ARP Committee Meeting 9/14

I was unfortunately not able to attend this committee meeting due to a work conflict. I did go back and watch it.

Fuse Fellowship:

Sometime ago we funded 3 fellows. One of the fellows was unable to complete the fellowship due to some health issues. They were unable to refund us so we will have an extended fellow. The two fellows did have a report for us. The two reports are attached.

Emergency Response: 1 Million

Sometime ago we recommended 1 million for our emergency response. Testing centers, sanitation, etc. Some of the expected expenses are centered around homelessness for emergency sheltering, security at the shelter, etc. The ask was to allocate 1 million so services are not discontinued. This includes sanitation in public facilities, sheltering for homeless population, testing and vaccine sites, telework expenses.

Recommendation for Council to consider Dismas House, Room In The Inn, and YWCA in the conversations surrounding the 50 Million allocation:

I did vote against this in the Affordable Housing Committee meeting. Now having gone back and watched the meeting, I understand the committee’s intent. However, for me it did not make sense for it to be late filed when we were not discussing the items at that meeting. A letter to the council or email would have accomplished the intent before the special called meeting. We also did not hear or see the presentations from those organizations so I would not have felt comfortable making a recommendation that they be considered.

Affordable Housing: No vote was taken

Pathways to equitable home ownership- I do want to stress a point regarding $500,000 for an RFP creating awareness of existing resources for homebuyers. It specifically targets black and brown people. I want to make sure that regardless of which nonprofit is chosen, that the nonprofit have Spanish speakers on staff. I also want to make sure that this funding be open to everyone regardless of legal status. I am glad that we would be looking at metro property approved in regards to potential land trust.

Housing security for older adults- I am interested to see what the demographics would look like for this proposal in regards to reporting. In immigrant household specifically, we tend to live in multigenerational households. It would be important to make this as equitable as possible. I really like the the idea of providing these households funds for home repairs.

There are a total of 4 proposals within this bucket.Details are below. Listen I know we have previously allocated funds to address AH but we are in a AH crisis. We need more units. We have to build them. We have the opportunity to fund them and put a good number of them on metro property.

ARP State Funds Update:

Rep. Love who sits on both committees gave us an update on how the state has used their funds so far. This included highways, sewer, broadband, and deferred maintenance. They did recently fund 19 Million for a pilot program to address childcare.

Over 182 Million is left.

Lastly, the following are request that are still out.