Austin Housing Finance Corporation Meeting Transcript – 12/09/2021 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 12/09/2021 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/09/2021 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. Part 1: Speakers >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. I'm going to go ahead and recess the Austin city council meeting now at 10:52 here on December 9th, 2021. I'm going to convene the Austin housing finance corporation directors meeting here on December 9th, 2021. We're in the city council chambers, the time is 10:52 and all the directors are present. We have some folks that have signed up to speak to us today. [10:53:10 AM] I'm going to call those people. Speak on item number 1 was Steve hiraz, quiraz. Come on down, sir. You have three minutes. >> Good morning. >> Mayor Adler: Good morning. >> I'm here on behalf of gndc. That organization has done wonderful things for me and my family, and for the neighborhood that we are in. And -- back up 100%, because all the people that live on my street, which is father Joe, we actually know each other from way back when we were younger and we were still living with our parents. I grew up and was born in the east side, and I think it's a [10:54:11 AM] wonderful organization. And hopefully y'all can refund what they need to go forward. I met the mayor over there, when they handed us the keys, and hee he knows wh it's all about. I'm a little bit nervous. I was raised and born in the east side, and I live maybe eight blocks from where I was born and raised, which is wonderful. And most -- some of my friends live on that street, some of my son's friends live on that treat, and daughter's, and that's a good community there that we live in, because we look out for each other and everything as well. And I just want y'all to please keep re--funding hem for what they're doing. Thank you. [10:55:12 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. All right. And then speaking on item 2, Walter moreau. >> Thank you, mayor. I'm Walter moreau, executive director of foundation communities. We're super excited about the hill site, item 2 on the Austin housing finance agenda. It was competitive, but we are really committed to building the highest quality affordable housing for families. We're mostly building two and three-bedroom units, which we think makes perfect sense across the street from Norman elementary school. And not just housing, but a huge learning center. It will be our 15th center to support the kids that are enrolled there, have a food pantry, health programs, [10:56:13 AM] signature services. We're really excited about partnering with Guadeloupe neighborhood corporation to build 32 homes for sale. I think what stands out with our proposal is our track record, that we've been part of Austin and gndc for more than three decades. We've proven ourselves not just to build a great community, but to own it and operate it for decades and decades over time. That's our mission, that's really our commitment. Happy to answer any questions that come up. I did see the motion sheet from the mayor and that's acceptable and works for us. So, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Thanks, and thanks, Walter, for being here today. I know the representation that foundation -- reputation that foundation has is tremendous and you work hard to maintain it and [10:57:13 AM] you have done a good job. The way you were talking about the community center that you have 15 of them attached to a number of your housing developments, to me, it reminded me of the conversation we've been having with regard to homelessness and our wraparound services, you know, where we come in not justwhere we come in with a place not only for people to shelter, but also with additional resources that help them to provide for themselves and to increase the quality of life that people have. And I know how dedicated you and your team are and have been to providing those sorts of pretty fundamental resources and services to the good folks who happen to either rent or live and own structures that foundation communities has put on the ground for us. So he just wanted to take a minute to thank you because I do think that the work [10:58:15 AM] that your group does has a long trail of successes and is really important in our community. And thanks to the Guadalupe community development folks for their continued good work as well. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thanks for being here, Mr. Moreau, and I appreciate your response to the mayor's amendments. I think those are good ones and I support them. And I wanted to ask you, you know, we had a conversation on Tuesday and I put some questions in the q&a about early childhood -- early childhood -- early childcare centers, and I know that's not within your scope at the moment. Is that something you could consider having some programs on -- >> We would love to open a childcare center. We've done two of them. We've opened your preschool center on laurel creek at north Lamar. They're challenging right now to fund, build and to [10:59:16 AM] operate. We were really careful in our response to this competition to propose what we knew we could deliver on. That's really important to us. I know sometimes the public competitions you might ask for ABC and then def, and they win and then they renegotiate. And we don't want to do that. I know sometimes they are open to the community at large. Will that be the case with this development. >> All our learning centers are open to the development and to the neighborhood kids and free programs and that's essential. >> Tovo: I think there are some opportunities here with the Rathgeber center as well [11:00:18 AM] as the city of Austin family -- women and children's shelter that is run by the Salvation Army so I know the mayor has an amendment here. If I seem a little scattered it's because we have a jackhammer in our ear and have sort of for days now running. But in any case, with that down the road I think there's some great opportunities. The mayor's amendment asks that you affirmatively outreach to those -- to those entities to see if there are opportunities for some of the families that are sheltering there to receive permanent housing down the street in your facility. And I would ask you to also explore partnerships with -- in terms of using the learning center and potentially I know they have a childcare program. There may be some nice -- some nice synergies there for families at your development, within your community that are younger that have children who are younger. >> That's a great idea. We partner with the Rathgeber village already and passages program and [11:01:18 AM] we're a pipeline for families to be able to move out of that transitional situation into a permanent home and we love that partnership. >> Could you talk -- thanks for all of the work that you do. Could you talk a bit about the way that foundation communities works with individuals are previously homeless. I know that you have a few special initiatives, including within your family communities. >> We have family communities that are mostly two bedroom, three bedrooms and 160 apartments are in our children's home initiatives for kids who have been homeless. We're overwhelmed by the demand. We get two or three applications everyday and often have one or maybe two apartments a week that open up. It's intensive support for two years to help wrap around the services with that family and help them to address childcare and health issues. Our biggest goal is to really help the family boost their income. [11:02:22 AM] This year in the 160 apartments we had a 90% success rate of families being able to graduate and get to that level. And for kids that's such a huge you impact to be able to have -- and they don't have to move so they can stay in the apartment, the rent will go for a couple of years to an affordable level add then the next empty apartment rolls into the program so it's sustainable on that basis. We have a whole different program for single adults, individuals that have been homeless or chronically homeless. We're building zilker studios now and we just opened up Waterloo terrace up by the domain. I might share with council when we started leasing Waterloo terrace a year ago we had over 1300 people apply for 135 apartments. And a month ago we just started leasing laurel creek in councilmember pool's district on north Lamar and we had over 600 people interested in living there for 88 apartments. We were able to get the first four families in right before Thanksgiving. We were going to hand out [11:03:22 AM] keys starting December 1st, but these four families in particular were homeless, staying in their car or the shelter, sort of getting in before Thanksgiving was huge. And none of these families were in the system. None of them were being counted. They needed an affordable place to live and made sure they were at the front of the line at laurel creek. So of our 7,000 residents this year, about a thousand were formally homeless. So we're very committed to that. >> Tovo: Wow. Thank you for articulating that and with that level of detail. I know many in the community are familiar with the great work the foundation communities does and I think most of the time you're associatith housing that is affordable housing, not nessarily housing for individuals who have previously been homeless or families who have previously been homeless, families and children who have previously been homeless. So I think as we have this conversation it's just a really important element to highlight in your work. So thank you very much. [11:04:28 AM] >> Mayor Adler: I appreciate everything that you guys do. I think you guys are probably like the national best practice for what you do and a big fan of foundation communities. I appreciate your support for the direction. I also want to just acknowledge the way that foundations communities has also stepped forward at a time when the priority of dealing with homelessness or chronic homelessness that the organization has stepped up to help fill gaps, you've taken over management and help on a property when there are not a lot of service providers available or willing or able to step into that and you have. The program that you're doing with the county and us and making the commitments to the -- to specifically [11:05:30 AM] address this challenge and to participate in the data collection effort now that I think we'll have everybody participating in the community. I just want to acknowledge those things because I think those are real important things to the community that your organization is doing. I want to say thank you. >> Tovo: Mayor, I'm having -- I think those of us in the dais in particular are having a super hard time hearing with all the work going on. If everybody could just sort of speak up a little bit louder than we might ordinarily do. As a mom I'm used to like multiple narratives going on and lots of noise and I can power through, but I just can't really hear what y'all are saying. >> Mayor Adler: Understood [saying loudly]. >> Renteria: And mayor, we do have the same problem over here on the other side. Anyway, I do want to thank -- I've been working [11:06:31 AM] with Walter and Guadalupe for decades. I mean, we go back 30 years if not longer. And I've known the work that this organization has done. And not once have I ever heard anybody ever complain about any of their projects that they have done. No one -- we had all the complaints before, you know, and people were very concerned about a lot of the -- of taking in homeless into and building housing for them and apartments and buying buildings. But afterwards -- and people can't believe how peaceful and safe that whole area around foundation communities projects. And I really want to say thank you for all the on hard work that you have done, especially Guadalupe also. Between y'all and Guadalupe and the housing authority, [11:07:33 AM] y'all are the best organization that has done so much for Austin and I want to say really thanks to all this group that of all my people, especially low income people, workforce people, that y'all have helped, it's just an amazing work and clearly a godsend type of work that y'all did. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I just wanted to pile on and add my -- add my thanks and my appreciation. You know, we've had the opportunity to have a number of your -- a number of your homes in district 5. And I have the utmost trust in what you do and really, really just appreciate it. And I have no concerns whatsoever about the -- about the places that you build for people. And I appreciate the stories that you're able to tell us like you just did in [11:08:36 AM] response to councilmember tovo. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: All right. The next speaker, thank you, we have here, is mark Rogers. And then Julian Huerta. >> Morning, mayor and members of city council. Mark Rogers, executive director of the Guadalupe neighborhood development corporation. Stirs of all, I want to -- first of all, I want to thank staff and the executive team for the development process they developed for the Tannehill rfp. It's wonderful to see criteria in an rfp that recognizes the tremendous value of engaging a team that has a strong track record of affirmative marketing and implementing geographic preference police for affordable housing. Gndc has been providing [11:09:36 AM] rental and home ownership opportunities to the families of east Austin since 1984. Dozens of east Austin families purchased homes from gndc even before we developed the first community land trust home in 2012. Right now we have 28 community land trust homes in east Austin and 83 more in development. And you should know that it hasn't been easy. Initially potential buyers had a very tough time wrapping their head around the idea of owning a home while not owning the land. So it was only after we finished the first four homes on father Joe's street that started to grow and man did it grow. Right now we've got over 140 potential homeowners in our waitlist and almost every one of them has generational ties to 78702, 78721 and 78741. [11:10:37 AM] So if you want some idea of what gndc's home ownership development at Tannehill will be like, visit father Joe street. And I know the mayor has been there when we finished homes in collaboration with habitat for humanity. Mr. Cueros is one of the homeowners there. You will see net zero energy, two, three and four bedroom homes with a market value of about a half a million dollars that gndc has sold for between 100,000 and $225,000 to first time home buyers all from east Austin. Seeing is believing and we've learned that gndc's best marketing strategy has been word of mouth. I won't say anything more than thank you for this opportunity and of course I would be glad to address any questions you might have. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Julian Huerta. On deck is Rachel stone. Is Rachel stone here? [11:11:37 AM] You will be on deck. Go ahead. >> All right, good morning mayor and council. My name is you'llian Huerta. I'm the executive director at foundation communities and I oversee all of our programs. A lot of what I was going to say today has already been kind of word by Walter and some of the questions that -- covered by Walter and some of the questions you asked, but I'll hit on some of the key things. I do want to reiterate that some of the services that we're proposing for Norman crossing are based on proven, well established programs in place at our 25 other affordable housing communities. Everyday we serve hundreds of kids in structured education focused after school programs and we work closely with our neighborhood schools and the administrators at our schools. Our kids have consistently maintained about a 3.4 gap over the years and -- GPA over the years and we have a data sharing agreement with district so we can learn about other needs that students have around reading or math or even counseling. And we have a lot of [11:12:37 AM] resources to help with those things too. It's been mentioned that our programs are not only for residents of our communities, but also people who live in the surrounding neighborhood and we're especially open to hearing from principals and other administrators at schools when they identify somebody that they know could use some additional support, kids who could use additional support they refer them to us and we do all we can to make room in our programs to bring them in and we'll certainly do that at Norman crossing. There was some mention of early childhood and we do have two pre-k three partnerships in place in our facilities and those are in partnership with aid, and like any true partnership we and the district contribute significant resources to that and we've had huge success in kids being ready for kindergarten. And I think it was mentioned that Norman does have a [11:13:37 AM] 3-pre-k program but we need to find other ways to support. And then adults many of our centers have esl classes, we make sure there's choke so that adults don't face another barriers. We also have a range of health programs like on-site food pantries. We help people manage chronic diseases like diabet and then we have fitness classes like Zumba and other things. And kind of lastly Walter had mentioned about 10% of the units will be serving families who have experienced homelessness. And they will receive intensive wraparound supports. And one of the things that I'm most proud of over the years is our 90% success rate in helping families who have been homeless to achieve long-term housing stability. You know, we'll be working with the neighborhood to find additional ways to help the community thrive and I just want to say thank you for all the support that council has provided to foundation communities over the years and hope that you will support Norman [11:14:38 AM] crossing. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. On deck is faiez. >> Thank you, council for having us. My name is Rachel stone and I'm the executive director of Guadalupe neighborhood development corporation and I just want to thank staff and council for these rfp opportunities. It's been amazing to -- as a fund-raiser at gndc it's a real challenge right now to access land, and having this ability to build on these properties that the city has been rfping out is really helpful to us and helping us move our waitlist. I wanted to share a quick note from our homeowners who sent this in to us. My name is April, I'm a single parent with three children and one income. I am proud to say I'm a first time homeowner thanks to gndc's home ownership program. I was at a place where I was [11:15:39 AM] not going to be able to have a home due to the family selling the duplex that my family and I had been living in for nine years. In 2020 I was blessed to be able to move into my own home in 2020. My mom called it my Christmas miracle. My children and I were able to move in on Christmas eve. Gndc gave me opportunity I never thought I would be able to have, not only to purchase my own home, but a high quality affordable home. I am proud to be able to provide my children with a home they can say is theirs and to raise them in the community I was born and raised in, which I feared I would have to leave due to affordability. Sometimes I find myself sitting in the yd on the grass looking around my house and my neighborhood telling myself wow, I did it, I actually did it and this is mine. It's amazing what gndc and their staff and their mission has done for so many people for over 30 years. This whole experience has been a blessing to my family and to many others. So I just wanted to thank you all for this opportunity and for the families we can help with this upcoming project. [11:16:41 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Mayor and mayor pro tem and council members, good morning, I'm fiez, CEO of the group that includes our engineering practice and capital a housing. We're doing some very exciting work in permanent and supportive housing but today I wanted to kick off our team and development concept for 3811 Tannehill. You can see the team on the screen. Most of whom you know and they're very credible and doing incredible work in our community. I've read imagine Austin cover to cover and I subscribe to the concept of complete communities. Our proposal seeks to complete this community with the very best non-profits that provide these services. The areas surrounding 3811 Tannehill is a food desert, health care desert and childcare desert. Our proposal leverages and [11:17:41 AM] compliments the existing assets in the community, the all day pre-k, three and pre-k four at Norman Simms and the boys and girls club after school care with daily pickup and dropoff next door. I'm a part of foundation communities and gndc fan club, but their proposal provides a similar number of affordable units and almost duplicates the already available after school care, but does not address the huge opportunity that this particular location provides to fulfill the childcare, health care and healthy food access needs of the existing and new neighborhood residents and to support our public school system like our partners do and can. Our proposal was srered by staff and ranked very competitively in the overall rang, in the development team, development concept and financial feasibility with the scoring rubric that staff used. We believe that while council has communicated that priorities around early childcare and food access on [11:18:43 AM] city properties, the rfp scoring did not account for them. But it is up to y'all to decide the most appropriate concept for this location. I saw your post, councilmember tovo, about the continuum of care units, but I would also suggest consider adding early childcare and health care and healthy food access and housing for teachers, especially considering this location. I agree with Walter that this -- including those programs is difficult to do, but our financial model creatively utilizes market ratenits tosidize and fund the childcare programs, health care and healthy food access that these organizations on our team provide. The speakers that follow me on our team will dive into the details on how they do and how that fulfills the need in this area. They may repeat what I've already said, but it's only because this is such a unique opportunity and it cannot be stressed enough. [11:19:43 AM] Thank you so much. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Gregory Smith. And then Roger Canales. >> Mayor and council, good morning to you. It's great to be here. My name is Greg Smith. I'm the president and CEO of the Austin revitalization authority. We're a proud member of this team for the proposal for Tannehill. We've been in existence for 25 years. We own and manage over 65,000 se feet of office and retail space. And our partners here as you can see is a very diverse group of folks providing a versed development team as well as a very diverse service delivery team. Just as we've started to focus on preservation and development of affordable [11:20:44 AM] housing in the colony park like said area, this is an expansion of what the Austin revitalization is doing. It has an opportunity to expand our mixed use development as well as our community land trust. We will be co-developer of the ownership homes that will be developed on the site as well as a co-developer of the mixed use development. I want to highlight the mixed use development because we're actually bringing retail space to this area that is currently not existing and it is being subsidized. As you would know, this past year with the pandemic a lot of the small businesses have suffered and gone under as a result of having an affordable space. And I would say to you that this proposal here -- and I will give kudos to foundation communities and gndc. I've known both of them for three decades myself, over [11:21:44 AM] three decades. Our proposal I would think is a little bit more comprehensive where it's providing some services that are greatly needed in the community. As they mentioned earlier, the childcare, affordable childcare, health care, food access and of course affordable housing. I would say that these are services that are currently not there and that are greatly needed. So I wldld hope that you would take those things into consideration as you deliberate which proposal is best for this site. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Tovo: Mayor, I -- a previous speaker I believe attributed your motion sheet to me and I just wd to clarify that -- I think neither of us did at that time, but the motion sheet that's up on the message board is actually mayor Adler's. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead, sir. >> My name is Roger Canales, I represent the national housing provider foundation, the nhp foundation. And we are the non-profit as [11:22:47 AM] part of in project. Our mission is to preserve and produce service enriched housing for people that can -- for people so that they can afford it. And at nhp we search and implement creative solutions that act as a blueprint providing generations to come with housing that is more than just a roof. And that's what we've done here is brought this team together and worked with capital a foundation to bring this team together. We founded in 1989, nhp realized extraordinary achievements, preserving and creating a value of affordable housing. As a non-profit organization, nhp operates with a charitable mission of businesslike financial discipline. We were established in 1989 and over that period we've done over 100 multi-family properties, containing over 25,000 affordable housing units and located in over 15 states, including Texas. [11:23:49 AM] And Texas we've provided currently 11 -- 1,150 units. In Houston right now we're actually building two projects, one of supportive housing and one of senior housing, excuse me. We also do class a properties with affordable housing to put affordable housing in high market areas. We try to do this with an innovative concept and we are long-term supporters of housing. Once the affordability barrier goes away we still want to be there for you and be there for those residents. Nhp has earned a reputation for delivering affordable housing and shelters in forms of strong communities that are clean, safe and green with solid accomplishments. We're excited to be a part of this project and look forward to doing more work here in the future and with this group. Thank you so much. Any questions? >> Mayor Adler: Do you have any projects yet in the Austin area? >> No, we do not. That's one thing we would really like to do, but we're doing a lot in Houston [11:24:52 AM] currently. >> Mayor Adler: I do appreciate you reaching out to this market because I think that there's a benefit in the market if we have multiple players and access to capital for multiple and more places. So I appreciate your involvement, and whether or not this project gets awarded to you, please continue with your move to this market as well. It's greatly appreciated. >> We will. Thank you so much. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Nicole Jocelyn and then Connor Kennedy. >> >> Good morning. My name is Nicole Jocelyn. I have served the Austin community as an architect, planner and affordable housing advocate for the last 13 years. I've recently joined the [11:25:53 AM] team at capital a housing as the head of community design and as my colleags and our partners have already highlighted, this proposal seeks to build on the existing assets of the Norman Simms comninity. But also recognizes the deep gaps perpetuated by historic underinvestment in this community. Does this thing work? Cool. As you can see in the area analysis that this team provided, this community has little access to subsidized health care centers making it a health care desert. It is also an affordable childcareesert where residents face extreme difficulty finding high quality affordable childcare. It is also a healthy foods desert with the closest grocery store located over a mile away from this site. We can also see that this community bears the burden of inaccessible affordable housing and is borne by [11:26:53 AM] families in a demonstrated high poverty area. At the root of this proposal is the recognition and belief that it takes more than housing units to support a community where all can thrive. And it is time that we ask for more robust consideration of the whole community experience in our developments. This belief has manifested in a proposal that seeks to deeply address historic underinvestment by not only providing affordable units but also the quality services that existing members of this community have already asked for and that new members will need to thrive. Thank you very much for your thoughtful consideration today. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Morning, council. I wanted to talk to you a little bit, Connor Kenny, capital a housing and talk about our model. It's no -- can we advance to [11:27:59 AM] the next slide? So the way that we can afford to do all these great amenities and services is by incorporating market rate homes into this mix. 40 of our homes will be market rate, but 78 percent of our units are multi-bedroom, including 30% of the units is three bedroom. And it's really those benefits which more team are going to talk about that I think drove the overwhelming preference of people in this zip code in community survey because we know what a lack of services there are in this area. Next slide. We would also request if we're able to to do income averaging for our ownership homes, which would allow us to go up to as high as 120% mfi because if you're a teacher in aid and you have a partner who makes even prime wages -- next slide. [Buzzer]. I think that's early. -- You are ineligible for the low income units so you need to be eligible for those units. We're also bringing -- we [11:29:00 AM] gave way below market rate to a black-owned business for a fresh foods focused grocery store who is committed to not doing a usual kind of convenience market. And then we also have a half -- two more slides. And then we have a half million dollars budgeted to improve the campus park next door which includes a splash pad and shaded basketball court that can double as outdoor classrooms for the elementary school. And because people's community clinic couldn't make it down, we have a five to six thousand square foot full service health care clinic that we will be building for them on this site that will be focusing on mothers and children, which will be the only fqhc anywhere within a couple of miles. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Joanna Pulido, and on deck is Shirley van bracky. [11:30:02 AM] >> Good morning. My name is Joanna with communities in schools of central Texas. We traditionally are not in these conversations but we are excited to increase our early childhood footprint as part of this collective impact proposal. Children remain the poorest age group in the U.S. 71% of children are black, indigenous and latinx. 90% are children under the age of six. Only 39% of children from households with low income begin kindergarten ready to learn and succeed. And more than one in tee children under the age of six living in Travis county live in low income households. When families have access to referral systems of support in walking distance from their homes, they can thrive. It takes ravage village for families to raise healthy children. Cis has over 40 years providing social-emotional learning, academic support, basic needs and community [11:31:02 AM] service to students and families. As expire is a two Jen model that has supported families for 26 year. Our prevention model provides home visits using parents as teachers, adult education that includes esl, g.e.d.rkforce development and parenting classes. Our families move out of isolation where parents can be their child's first and most important teacher and hope takes root. Aspire children starts children kindergarten ready and they out perform their years after participating in the program. This proposal allows cis to bring additional resources on to the Norman Sims campus to provide case management, crisis intervention, mentoring and tutoring, following our national integrated student support model. Research has proven that a child's early years from birth to kindergarten are the most crucial and can impact the rest of their lives. [11:32:02 AM] If we want healthy children who are ready for school and life, we need to build villages that remove barriers, reduce stressors and support our families to thrive in a safe, stimulating and caring community. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. And as my appointee on the committee, I want to thank you for your service. >> Thank you. >> Renteria: I want to ask you a question, especially about one of the proposals to do a healthy food grocery store. Is that -- >> Early -- >> Renteria: He just saw the -- >> Oh, thank you. >> Yes, council member? >> Renteria: Yeah, what type of grocery stores? Is it going to be a commercial or -- >> So it's a local-owned business, Tes concession, we have an mou with them. We're looking right now at [11:33:04 AM] about 4,000 square feet and they have focused on committing on healthy foods and fresh foods which are not the most profitable and because of that we gave them crazy discounted rent. >> Renteria: Yeah, I just wanted to find out if it's -- what kind of control you will have over the grocery store and to make sure that they are selling healthy food. >> It's built into their lease. >> Renteria: Thank you. >> Kitchen: Mayor, I have a quick question for this speaker also. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Just very quick, you were talking about income averaging. Could you repeat that? I didn't catch the whole thing? Were you speaking with regard to teachers? Explain that more to me. >> So we have worked with education Austin and have promised them 30 rental and 30 ownership homes set aside for aisd staff. For teachers that's particularly important because average -- the starting salary for an aisd teacher is $51,000. If you add in things like a master's degree and whatnot, by the time -- if you're a familiar with two kids, if [11:34:04 AM] you're a teacher and you have a spouse who makes more than like $13,000, you're above that 80% mfi income level. And you're not eligible for any of the ownership housing that's mostly built in Austin because it's restricted at that 80%. So by using income averaging we create opportunities up that 120 and those folks can't afford houses anyway in Austin right now, but because of averaging it also creates opportunities lower on the income spectrum so it still comes in at an average of 80, but just more of a spectrum. ,. >> Kitchen: I see what you're saying. The average speaks to your -- the number of units at 80% averages at 80% rather than you're not doing anything particularly different in how you count the individual's income, got it. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Continuing on, is Johanna [11:35:11 AM] Pulido here? What about Cheryl ambreco? >> She couldn't make it from people's community clinic. >> Mayor Adler: What about Jason Mandell? Come on down. And then Kelly white. >> Good morning, mayor and city councilmembers. My name is Jason gindell. I'm the executive director of main springs school. We're an 80-year-old childcare organization, non-profit, that works in south central Austin in district 9. You may have seen last week a report from the U.S. Chamber of commerce that was done in collaboration with the Texas chamber of commerce that said that Texas' lack of investment in childcare is costing the economy $9.4 billion a year. It's also costing the state $1.8 billion in taxable [11:36:11 AM] revenue. As you know, Texas does a fairly poor job of investing in early childhood. Much of that impact is seen here in Austin, especially as Austin grows. This site, this proposal, is here to address some of that issue, to chip away at some of the lack of childcare and investment in childcare that exists in the state and here in our region. And the Norman Sims community is a childcare desert that needs this service, and this proposal provides that in a way that is appropriate for a non-profit to come in and serve at-risk children ages zero to five. Let me give you a sense of what it looks like on the ground. Main spring serves 100 children today, mostly low income children. Our waitlist is 500 deep right now. It is the greatest that it's ever been in the history of our organization. The need is significant. And it's not just the need [11:37:13 AM] for slots, childcare slots, but it's doing so in a high quality way. A way that works with kids who come from trauma, from the foster care system, from poverty. Ways that provide nutrition in the school on a daily basis. A service that provides wraparound family support to help them find housing, to provide therapy and more. Main spring has been a single location for decades, but today we're looking to expand and support this proposal because the need is so great in Austin. So I hope that as a council and a mayor you'll consider this proposal seriously because it addresses a core need for the community and for the entire city of Austin. Thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Thank Yo [11:38:13 AM] Ms. White. >> Gosh. First, thank you all for your service. I'm sitting out there and just being so grateful to y'all. Thank you. My name is Kelly white. I am the co-ceo at the safe alliance and I'm here to speak in support of the Norman village Sims proposal and I know that's a little bit odd because the truth is that we are deeply, deeply in partnership also with foundation communities. So I am in no way speaking against that proposal. Walter, when he spoke, said something about that we are in partnership with Rathgeber village, which is a program that is operated by the safe alliance, so that's a deep partnership as well. What we know, though, is housing is critical. It's critical to safety. And our mission is stop abuse for everyone. We are about safety. We see too many victim in particular over the last couple of years, too many victims that are staying in very, very dangerous [11:39:13 AM] situations because they are making the choice of a roof over their children's heads or homelessness. We see women that are raped and then while living in their tents and they come in and they receive support and an exam and then we release them back to their home, a tent in their homeless encampment. I could tell you horror stories. I could go on and on. I will not do that. Our waitlist yesterday, just checked yesterday, our waitlist was -- I don't remember exactly, but I do remember the startling fact that we had 18 individuals and families that had a score -- Campbell danger assessment. Most of the programs in this community use this particular assessment. We had 18 individuals and families that had a score of 18 plus on the Campbell danger assessment. What that means is that very, very high risk for [11:40:16 AM] lethality. That's frightening, it's unacceptable, and I think -- I don't think it got pulled off the consent agenda. I think you all did something this morning to make a huge difference in that, right? Enormous thank you to y'all for that. That will make an enormous difference for lots and lots of families in our community. So what about the -- why am I here with the Norman village Sims proposal? What I see is that -- we are a part of it and we see that -- not just me at safe. We see that it addresses community and individual needs in a very holistic and comprehensive way, and it's about the neighborhood. It's not just about the people that live there. It's very much about building up a neighborhood and a community and the individuals that need that support. That is our neighborhood. We are embedded in that [11:41:18 AM] neighborhood. And we support this proposal. Thank you so very much. You're wonderful. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you very much. >> Casar: Mayor, and I think we still have Ms. White to call up on the consent agenda when we go back to the council meeting. >> I'll be here. Thank you. >> Casar: I think that she signed up for the council meeting agenda and she signed up for ahfc and I think it was merged, but those are two separate meetings. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think those are all the folks that we had signed up here in person. Shark? Why don't you call the folks speaking remotely? >> Casar: Mayor, do we want to -- since we did have that mistake, maybe we could ask Ms. White if her testimony covered it, but she was signed up for the general meeting but wedidn't call her up. >> Mayor Adler: Which item number was that? >> Casar: That is the shelter item, which is item [11:42:29 AM] number 59. My staff shot me a note that she was registered for that. >> Mayor Adler: There's no one registered to speak on item 59. >> Casar: That's fine. >> Mayor Adler: And I think early college high school this morning we had a speaker that wasn't signed up. I think he signed up after 9:15. There's a 9:15 cutoff for time. We need to post that on the machine or something to let people know. And if the clerk's office could reach out to that earlier speaker to make sure that he knows going forward that you need to sign up by 5:15 to be able to speak. 9:15 rather to be able to speak. Here in person. And then it's the day before I think or two days before if you're speaking remotely. But it's posted with what the rules are. Why don't you go ahead and call the remote speakers. >> The first speaker is Russell Frasier. >> Mayor Adler: All right. At this point we're out of [11:43:30 AM] the Austin housing finance corporation meeting so let me go eaead and recess the Austin housing finance corporation meeting here at 11:43 on December 9th, '21. Part 2: Action >> Mayor Adler: Good to see you. I want to reconvene the meeting. We were in recess after taking speakers earlier. What's on the consent agenda? >> Thank you. Pproing the meeting minutes. The second item you've heard from speakers this morning is authorizing staff to move forward with negotiation and execution of an agreement with -- >> Mayor Adler: Can you speak up,mandy? >> The second item is authorizing staff to move forward with negotiation and execution of an agreement with foundation communities and -- [4:49:25 PM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. >> -- To develop 7.9 acre tract. You heard from speakers this morning on that >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> And the third item is authorizing us to move forward with an 11-month contract with the housing authority of the city of Austin for their tenant based rental assistance program in the amount of 1.1 million >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Happy to take questions >> Mayor Adler: Any objections todding the direction I posted with respect to item number 2? Hearing no objection, that amendment is added. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Council member tovo makes the motion. Renteria seconds. Any discussion? Council member tovo. >> I want to say we had some great proposals for this and that to me is exciting, that we have multiple, talent affording housing developers in [4:50:28 PM] Austin and -- wanting to be part of making sure the community has services they deserve. It was interesting to hear more about them today and to see the proposals reflected. I'm excited about the one we're moving forward with. And I want to say a quick word of thanks to the city staff for doing two really important things in the course of this proposal -- multiple important things. Two I want to highlight. One is having a representative from the school district as part of the process. I think that is just terrific. I think it aligns with what we have set forward as goals for a while now of making sure that as we're able to we're working in partnership with our school districts and especially around planning and how some intentionality and thought to the kind of development we're encouraging can have an impact on the school district and the nearby schools. So those conversations about what kind of housing would best [4:51:33 PM] support -- in termings of the programs they offer is the direction we need to be moving. I also want to just celebrate that this is one of the first projects to use our preference policy. Thank you for getting that in place. Thank you. These are all very good directions for us to be moving. >> Mayor Adler: So, you know -- I'm also excited about this proposal. Appreciative of the additional direction. There was a wide variance with respect to what could be produced and I appreciate staff getting and digging into that a little bit. I do think in the future it's going to be important to involve the homelessness office manager in consideration of tracts like this and reviews and setting up with the criteria are to be used. We're trying to get as many coc [4:52:34 PM] units as we possibly can consistent with the goals that the director of that office is giving to council there are a lot of units the cmunity will have to find. When we have something like this we ought to have as one of the stated goals a certain amount of, you know, continuing care units that are available on those sites. When you have a site that's especially real proximate to the center where people are going in sheltering and wanting to move out, one of the reasons the school district gave us the property was to help increase the number of families and help people that didn't have to move. We have families that will move out into a home. If we can move into this their children can stay in the same school, meeting the objectives in part that the school district had. So I think we ought to make those kind of units part of it. [4:53:35 PM] I would involve that office in setting up the requirements and things that we need. If we want to have -- you know, just the things we've talked about that are real desirable for us to have I think need to try to work their way into the criteria that we're using as indicated in the direction. Then finally, I think one thing to consider -- and I think it's part of the conversation to have with Diana gray in the room, we're trying to increase capacity in the city. We know as we're trying to find people to help with the hotels, that we're real limited at a local capacity and overburdening our historic partners. We have an opportunity in something like this to really do things and with new folks that are coming in and to just wait really heavily -- people that have done it before, [4:54:36 PM] because they've done it before is not going to help increase capacity in the city which is necessary to reach the scale and number that we want. So there's a benefit just in having new people involved, bringing in the urban league who's expressed a desire to get involved. They were one of the participants along with Guadalupe -- one of the ones not ranked -- not a selected one. But I think we ought try to provide that, to have a developer from outside the city bringing in additional capital. In long run will do a good thing for the city and so we ought to not count against those people because we haven't had experience with them before but maybe give them extra points because they're going to open up the possibility for us to do stuff to scale. I urge you and the staff to do those things too. Moved andseconded. [4:55:37 PM] >> We had a conversation Tuesday about the child care piece. Thank you for the response, staff, in the Q and a that the rfp was released after my resolution requiring there be a conversation about child care within a proposal. Manager, my question to you is whether you need an additional ifc to extend this provision to properties that are flowing through our Austin housing finance corporation or whether the policy we've passed is sufficient. And you can get back to me if you want. If you have an answer today, that would be helpful. I want to make sure we have a proactive conversation about city-owned land if there's not going to be child care required as part of the proposal. >> Understood. I want to talk to the staff and I'll get back to you. >> Great. If you would follow up and let me know. I want to be sure it's part of the conversation >> Mayor Adler: It's part of the conversation because I'm used now when you get into the details, which I appreciate [4:56:38 PM] you doing, as you go through this. Looked at the zip codes where we had child care deserts. This is not one of the areas. I'm not sure if it's because didn't have many kids in the area or what it is. >> The resolution didn't insist there -- if staff were not including it, that they're not and why and that would be a reasonable reason, that there are multiple other high quality child care facilities in the area but that we have intentional conversation around it >> Mayor Adler: Those in favor of the consent agenda, raise your hands. Unanimous among the board of director. Thank you both for being with us. Thank you. Next item we're going to take up is item number 62. Yes? >> I don't remember what time [4:57:39 PM] you have to leave >> Mayor Adler: Almost -- I mean, really soon. I'm trying to finish debate and discussion on some of these I need to vote for. I don't think you need me here for item 60 but let's see about item 62. >> Mayor? The clerk. You need to return the -- >> Mayor Adler: Oh, thank you. I'm going to adjourn the Austin housing finance corporation meeting here at 4:48 on December 9th, 2021.