in some of our surrounding areas to operate some service. And so wherever we can partner through our office of mobility management in there where we have a regional planning coordinator, we're looking for options to do that. We also have our tdps, our transportation development plans that we've been doing with different communities and ways to try to -- with to bring transportation solutions to those areas. For example, what we've done with Round Rock. So now Round Rock has some limited local service, service that connects to, I believe, Howard station and then the -- they are running their own paratransit system so we link with that. So those tdps are opportunities for us to further expand what we're doing and build those relationships with those other communities. As for the etj, the extraterritorial jurisdiction did, that's more of a carts question with our office of mobility management, but I'm not sure what that is. >> Okay. >> And I know you had some other ones in there. I don't know if I got all of them. >> Generally speaking, I mean the office of mobility management is -- is probably a good place to start. I was thinking about criteria and cost estimates, when we know that we're going to have to expand at some point, how do we begin to look for resources outside the jurisdiction? >> Those are good questions. I think those are more the office of mobility management type questions. >> Okay. >> Once there's a road map, like, you know, these -- these are potential plans that, you know, or there's some planning that goes on, you know, some finanal modeling is done in order to know what's that going to be. [3:57:13 PM] But I think that again, occurs at the larger planning stage of our larger service planning process. >> Garza: Were your questions specific to metro access or all the service? >> All the service. >> Typically metro access just follows that larger service plan. >> So yeah, so if it's a larger -- yeah, it's the larger connections, 2025 or just our larger 10-year service planning process, and then the tdps, which is something we set up just a few years ago. I think can't be more than three or four years old, in order to find ways so communities can sort of pick an a la carte threat to do what they might want for their community. Not all kinds would be appropriate. Leander has its own model. Round Rock does, et cetera. So it's through that process that that gets done. >> Thank you. >> One quick question, first of all, thank you. That was very formative and appreciate that. I've been watching some what's going on with the planning of the cap metro routes. I live in Round Rock, I don't know if you heard that earlier, I have not seen all the details but I will watch it. Thank you for putting this together and great information. Your service is curb to curb, door to door, whatever, I'm glad to see that, but very informative, so thank you. >> Garza: I think a quick -- >> I think a quick question. Thank you for the presentation. Can you say a little more about what all you are doing with the ride sharing services? I thought I heard or ready capital metro was trying to expand in that area to make up for some of the gaps in service provision. If there is a little more you can say, that would be useful. >> Currently the pilot program is called pickup service. It's kind of our pilot kind of get feet wet with tnt style. [3:59:19 PM] There's a software company that offered software for free for the first year. We're trialing that out. We're using capital metro accessible vehicles. One of the metro access vehicles. We started in the Mueller development. We saw a need where there's a lot of metro access trips. Our goal is can we get more productive going from those individual trips. We've grown from two vehicles to four vehicles, maybe five at times due to peak so it's been a very popular service. So I don't think we've gotten as far yes, this can work in multiple different areas, but it's something that we're definitely looking into currently that we can put one of our vehicles on there using better software, more advanced tnc style software that you can book day of, just hey, come pick me up like you were going to book with Uber or any of those other tncs. >> So it's not with actual tnc service providers. >> It's just the software. It's a tnc software we're using with our accessible vehicles. >> If I could ask one question too, I think the terminology is confusing. There's tnc, which is not necessarily a shared ride. It is an app you use to get a taxi-type service, but it's not shared. What you were talking about, you said would be more -- would be something instead of metro access. Are you talking about something where something books a ride but there are more than one person in the vehicle? >> It could be. It could be a possible shared ride. >> In the pure sense. >> We're hoping to have more riders on that bus to make it more efficient. It's more of an on demand type. >> It's on demand as opposed to necessarily -- well, it's true ride share, as opposed to a tnc. [4:01:23 PM] >> Correct. >> We have about three more presenters. Do you have a question? >> You could provide this in writing or email to all of us. How does cap metro educate the community so people with disabilities know about all these services? And that would include seniors. I've gotten a medicare card now so I'm going to use it. Also, your vehicle mobility grant program, what entity or entities are providing the money for that? Could you answer that really quickly? >> Let me start with the first one -- >> If that's a long answer, you don't have to -- >> The vehicle mobility grant program, those are our vehicles. Once the vehicle has reached its useful life for the purposes of providing it for public transit, we can't use it really in revenue service. So instead of surplussing that and sending to auction, chopping it up, we -- we now have a program where we do call for proposal and nonprofits and other folks can apply, and we have some criteria there and then we score that and then we grant them out and they go into the community. >> What are those vehicles? >> So the first round of vehicles we used were our old ride share vans. And then this last batch of vehicles were our wheelchair accessible cut-away vehicles with, you know, I think it's capacity is eight ambulatory, two wheelchair, others ten ambulatory. >> You are recycling your older vehicles. >> Yes. Because they are still in good shape for use in the public, but per requirements for fta, they've exceeded their useful life for us to use them in revenue service. >> Could you name a few of the nonprofits who got these vehicles, basically? >> Sure. [4:03:24 PM] They don't mind. The lighthouse for the blind. Several either faith in action or drive as seniors. Safe place. There's some family crisis centers. One of the children's shelter-type things. There's a number of them. >> Are these on your website? >> No, but we can get you a list. >> That would be great. Thanks. >> As far as your first question, how do people know about it, we try to do web site outreach. Martin and I do multiple presentations a year to any group that would want to have us. And just kind of word of mouth general outreach as far as we try to get to any sort of groups and every group that we can. The traveler training, do a lot of things of that nature to get the word out. >> How many different languages do you do it in? >> English, Spanish, communication materials, we can produce in Vietnamese and mandrin. We use language line services so if we need to communicate in another format, we can. I serve on the commission on seniors on behalf of the agency. I used to be chair of the agency services council. I'm heavily involved with a number of disability organizations. And I'm easily found on the website. Like easily. So we're very out there and available and in the community and so we try to sort of maintain that liaison role as best we can. >> I appreciate 2 way cap metro is trying to be responsive to people with disabilities and seniors because it's really helpful, elsewhere a multi-lingual population. >> I notice you try to -- and students, do you also provide it for our military veterans? >> Yeah. [4:05:25 PM] There's a -- I think it's -- I have to get back to you on exactly how that works. I know when they are in uniform they ride -- we have to get back to you on that for further clarification. I don't want to venture down the road too far. >> I'm Eric, capital metro. We have a discount. So martin was talking about was a reduced fare a general fare anybody can buy, but we also have a discount pass program and there are a lot of veteran organizations in that and they get the passes for half off. Like the V.A. And a couple of other veteran groups that are definitely in that program. >> Garza: Thank you. I'm just going to go down the list that we have here. So I have city of Austin next. If there's any information you can provide that -- about transportation programs or services offered for people with disabilities. Do we have any -- >> Good afternoon. John Easton with the city of Austin sidewalk and special projects of public works. I'm here to talk about how sidewalks and the sidewalk program interfaces with the Ada community. So I put together a fairly short presentation based on the city's sidewalk master plan and happy to take questions. Some of you have heard me talk about this before. This is -- we really look at the transit sidewalk system and martin has heard a lot about this. The data you are seeing is taken from the 2010 capital metro metro original nations study where a majority of riders did not have the option to use a car at the time they took that trip. It means they needed to walk to that transit stop. [4:07:25 PM] They had to get there safely, conveniently. They have several millboardings a year of their regular service by folks with mobility impairments n2016 the city adopted an updated sidewalk master plan and one thing I thought was critical is it really treated sidewalks like a basic utility and took a holistic approach and it wasn't just finding money to go build sidewalks, it was there's recommendations about code changes, there's recommendations about programmatic changes. It really treats sidewalks like water service or sewer service or electrical service. It's a network service. And it's not connected. It doesn't work. When you look at the system, the city of Austin has approximately 5,000 miles of road frontage. To safely drive to 5,000 miles of location. We're missioning approximately half our sidewalks. Approximately half the places you can't get to. This is a slide that I certainly -- this gets into the specifics of within that sidewalk master plan we looked at, well, how do we prioritize where they are going to invest limited resources that come available each year. One of the weightings is specifically for pedestrian attracters. There's two kind of main groups, pedestrian attracters, pedestrian safety score. Pedestrian atrackers, the Americans with disabilities act, that language comes straight out of there. There was another weighting that was based on recommendations from the Ada task force. Martin was a member of that task force. There's a number of or criteria that really make supportive nature of the sidewalk investments comes through live and clear. [4:09:27 PM] That's just a copy of the sidewalk prioritization map. That's for absent sidewalks. We use the same prioritization for existing sidewalks, which is really important because this is where the Americans with disabilities act comes in. Sidewalks is a service that's regulated by Ada. There's a requirement to have an Ada transition plan to bring sidewalks and any other city programs into compliance. We're very proud of the 2016 master plan developed in -- we couldn't find something like this anywhere throughout the country. Found out last week now the Oregon department of transportation is sort of using our system. There's two main categories, functionally except I have and functionally deficient. That's important because when you look at the pictures, neither one of those sidewalks is Ada compliant. But in terms of investing limited resources, we work closely with adapt and other advocacy organizations to ensure we're putting the money in those areas where we've got sidewalks that are condition D or F or truly failed complete barriers and impacting people's ability to use transit. Unfortunately, only 20% of the city sidewalk network is functionally acceptable. 80% is functionally deficient. That deals with those barriers. I'm happy to say the picture you see has been fixed now, but that's only half a block off Guadalupe. That's right approximate to some of the metro route service. These are barriers to folks with mobility impairments. The good news is the city of Austin is at the forefront among many cities. Only 13% of cities have accepted full responsibility for maintaining their sidewalk network. [4:11:30 PM] Austin is one of those. Through the sidewalk master plan they've set very ambitious goals to addressing both the existing sidewalks through that Ada transition plan as well as building sidewalks. The estimated budget summary for that is $15 million a year for existing sidewalks, $25 million a year for new. The mobility bond is really the first step in taking a pretty aggressive look at that. There was $37.5 million out of the local mobility portion that was specifically for implementation of the sidewalk master plan. There's another 27.5 million that safe routes to school, that's going to build a lot of sidewalks and infrastructure. In addition the corridor and regional mobility projects will themselves be looking at the sidewalk infrastructure along those corridors and regional mobility areas. Or routes. That was the presentation. I really wanted to be here to answer questions. I can tell you a couple things that martin mentioned in his presentation. We've got a wonderful partnership with cap metro. We really try and treat them like they are just another department at the city. As we developed our local mobility annual plan, which is looking how we're investing those mobility bond dollars, we had cap metro at the table with us. We looked at their connections 2025 plan, and so gaps and rehabilitation needs to serve those new routes are very specifically addressed. Been happy to be a project manager on the bus stop program that martin mentioned where cap metro funded and the public they looked like one project, but they were blending funding where cap metro would fund the bus stops, the city would fund the you can is a. We would have a field engineering model that's really a model being adopted in Texas and nationwide where we can be very responsive by putting our engineers out in the field and getting those projects constructed sometimes in as little as days or weeks rather than months or years. [4:13:47 PM] So those blended funding sources, when we were at peak we were building two bus stops a week and all the connecting sidewalks. So those are real exciting projects. We also have an interface with the metro access problem. Justin Norville works directly with cap metro when they do those assessments and at times one or two barriers, maybe a missing ramp in order to get somebody to a bus stop so they don't need the $50 ride, they can use the $3 regular bus service, we partner up and address those. The final thing is the city's 311 system where those calls go directly to project managers within both the new sidewalks division and in the rehabilitation division. And we accelerate those. When we find there's somebody who has mobility concerns related to a sidewalk need, those requests go to the top of the list. And we try and address them to the best of our ability. >> Garza: Go ahead. >> Just an observation and then also a question. How do the city departments, say Austin water or something like that, how do they coordinate with each other when making repairs? Because often repairs impact the sidewalks and the streets and make them unacceptable. In the rundberg area there's this long sidewalk -- there was water done recently -- I'm trying to talk fast. So now the sidewalk has two big asphalt-looking humps on the sidewalk and I called and was told it would take a year to get that sidewalk repaired. There's another portion of Peyton gin where there was work done on a manhole cover and now the street is extremely rough to navigate because the patch was poorly done, in my opinion. [4:15:53 PM] How are people in the city and the various departments networking with yours and others to kind of say, hey, you know, we just made this sidewalk really hard to navigate. Even for somebody walking it like me. And it's going to take a year to repair it. I understand about funding and all that, but I want to know if things are being coordinated and discussed. And I did call 311, by the way. >> Good. Thank you. And I would say there's a -- the quick answer is that's not my direct area of responsibility, but I do know from working with our city crews because we use city crews and contract crews. There's a significant backlog. Austin water and other utilities do fund a utility cut program, and unfortunately there's a significant backlog. The initial repair with the asphalt is supposed to be Ada compliant, and trust me, I am aware, I am working on a project in the brentwood neighborhood, we're not even done with the project and they came through and cut it and made it nonada compliant. There are challenges we're still working through. We're aware of them. There is a process where they contact us, we -- through our street and bridge go and make the repair. Getting from -- getting both the compliant temporary patch to the permanent repair is not working as well as it should. And I can tell you that public works staff is aware of that and working on it. >> My compliments to city crews. They do an excellent job. Outsources crews, not so much. Sometimes when we outsource we think it's cheaper and a better process, but sometimes it's a less than excellent process and that creates more problems. [4:17:54 PM] That's not your department, that's other people's departments. I'm making that observation that I really appreciate the city crews. In my pin they do a great job in their repairs. -- Opinion. >> Of these 2270 miles that are left, do you have reesements, right-of-way already acquired for those? >> Yes, so sidewalks go within the existing right-of-way. Typically -- a typically right-of-way is maybe 30 not wide but there's 50 feet and 10 behind the curb. We often are dealing with challenges in retrofit situations where these heritage trees, utilities. We've gotten pretty good as working around those challenges. >> Is this neighborhoods as well, sidewalks in some neighborhoods, most neighborhoods, some? >> In fact, if we go -- it's interesting -- all the way back to the map and we did this in particular, so the green are the existing sidewalks and the purple are absent. You can see it's not spread evenly throughout. It's kind of got to do with their was a post-war development period kind of from the '40s through the mid 70s. We just weren't building sidewalks with new development. As you get to the further outer ring suburbs, you typically have sidewalks included. But they may not have the connects once they get out to the arterials. Within the subdivision there's a great network. Sherry is familiar with a project near Nuckols crossing where we're connected up thanks to a safe route school project. So it's kind of hit and miss where the issues are. The sidewalk master plan really is focused on those collectors and arterials trying to get sidewalks on both sides of the street because those are transit routes. Within the residential neighborhoods, our goal is get them on at least one side of the street. [4:19:55 PM] With a prioritization on those areas that are very transit dependent. So one of the factors that comes in is those pedestrian health scores and also median income really excuse the investments to those areas that are transit dependent. >> Have I very -- very good. Thank you. >> Garza: Next presenter is central health. Thank you. >> Hi. Are we ready? Okay. Stephanie McDonald of the chief of staff at central health. And central health has a really unique partnership with Seton hospitals to manage the health care for the low-income people we serve. And that is called the community care collaborative. It's a 5013c and a lot of what I'm going to be speaking about today is really the work of the community care collaborative. Central health, of course, does not provide transportation. What we do provide is access to health care. And we do that for a very unique population. Unfortunately it's a large population and I think the population many of you know about is the medical access program population. This is people primarily under 100% of the federal poverty limit. Currently we have about 10,000 people who are probably homeless in that population. And one of the things I'd like to point out in serving this population, we have an amazing partnership with the city of Austin and the community health paramedics. The austin-travis county ems. Those paramedics do a lot of work. There's seven specifically. There's also a couple of other programs called host and path that work with our homeless population. I rode out with them the other day and we're trying to manage the people who are high utilizers, frequently in the emergency department unnecessarily or are being discharged in the emergency department and have nowhere to go. [4:22:01 PM] Those paramedics are amazing and they know a lot of people by name. They can go and we try to go find someone to try to get someone into a skilled nursing center. But what happens is a lot of coordination with our medical management team. Our medical management team knows when somebody is about to get discharged from Seton. They will give a phone call, work together to see who can meet with that person and give that person either to a skilled nursing center or if they are on the streets, we deliver medicine to these folks. This is not a large population, but it is a very vulnerable population and a population that needs a high level of service. We go to the community first village and one of the things we did with the city of Austin, there is a medical transport vehicle that the city operates. They came out and took someone into the emergency department from the community first village the other day and saved an ambulance trip, which was great, lowered that cost. And that person had been seen by a community care provider at the community first village the day before, had done lab work and had a really elevated level of potassium and needed to go in and make sure they weren't going to suffer cardiac arrest. That person dedicated from a 'em too of folks dedicated to serving his health care needs. So we serve roughly about 25,000 people in any given time in the medical access program. Most of the people are in the sliding fee scale. Last year, fiscal year 2016, rather, the community care collaboratives served over 95,000 people. And this goes up to 375% of the federal poverty limit and it just depends where you access the care. I just wanted to show you kind of the population that we are serving and what their chronic conditions are. Hypertension being the most prevalent. [4:24:03 PM] We're doing a lot of work with people who have a two plus diagnosis, behavioral health issue, diabetes, COPD. A lot of work in trying to manage this care and the primary care setting getting them access to primary care physicians and medical management rather than having to go into the emergency department when they feel like they need some attention. So the medical management department for the community care collaborative is a group of both trained nurses and social workers. We have case managers. This is not something that everybody who accesses the safety net receives, but really the people who are the highest utilizers or really have the most severe health care needs. And a group that we work a lot with, and I think this is something we don't think about are people that have strokes so they are no longer able to manage on their own. They may have other co-occurring disorders or issues and may really prevent them from managing their health care needs. So the team works a lot with the people who are specially released from Dell seat Seton after having suffered a stroke. We provide access to transportation through the CCC as well as at our clinic sites. Whether we call you up and if you are in a medical management program, we will ask do you have a ride to your appointment, how you are going to get there. We find the majority of the people who use the safety net, as we call it, for health care really do have access in a single passenger car, it's just maybe not their car. So the time of an appointment is critical. And we are really working hard trying to figure better ways to coordinate that care. It is really expensive for us as a health care system when someone doesn't show up for an appointment. That means somebody else can get in a system that relies heavily on mass mizeing -- we have a 3% no show rate. [4:26:09 PM] That is challenging. We're trying to do a lot more work. We're working with cap metro. We're working with caregivers. The skilled nursing centers and the other places that our residents live in. Trying to see if there's ways to improve access to health care. And we are, of course, trying to create more opportunities for after-hours care. We have an urgent care network that includes next care and fast med so you can go to those places. That also helps with our access issues. Someone can get a ride and not during working hours to an appointment and get an appointment there. That's usually better. And then we have two pilot programs that I would really like to speak with you about. The first one is something that we received from the transportation empowerment fund at capital metro. A $50,000 grant. We've been working with ride Austin specifically trying to develop not only the software but if you think about it, a lot of the people that we serve, they do actually have access to digital technology to hand-held devices. They may not are the data plans and what they probably don't have is the credit or unbanked. Getting them into a transportation network is difficult for those reasons. The Dell medical school has been helping us create this technology. We've been working to make sure that, you know, it's great that we can get someone a ride to an appointment, but if what is really what they need is a ride to the pharmacy, but making sure they can't abuse the fact there there's kind of an open-ended, so trying to create start and finish points is really important as well. That is something we are just now piloting and we will be happy to come back with you if there's results about that in the future. And the other thing that I think I told you a little the CCC and the care management team. [4:28:11 PM] We're doing a lot more work now with specialty referrals. A lot of times what people will do is be able to get to one appointment, but won't be able to get to a referral and a specialist appointment. A specialist's time is so precious for us. We have a limited number of appointments so we are trying to make sure our medical management team is coming in and contacting people. They call people, they text people, and they really do ask how are you going to get to this appointment, can we get you there. Recently the Dell medical school integrated practice units, there's three open at the health transformation building so that's on a major bus line and we're really happy about that. All of our specialty care that doesn't happen at the hospital also happens within our community care settings. So moving them into the community care settings has also been a way to be able to see more people and to meet their transportation needs. It is something that we struggle with and I will be really honest, we are looking more at the social determinants of health or cause people to be healthy or lack health. We know transportation is a critical factor in keeping someone healthy. I'm happy to answer any questions about anything I've laid out. >> I don't have a question. It would be nice to know about that pilot program and see how that -- do -- was part of the -- I guess an agreement with ride Austin they had to have a certain number of accessible vehicles? >> We have been working through that, accessibility. Also the fact when people are going to the doctor, particularly when they are sick, we had to really do training with the drivers. We've discussed maybe even having a community health worker or somebody with the person going to the appointment. Excuse me. So we're still working through a lot of these challenges and they are coming out as we are trying to roll out the pilot. [4:30:14 PM] We'll be happy at some future time to give you a more robust report on the pilot and we're not convinced entirely we would love for it to work. It's challenging on both ends or the person he or she can serve the needs of that person. >> Garza: Okay. Thanks. Do you have any questions? Do you have a question? >> Yes, I have a question. Are you targeting seniors in, like, independent communities, retirement communities? >> We do not, and one of the primary reasons why is we are the safety net. If you have medicare, you are not really utilizing the medicare you have more access and you are covered in our mind and the state would consider you kind of covered in that way. We do help -- a lot of homeless, people don't realize there's an aging homeless population. We're working to get them into skilled nursing centers. But no, really the target demographic we have is pretty. Working age adults. If you are children or a medicaid mother covered or medicaid covered, you are not relying on us. We are the payer of last resort. >> So they don't have option to the pilot program? >> Not necessarily have access to our program. We can -- we're going to see how it goes. You know, certainly we understand there are plenty of people who use our community care clinics who are seniors, and to try to meet their transportation needs. But right now we're trying to pilot this kind of really on a high utilizer group. >> Okay. >> Garza: Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Garza: And Travis county. [4:32:15 PM] Thank you so much. Everybody's patience, especially the last people. Thank you for your patience. >> Hi. I'm the long-range planning manager for the transportation and natural resources department at Travis county. One big thing to know about Travis county and our transportation planning efforts for this population and other populations, low-income seniors, is that we have recently switched from doing that planning within our health and human services department into our transportation and natural resources department. Because we are the first county in this region and I believe in the state of Texas to enter into a transit development agreement with capital metro that they were talking about earlier. Because of federal funding requirements, if you will, or flexibility, the fta -- the federal transit authority, will allow other entities to pull down federal funding for transit services, but the requirement is that you have entered into a transit development agreement with your transit provider. Capital metro. So that's what the city of Round Rock has done, the city of Georgetown, Buda, there have been several cities who did not opt into the capital metro service area, right, so they were not eligible for transit service from capital metro. But once you enter into an agreement, called a tdp, then you are and it's a three-year plan that you put together with capital metro and our partner carts. We work very closely with warts. Which is very unusual in Texas both our rural transportation group and urban transportation entities work very closely together. Hats off to you guys. We have entered into that process. [4:34:16 PM] That really is how -- everybody keeps wondering how are we going to extend services outside the capital metro service area. This is how. I'm going to let Kathy talk about that in more detail. Got into this -- they located the community first village in unincorporated Travis county outside the capital metro service area and to a homeless population. The county did step in through our health and human services department and work with cap metro to extend a feeder route, it's called, and that has a particular meaning that I want everybody to be clear about. And then we also fund a feeder route out to the decker lake and Austin's colony a little bit. We have a flex route that has started in del valle, I believe. Again, it's called a flex route. These are not fixed routes. You've heard capital metro talk about how metro access services mimic the fixed bus lines that they have. These are specifically not fixed routes so that services do not -- forays out beyond. Just so the county is able to fund some service, that doesn't bring much access to it. We will be working closely with central health and St. David's foundation, and in case you didn't know, the Georgetown just implemented service with their gtb through carts and it is being paid for during the Georgetown health foundation. Actually half of it. The city of Georgetown is paying for it as well as the Georgetown foundation. [4:36:25 PM] The white hospital district might have stepped in as well. We're all looking for partnerships. Capital metro certainly can't fay for all of this themselves -- can't pay for all of this themselves. I'll let Kathy walk you through a little bit of this information so you will better understand it. >> And I'm Kathy Stevens, planner at Travis county. And just to give you a quick overview on our transit development plan, we're just getting started so we're basically in the public engagement phase. The intent is not only to talk to stakeholders in the public but to look at all the other plans and routes that are already operating, set goals and come up with a plan for some routes that we can implement to help out. And I would just kind of add one of the main reasons that we decided to suggest this transit development plan and the court approved it is because we're seeing due to affordability issues, more and more people are being pushed out of the cities, into the unincorporated parts of the county. Many of them are transit dependent before and suddenly they've found themselves in an area where there is no transit. So we thought that would be a good way we could maybe help alleviate some of that problem. It's also a problem for people getting to our very own Travis county clinics. There will be some emphasis on trying to get people into the clinics to get the services that they need. That being said right now we're doing a survey. You'll see there's a link to an online version as well as in the back of your packet. There's the paper versions, we've just started that. And I totally encourage any of you that have any way to get the word out on that, please do. We would like to get as many responses as we can. We're doing a lot to get it out not only on, capital metro will be conducting surveys on the routes. We're going to the clinics. [4:38:26 PM] We try to work with the meal a wheels folks to do surveys for us, that kind of thing, so we can get good input. >> I might just mention I'm not going to be -- I'm a senior as well. But on our citizens advisory committee is the manager for transportation for the del valle school district and he just distributed the surveys to you all's Thanksgiving luncheon. We're looking for opportunities like that if you know of any between now and mid-january. >> Is your target audience the unincorporated area outside the city? Do you don't need surveys from those of us who live in the city, it's people outside the city boundary we're looking for. >> The yellow areas. I'll let Kathy explain it. >> And just briefly, we also have a steering committee, a citizens advisory committee and we'll be doing a lot other stakeholder, focus groups, that kind of thing. To focus on the map, this shows the yellow areas that do not have any stripes through them. These are the transit gap areas in the county. The way that federal funding works for transit, the amount of funding is determined capital metro received is delved by the urbanized area but not entered into the capital metro service. That leaves gaps. When they are in unincorporated areas there's no mechanism for the sales tax. That is usually the way people join capital metro. So we have these gap areas, and these gap areas are predicted to get bigger over time. We think this is a huge concern. You can see there scattered about the county on the back of the map is a list of neighborhoods that roughly correspond to these areas. These are where we'll be focusing the most of our efforts is try to help these folks in this solid yellow areas get to where they need to go. [4:40:31 PM] >> By looking into the main capital metro service lines, just getting them into a rapid transit line, after the service changes on there won't be double that many or trying to figure out what kind of services once they get where they are going. >> Our first emphasize is kind of a first mile, last mile kind of thing. Just trying to get people from here to where they can access our bigger system. That is our goal. I think that's basically it. All we have left in the packet is then the surveys, we have them in English and Spanish. We would be happy to answer any questions. >> Obviously our health and human services department works very closely with the populations in needs and hands out vouchers and so that's not really what we're here to talk about. If you have more questions about what approximate Travis county specifically provides for the disabled community, we would be happy to ask sherry Fleming to give you a few more details about that, but we wanted to make you aware of this process which is new. Pull together a lot of dpts and piece together continued service throughout the region. >> Garza: Go ahead. >> In the lost creek cuernavaca area, fairly affluent, what kinds of needs are you seeing in terms of disabilities, seniors? >> We're seeing a lot of seniors and probably people with disabilities too and their main thing is trying to get to the doctor. From what we understand in this area, a lot of folks want to go to the doctor in cedar park because it's actually easier to get to than it would be getting to Austin. It's mostly medical kind of trips. There's a need in this area for -- they need workers to try to get to their areas. They are having trouble attracting enough workers for some of the lower paid positions and so are hoping to -- [4:42:32 PM] >> We do have somebody from the cuernavaca region. Basically the commissioners appointed and we asked specifically to appoint people from within these yellow areas or very family with these areas. We have a gentleman commissioner Daugherty appointed from the cuernavaca area. He's going to be surveying his community. We're just starting so we'll have a better idea what the needs are. >> The reason it's located where it is is because of mambiaism. And I applaud the -- Travis, city of Austin, cap working together. Still has gaps, but it's better. So I really appreciation the collaboration going on. It's going to help a whole lot of our people who we don't traditionally -- some people don't put them at the top of the list in terms of helping so we appreciate Travis county bringing that to the city and capital metro and central health, we're all working on this practical. That's great. >> It's really just a little acknowledgement for our staff because I think it was creative. Just so I understand, this is the only region in Texas that is is pulling down these federal transit funds to try and provide transit to areas that aren't currently serve understand. >> That's not what I meant to say. I believe we are the only county, in fact, cap metro didn't think about entering into a transit development agreement with the county. They had only been working with the cities and it wasn't until we said to them, hey, we're not going to be able to pay for these reader routes the way we thought. They are like oh, we need to figure out a transit development plan with the K we're the only county in Texas that is working to pull down these types of federal grants in unincorporated parts. [4:44:38 PM] Cities, I believe, are doing it regularly with other transit development agencies as well. >> Well, then hats off to you and capital metro for being creative to try to figure out how to address these needs because there clearry on gaps and we can see it in so many ways people are being forced out of the city because of cost and are pushed to unincorporated areas where the price might be lower but the access to service might be nonexistent. I agree with Anne, it's great we're collaborating against so many other entities and glad to see central health's involvement in this kind of transit issue. >> A quick question, you said you said the yellow areas will be growing as un, urbanized? I think I misunderstood what you were saying. >> I think I said the gap areas in yellow will be growing. >> They're based on a census. It's a census designation. So these yellow areas are based on the 2010 census. >> Okay. >> So when the census is update, hopefully, 2020, we expect the urbanized parts of Travis county to be larger because more and more people are moving outside of the cities and into the unincorporated areas. I will just throw out there something else that this committee might want to consider. Because the legislature passed senate bill 6 during the special session, it is going to become a lot harder for all of the cities in Travis county to annex, which will make capmetro's service area probably not grow as quickly as we would have hoped to it, or as much in the future, which again begs the question, in the unincorporated areas, there is no way to get sales tax. There is no way to collect money, to give to capmetro. [4:46:41 PM] So the -- it's probably going to take a legislative fix, and I know capmetro would like to have a debate about that in the future. >> I guess that explains when you said unincorporated and urbanized and growing. Okay. Thank you. >> I will add to that that others would like to have regional conversations too, because when we look at central health, we -- it's not just central health, it's the health care and hospital districts all over the state, you can only collect taxes within the county, but yet you're serving folks from a very large region. And this is statewide with the hospital and health care districts. And a couple of the other things that have been mentioned, we really need to focus on that is not just the suburbanization of poverty we've been talking about, but total cost. So people talk about affordability being, you know, if you're paying more than 30% of your growth income in either rent and utilities or mortgage and utilities, but, truly, cost burden is when 40% and that 40% is comprised of your housing cost, plus your transportation cost, and we're really -- so that's the number that I like to focus on, and I'd like us to focus on in addition to other numbers, I hope so this 40% of people who are truly cost-burdened when you add their transportation costs to their housing, or their lack of transportation and what they're having to do. And certainly we've heard with health care, this is a very large issue, the transportation. >> Right. And that's what we're seeing, is people move out to manor area or the del valle area to cut their housing costs in half, but they don't realize how much transportation costs go up. >> Right. Exactly. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thanks for your patience and thanks for -- [4:48:43 PM] >> Interesting. Thanks for having us. >> We're going to postpone agenda item 6. We're still working on getting that website in a condition that we're ready for you guys to start sharing all the efforts that you're making. We wanted to put together all the different efforts that entities are -- you know, any kind of programs or whatever that we're using to address affordability. And so we're working on -- we're working with city staff to come up with a website to bring all that information together. But we'll just go ahead and postpone that to the next meeting. But we do need to -- number 5, it's approval of our calendar, so this is the last meeting of this year. The proposed dates that you have -- does everybody have those proposed dates? The first one is martin Luther king day, mlk day, so we can't do that one, so I'm going to suggest, if you all are available, the 29th, but it would -- yes, January 29th. So that would be -- it's your birthday? >> It's my birthday. >> Okay. Maybe you will -- maybe we'll excuse your absence if it's -- or we can go afterwards, we adjourn. Anyway, is January 29th okay? I'm going to suggest 3 o'clock, though, because I have a -- I have a capmetro board meeting, so would commissioner Travillion, so would councilmember kitchen. >> January 29th at 3 o'clock. >> Sometimes it moves to 2 o'clock, and then we don't -- we, being aid, we don't get the notice in time. >> We didn't get it either at central health. Something happened this time. >> Okay. >> So if it -- you know, if there's some way to increase the communication, it may be because somebody has an email from me that is not one that I read very often, or at all, which would be the aid one. I don't use it at all. [4:50:43 PM] I use my private one. So as long as we have enough notice, if we're not going to standardize the time, I'm okay with that. >> Yeah. And I'm having the same problem with -- not previously, but with this meeting, and that might have just been all around, it sounds like, with this particular -- >> Yeah. I don't remember why we moved it to 2:00. There was some reason for today. Maybe because it was right before the holiday. >> I think it was late -- >> Must have been an email breakdown for this meeting. >> She pointed out -- I saw her last week, said are you going to the meeting? I said I thought everybody was off this week because school districts are off. Then I sent an email to Katie and she said, oh, it's coming out. >> But we didn't get emails for this meeting, I don't think. I didn't, either, central health. >> Okay. We'll work on that. >> Also, commissioner Travillion I think being new was not on the list, so he didn't know the meeting was taking place. >> Okay. We'll work on getting everybody's private -- well, I don't know if we should -- >> Business emails, official emails and -- >> Every way we can communicate with you, we'll get it. >> Thank you. >> Text? Okay. >> So is everybody good with January 29th at 3:00? >> Uh-huh. >> Then it looks beyond that, they're all at 3:00, so unless something changes, they should all be at 3:00 for this -- for 2018. >> I do have some issues with some of these others. I don't know if other -- >> Why don't we approve at least the 29th. >> Yes. But if we can look at -- I I mean, I know that may 21st, a July 16th at least for me are problematic, I don't know about for other people. >> Right now they look okay for me. I'm just saying for me. >> July probably isn't going to work for councilmembers, typically. >> That's true. >> Yeah. We may want -- and may 21st, we've got grad -- I'm wondering instead of the may 21st and July 16th, if we do a June meeting. [4:52:53 PM] I don't know. Just putting that out there. >> Okay. You want to look at those? >> Approve the first one -- >> We'll look at may 21st and July 16th. If I can get a motion to approve January 29th as 3 o'clock -- >> I so move to approve January 29th at 3:00. >> Seconded by commissioner Shea. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposition that passes -- at the January 29th meeting, we'll look at that may and July and see if we can just consolidate those into a June. >> But if we put these on our calendars for tentative, at least we'll have the -- >> Yeah. Why -- if you can go ahead and do that, that will be great, then we'll send any changes to everybody's correct information and I apologize for the mixup for this week. >> I have a quick question. The presentation I did last time at the very end on the taxes and all that, I sent a find to Katie afterwards. Did you guys get it? I didn't see it come to me, but did it come to you guys? >> I don't think I got it. .I don't recall it. >> The presentation I gave on -- >> I don't remember seeing it. >> On the corporate tax -- >> Somebody asked for it, and I sent it to her in a couple emails, so ear -- either -->> We'll ask her to send it out. >> Or I think I have everybody's email, I can send it directly if that's not a violation of the form. >> Does anybody have any future agenda items that they would like to -- for the January meeting? >> In the spirit of becoming more relational as opposed to transactional and just talking about policy, could we get a representative from the Austin apartment session and Austin board of realtors to come address some of these concerns we heard made today about evictions and that kind of thing? Because I think they really need to hear that, or they need to be in conversation with us about that, and we need to understand they're point of view and they need to understand, I think, a point of view that's been expressed here several times. [4:54:54 PM] If we could invite that, and Paul caduro might be available from aaa and andrei might be available from abor to come out and talk about how they view this whole process. >> Okay. >> And then do people want an frc report, report on what our family resource centers do and our schools? >> Yes. >> Okay. I can ask Alan weeks if he can provide some staff to do that. And finally, I wanted to say -- go back up to item 3 on the jeaned. Austin ISD is off this week. I don't know if we were expected to provide a report, but we do transport kids with disabilities. >> Yeah, you do. >> All the time. We don't receive any reimbursement from the state on that, and I think we use a lot of federal money just to get that done. I don't know the numbers, I don't know the cost, because that would be a [indiscernible] Question. He's our director of transport. But if you need that information, we do transport a lot of kids -- >> That would be helpful. >> But we're not open to the public to do that, so it may be a different time -- >> Yeah. That would be interesting for a future presentation. >> Does it make sense for us to have, at least for the next few meetings, kind of a standing item related to updates on eviction related issues? I don't know what would be involved in the city expanding -- potentially expanding the city ordinance, if that would be a vehicle or if it would require a new -- completely new item, but I would love to see if there's a way to deal with the prohibition and the late fees being a basis for eviction. And it sounded like that was legal terrain, but disdoes that make sense to put it as a standing item so if there are issues, we can bring that up to the group? >> I'm not sure of a standing item but it's something we can put on the agenda to see what kind of policy we can put forward and have maybe a presentation from our city staff sense the implementation of the tenant relocation resolution to see if they can give us an update on what -- how it's been beneficial and then maybe also -- I don't know if we could have a law presentation -- I don't know how that works with going into executive session with other entities. [4:57:20 PM] I know we can go into executive session, but I was going to say if law wanted to present on where they believed we were with regards to what we can do within the constrains of state law, I could just ask individually as a councilmember because I was very interested in -- I was writing down ideas on ifcs, which, you know, are versions of legislation at the city level. >> I wasn't thinking so much of presentation as updates from this committee. If it makes sense to have it for next session or two sessions after, but I'd love to certainly have this group be ultimated updated on if there is an interest in that, if the attorneys have said this is an area where we have some legal wiggle room or whatever. >> Sure. Maybe it could be an agenda item where members of the -- this committee report back on -- it's like a homework assignment, basically, go back to your different entities and it will let us oh what they do to help families facing eviction. We could add that as an agenda item to give updates he on what our individual entities are doing on help families, saying about the family resource center. >> I have an information request that's at what related, and that is that -- I'd like to send the agenda for next time, and that is, today we heard from a variety of programs that offer some kind of voucher or taxi or access or this or that for transportation. It would be great to to have a presentation of -- these are all of those programs, whether it's offered by the city through maybe public health or Travis county or central health. This is what it is, this is what it offers. This is how you obtain it. Just so we have that knowledge base. It would be helpful to me. >> We also have a network of faith communities that do that too. >> Yes. >> It's harder to pin them down. [4:59:22 PM] >> That's much harder, but at least if we could know from the governmental entities, what is offered, what it does, is it -- does it cover 100% of that ride, or is it 50%, is it just a discount, and how you access it and sign up for it. >> Do you want project help out here? We have a program in aid that works with our homeless youth. Do you want them to present also in addition to the frcs? Because they're intertwined, and then we have all of our parent support specialists who do work with the homeless youth and with kids in poverty and that kind of thing. So how long, how much? >> Well, I think we'll narrow it down. I feel like we're going from evictions to what non-profits offer to folks that are in need. We'll have to figure out a way as we prepare for the meetings and narrow down and we can reach out to you. What my staff usually does is come back and look at this part of the meeting to say, okay, these are the suggestions. What direction can we go on. But the purpose of this -- those presentations was to do exactly that; are you saying you want a staff member to put that stuff in writing? >> Yes. What I'm saying is, I would like -- it would be helpful, I think, to me, and I see some nods, to all of us to have a list from each of these entities and have it just briefly presented to us at our next meeting of, this is what they offer, this is what -- exactly what it does and covers, and this is how you access it, because that wasn't really listed out in everything where we have a take-away where we can know the kind of ecosystem there. >> Okay. And that might go back to what the inventory website was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a website that inventoried all these different things. >> At least if we could have on the transportation, what each of the entities offers in the way of a voucher, a subsidy, whatever it was, what it covers, and how you access it. [5:01:24 PM] >> Okay. We can ask staff to put that all together. Watch the meeting and put together what was just presented to us. >> And is that possibly something that might be made available through the affordability inventory website? I'm not sure what all that is -- >> That's what you eventual -- >> I know we've postponed it. Seems to me we gather a lot of really great information at this committee. >> Yes. >> And I keep thinking, well, where else can I access this information? >> Right. >> And the reality is, there's no other central point for a -- >> That's right. >> -- Weird kind of convening body that's putting that information in. I assume that's what the website would be. >> Absolutely, that's the purpose, and somehow align it with the strategic plan we had all put together, I think a year ago, maybe over a year ago. >> Yes. >> And maybe the first little pilot for that -- >> Could be this information. >> Pulling all that information together. But, again, we're still working on the different forms of website and how we can offer that in as user friendly a way. We talked about links to different programs. We talked about putting exactly, you know, how much is invested in that program, and we're trying to figure out a way to make it as clean as possible, and we're just not there yet, so that's why we're postponing that. But it is -- it's a work in progress, so we can work with staff to see if maybe this is a first -- we can use this transportation topic as -- >> Beta test. >> Yeah, beta test. >> It might be a good idea to go to judge Williams' courtroom and see what's scrolling on her -- >> I have a question, who would be able to provide action and information about maybe expediting the payments whenever someone does come in and they are approved for assistance? >> Can he county, Sherrie Flemming is county executive for health and human services. We have actually -- we pulled together a big meeting with the county auditor and the head of health and human services, and judge Shue, Fred fuqes and some others, to look at the data and understand how many people are using it, how many landlords may be taking that money and not providing the housing. [5:03:44 PM] They've dramatically shortened the time, so from the time of application to approval is 11 days. From the time of approval to cutting -- actually having the check, which is generally sent electronically, is another 15 days. So they said they've actually reduced that time frame pretty quickly to get it to 26 days. >> Okay. >> I don't know if that means they can't get any greater efficiency, but I know they've already dramatically shortened the time. >> Okay. And you guys are already working on that then. >> So the information he gave us regarding the two-month process is outdated. You guys are actually in a 26-day process. >> Right. >> The county -- the county itself is. There's a category of people who get wrap-around services where that time frame takes longer but they've got to go through more of, I guess, a certification process or something, where their eligibility -- because they get more services. >> Okay. >> But I am going to ask about the dollar amount because it seems awfully low. I think that's just a straight budget issue, but I will ask about it because, obviously,ed thatwould make a difference. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And thinking about all the homeless people and what needs to happen with them, how about having the regional workforce plan presented to the group to see possibly for ways to -- >> That was the other side of the equation I was talking about, yeah. >> Sure. Yeah, we can work on that as well, get a presentation from them. But we'll see how much stuff we can put on that because we have a very inquisitive group here, and we're well past the 4 o'clock that we thought we were going to be a. >> Another suggestion for a future agenda is, I would love a report from the -- I guess the housing staff, or I'm not sure who it would be, on the status of -- I guess the compliance with the density bonus program because I've heard varying reports that apartment complexes that have benefited from the density bonus and that are required to provide a certain percentage of housing as affordable may or may not be fully complying with that. [5:06:04 PM] So I would love an update on that at some point, just to understand where things are. And maybe even from the county as well to get an understanding of just how many affordable units does the county have, and what's the range? Because I don't -- I don't have a sense for what the availability is. >> How many units are out there? How many then units really are out there and available? >> Are you asking -- so from the city and the county, two -- city staff reporting on their density bonuses and county staff? >> Yeah, just to get a sense of how many units do we have available and what range are they? Are they at 60? Are they at 30? Are they well above that? >> I know housing has their website that tells you how many units and how much -- how long they're affordable and what the range of the mfi is. >> But what makes this so difficult is that there are multiple entities, and I'm working with Austin city, it's a non-prospects and haca, city of Austin, and neighborhood housing development because the issue is, there's no central database right now because you're dealing with different governmental entities and some that are non-profits. So the city has neighborhood housing developments, you're talking about affordable units what level of affordability? That. The housing authority of the city of Austin has its foundation communities. There's a -- there was a sum of money, I think it was $20,000 that was put in the budget to go to neighborhood housing community development to, I believe -- don't quote me on this -- try and see if there could be a consultant through a process to help pull all this data from these disparate services in one dataset. >> I think you're talking a specific density bonus program that the city and county allows -- >> That's a piece of it because we did hear from Andy dealey way back when, she'd had an intern begin to compile that, and then I think they were actually going to try and go to those apartment units to find out how many are actually available because -- [5:08:12 PM] >> I think the city auditor did a report a couple of years ago, perhaps, that talked about that. >> And do I recall -- the thing I recall hearing about is that there was not great enforcement, it wasn't consistent -- >> Yes, that's correct, and that neighborhood housing community development has been sense then working on the enforcement piece. >> So maybe an update on that. >> Yeah, I would think an update on that. >> Doyle Valadez also had has, I believe, some software he's using to identify housing within each of the various schools, so that when the parents move, they can try to keep the kids within the same school. So he's identified a lot of apartment complexes, and I don't know what else, housing. >> Yeah. >> That he does. We've looked at that with Austin city up at his software. The school district is using it now, and so he does have that, but again, it doesn't compile all of these data sources. >> [Off mic] >> Okay. >> All right. Are we good? We're adjourned at 5:09. Thank you. [Meeting adjourned.]