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HomeMy WebLinkAbout_September 2024 HCDC Packet If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate in this program or event, please contact Brianna Thul at bthul@iowa-city.org or 319-356-5240. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs. Next Meeting: October 21, 2024 HOUSING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION (HCDC) September 16, 2024 Regular Meeting – 6:30 PM Emma J. Harvat Hall 410 E Washington Street (City Hall) AGENDA: 1. Call to Order 2. Welcome New Members The commission will welcome one new member, Daouda Balde. This item provides an opportunity for new and existing commissioners to introduce themselves. 3. Consideration of Meeting Minutes: August 19, 2024 4. Public Comment of Items not on the Agenda Commentators shall address the commission for no more than five minutes. Commissioners shall not engage in discussion with the public concerning said items. 5. Consolidated Annual Performance & Evaluation Report (CAPER) and Update on City Projects and Programs The CAPER is a required document that is submitted to HUD within 90 days of the fiscal year end which concludes June 30. The CAPER draft is online at www.icgov.org/actionplan for review and comment. The public comment period began September 5, 2024, and will conclude September 20, 2024. Staff will provide an overview of the CAPER as well as an update on City projects and programs. At this meeting, HCDC will consider approving the document for submission to HUD. 6. Staff & Commission Updates This item includes an opportunity for brief updates from staff and commissioners. Commissioners shall not engage in discussion on updates. 7. Adjournment Housing and Community Development Commission Meeting Packet Contents September 16, 2024 Agenda Item #3 • August 19, 2024 Draft HCDC Meeting Minutes Agenda Item #5 • The FY24 CAPER draft can be viewed online at www.icgov.org/actionplan. • Direct link to document: https://www.icgov.org/home/showpublisheddocument/2328/638610653223330000 MINUTES PRELIMINARY HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION AUGUST 19, 2024 – 6:30 PM FORMAL MEETING EMMA J. HARVAT HALL, CITY HALL MEMBERS PRESENT: Horacio Borgen, Maryann Dennis, George Kivarkis, Kiran Patel, Denise Szecsei, Kyle Vogel MEMBERS ABSENT: Daouda Balde, Karol Krotz, James Pierce STAFF PRESENT: Erika Kubly, Brianna Thul, Kristin Watson OTHERS PRESENT: Terry Vargason (FBA Properties), Erika Mason (REM Properties) CALL MEETING TO ORDER: Dennis called the meeting to order at 6:30 PM. WELCOME NEW MEMBERS: Kivarkis introduced himself, he is an economic student at the University of Iowa. The other new member, Balde, was not present. OFFICER NOMINATIONS: Dennis moved to nominate Vogel to be Commission chair, Szecsei seconded the nomination. A vote was taken and the motion passed 6-0. Patel moved to nominate Dennis as vice chair, Szecsei seconded the nomination. A vote was taken and the motion passed 6-0. CONSIDERATION OF MEETING MINUTES: JUNE 13, 2024: Patel moved to approve the minutes of June 13, 2024. Dennis seconded the motion. A vote was taken and the minutes were approved 6-0. PUBLIC COMMENT FOR TOPICS NOT ON THE AGENDA: None. FAIR HOUSING PRESENTATION: Kristin Watson (Investigator, Equity and Human Rights City Department) began her presentation with a couple of recent examples to showcase this problem is not really fading into the past. A professor at Johns Hopkins University bought a house in Maryland, and he and his wife wanted to sell at a competitive price. They had black family members in portraits on the walls. They had art that had a black focus. He's a history professor and his research focus is on the history of housing segregation so he had many books about African American History and segregation. Professor Connolly was home when the appraiser came to the door so it was very obviously the home of a black family, and the appraisal came back low so they asked a professor friend who was white if he would pose as the owner. The Connolly’s removed all of the family pictures, the obviously African American art and books, etc. Then when another appraiser came they had the white professor answer the door and that appraisal came in at $750,000. This all happened in 2021, so very recently. Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 2 of 10 2 Another example is a medical doctor who toured a condo via FaceTime with her camera off - she made an offer on it without actually visiting the property, the offer was accepted, and this doctor was in the middle of the buying process when she went to actually visit the property in person. When the property owner saw her they told the realtor they not want to sell to this person. That was in May of 2024. Now of course the realtor said they can't rescind the sale, but the property owner was very vocal that she did not want to sell to a black person. Watson next discussed how fair housing laws developed. There weren't always fair housing laws, 150 years ago nobody cared and then in 1866, right after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment declared, among many other things, birthright citizenship. If someone is born in the US, they are a citizen. That is important because a whole lot of things flow from that, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which was this country's first Civil Rights Act. It stated that all citizens, anybody born here, has the same right as a white person to own property. Watson noted although just having a right doesn't mean one can exercise it, because that didn't seem anything to in practice erase segregation. Just because one has a right to do something doesn't mean they'll find a property that will be sold to them, it doesn't mean a bank will be willing to lend to them, etc. Then some 40 years later in 1917 Louisville, Kentucky had a city ordinance that kept people from selling to races that didn't match the neighborhood, so a white person couldn't buy in a black neighborhood, and a black person couldn't buy in a white neighborhood by city ordinance, basically racial zoning. The US Supreme Court said it violated the 14th Amendment, not because of civil rights and having to be fair, but that ordinance violated working with right to contract and it made the racial zoning ordinance unconstitutional. That's really all that happened for another 30 more years. In 1917 the Supreme Court saying everyone has to be able to contract freely, however, restrictive covenants then began. Watson acknowledged restrictive covenants are not all enforceable, HOAs can dictate what color a mailbox can be but restrictive covenants based on race and also religion were very common then. Two cases came up at the same time, so they were consolidated, and referred to as Shelley versus Kraemer, but it was Shelley versus Kraemer and McGhee versus Sipes. In both cases the two families were trying to buy property. The property Shelley was trying to buy, the person was willing to sell to them, but the property had a restrictive covenant saying it can't be sold to a black person, or in that case, an Asian person. Kraemer was a neighbor who lived over two blocks away, but he objected to having a black family living anywhere in the neighborhood, so Kraemer sued to enforce the restrictive covenant, not the seller of the property. At the same time, the Sipes family was doing the same thing, the same situation, only in a different town, and the Supreme Court said it does violate the Equal Protection Clause, one can't dictate that a person can't sell to this person or that person. Again, it's the 14th Amendment. Watson noted what's interesting about this is that the Sipes family's attorney was Thurgood Marshall who later became the first African American Supreme Court Justice. So in the 1940s housing segregation still persisted and just because one can't enforce a restrictive covenant it doesn't mean that they won't be steered. Watson noted she personally was steered by a realtor when she moved to Iowa City. This was in the 2000s and they looked at many houses, but she noticed that his agent would just not show certain properties. She would give her a list of listings she was interested in and the agent just wouldn't show some of them. Certain properties were really talked up and the agent would point out all the good things about a property and then at the others she had left off the list several times she would point out all the bad things about certain properties. Watson acknowledged that even in the 2000s this person was blatantly still steering buyers. She stated in 1968 they get the actual Fair Housing Act but the Fair Housing Act had been introduced many times in over two years before it was passed and it was passed because President Johnson basically strong armed Congress to pass it after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The original protected classes were very few, just race and color, religion and national origin. Then in 1974 they added sex and in 1988 handicap. It still says handicapped, it has not been updated to say disability. In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed and even though it has a very large impact on housing as it covers service animals and reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications to property, it barely mentions housing. Rental housing is covered as part of public accommodation in the Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 3 of 10 3 Americans with Disabilities Act and that's the only way the Americans with Disabilities Act actually applies to housing. The Fair Housing Act covers all real estate transactions, so that's the coverage in buying and selling properties and the Americans with Disabilities Act only covers rental transactions as a public accommodation. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects people with disabilities from all sorts of different discrimination in all arenas and housing was just one of them. Senator Tom Harkin, a long-term senator from Iowa, was the main sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act because he had a brother who was deaf from childhood. Watson noted when they're talking about unlawful discrimination, they aren’t just talking about people treating people badly. If someone is treating everybody badly, that's not discrimination, they have to be basing the bad treatment on a protected class. A protected class is a category that's protected by law and different jurisdictions have different protections but there is a concept called the intersection of laws which states a higher law dictates to a lower level of law. So federal law applies to everybody, and then state law applies only within state and local law, counties and cities will make their own laws that apply within those jurisdictions. In housing, for the Fair Housing Act, it just protects race, color, national origin, religion, sex, family status and disability. Then in Iowa there is some layering onto people that aren't protected under federal law, although some administrations interpret sex to include it, but gay people, sexual orientation and gender identity are not protected explicitly at the federal level. Iowa City also has a more explicit City ordinance regarding dependence based off the family status at the federal level. Family status at the federal level is specifically having minors in the household so in Iowa City at some point, Council said there are other kinds of dependents, such as elderly parents, adult children with disabilities who will never live on their own or there are people who simply have unrelated people that they're responsible for. Council wanted to broaden the ordinance and could do that a lower level of law so long as it doesn’t contradict the higher level. Ohio protects military status, Washington, DC protects political affiliation and not allowing discrimination against people because of their political beliefs, 13 states protect natural hair, so whatever gets passed for protecting is a protected class. Watson stated her office takes complaints of discrimination, and although their true jurisdiction is only Iowa City they get people from North Liberty, Tiffin, and Coralville all the time walking into their office and they don’t turn them away so they help people from the whole area. However, if somebody's not in the jurisdiction of Iowa City they will send the complaint to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Dennis asked about the Iowa City ordinance, because it says source of income, public assistance, is a protected class. Watson stated City Council passed a City ordinance that said here in Iowa City housing choice vouchers are part of the public assistance source of income, but then as a higher source of law the Iowa State Legislature, within two years, said no, housing vouchers are not protected but any other sort of public assistance, SSI or disability, is protected. Vogel noted they've had this conversation multiple times about Iowa City money only being used for Iowa City citizens, so he is curious why they even process claims for tenants that are outside of Iowa City. Watson explained all they do is take that complaint and scan it in for the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, they take over the complaint from there. Vogel asked how Iowa City rank compares to the rest of the state in complaints and how many of the complaints filed in Iowa City are actually found to be with cause. Watson said it’s hard to give a specific answer as everything's confidential, so it's hard to compare when statistics released are aggregated. She did note the last time there was a public hearing was over 15 years ago. Most complaints are solved through conciliation or mediation. They have to have a complaint for 60 days before the complaints can have a right to sue letter, and then they can sue in District Court, which is where the real money is. If something's really egregious they’ll get the right to sue request and they have to release the complaint to the attorney who wants to file suit. Kubly stated they are working on the analysis of impediments to fair housing and some of that data will be incorporated into the report, and that report's going to come before this Commission. The consultant is working with the Office of Equity and Human Rights to get some of that information, and then also will put Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 4 of 10 4 together housing needs data, which would be some of the Fair Housing stuff that maybe doesn't get reported to the Human Rights Office. Vogel noted it'd be interesting to see what those numbers really are and how many cities or counties have their own local outlet and not just having citizens report directly to the state office of discrimination or equity. Watson stated it's enshrined in statute that any municipality in Iowa with populations of 29,000 or more must have an office. That statute was enacted because there was somebody who wanted to keep their job. So that's where the 29,000 people came from. DISCUSS LANDLORD INCENTIVES: Vogel noted Szecsei had mentioned two or three meetings ago the Commission discussing landlord incentives. When the Commission was discussing CDBG funds and HOME funds and how a lot of these larger chunks of money go into 501(c)3 funds for affordable housing needs but what about private landlords? He noted Terry Vargason is here and is both a member of the Greater Iowa City Apartment Association as Vice President and also sat on the most recent housing task force committee. Vogel stated he has doing business here for 24 years and Vargason has been around for about that amount of time as well. 10-15 years ago, affordable housing wasn't discussed as much and Iowa City was mostly student housing oriented. They talked about zone one, which was the one mile around campus and that was always understood as that's where the student lives and anything outside of that circle was where everyone else who worked for a living lived. That really has changed in the last 10 years, with student housing expanding outside that zone, when Hawks Ridge opened, and then Lakeside, and obviously the growth in Coralville with The Banks. Additionally, they saw more and more properties in that zone one, and not just in the outer edges, becoming more and more available for non-student properties. And at the same time, Iowa City created incentives for new developers to have either fee-in-lieu-of or put affordable properties in. The Iowa City Housing Authority has expanded the availability of housing choice vouchers, Shelter House is having more and more ability to have homeless emergency vouchers, veteran vouchers, etc. but they still hear constantly that there's a desert of affordable housing for these people, the properties just don't exist. On the private landlord side, Vogel has seen his whole time here in Iowa City that there's a lot of vacancies out there, and there's a lot of landlords that either have participated with housing choice vouchers in the past, or may consider it, but the risks involved are greater. Without a doubt, damages, expenses, evictions, vacancies are absolutely higher when dealing with a higher risk population set. Dennis noted when Vogel says sometimes it's hard to rent to these people, the high-risk populations, to her that is a generality that may not be reality. Vogel clarified when he said these people, the high-risk populations, he absolutely means families, people on vouchers, whether that's seniors on vouchers, whether that's families on vouchers, homeless - they are absolutely high risk. They are higher credit risk, they generally don't have income, they generally don't make three times the amount of rent they would need to normally qualify. It is the same reason Iowa City has their housing program where they rehab houses and sell to a population that are a higher credit risk. They are a higher risk to be able to make the rent, make the mortgage payment, even upfront be able to pay deposits or first or second month's rent. In Iowa City they’re lucky that they do have a lot of ability for people on vouchers, especially on emergency vouchers through Shelter House, to have the two months paid and the deposit paid. His argument for years has been that these properties are available, but that it is tough to incentivize private landlords to take that risk because they don't have the same kind of ability to request funds through grants or CDBG or HOME or 501(c)3 availability and be part of the funnel. Dennis noted that anybody can apply for funding. Thul noted they’ve also worked with for-profits in the past for HOME funds, but it isn’t a generally a popular option for private companies. Most people don't like to apply because of the level of financial scrutiny and federal rules they have to meet. Vogel stated then it's also a matter of scale, a small landlord with one or two properties won’t have the manpower nor the knowledge to apply. Szecsei agreed that she would not apply as a small landlord. Vogel shared HUD has an incredible document called Monetary Incentives and Reimbursements for Private Landlords and there are tons and tons nationwide of Public Housing Administrations, similar to Iowa City Housing Authority, that are using monetary incentives to get Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 5 of 10 5 private landlords to participate. He is just pointing out that elsewhere public housing authorities are convincing private landlords to take high-risk tenants with true risk mitigation funds. In Iowa City one must have been denied by three different companies to even be qualified for the mitigation fund, versus having someone with a family of four who's looking for a two bedroom on Burlington but can't quite afford the deposit. They cannot apply for the deposit mitigation fund without being denied by two other landlords. Terry Vargason (Broker, owner FBA Properties) stated he has been a property manager for close to 20 years, and as Vice President on the Iowa City Apartment Association he was part of the Affordable Housing Steering Committee for City. One of the items discussed by that steering committee amongst all the other housing people in town was a risk mitigation fund. Szecsei asked what the risk mitigation fund was to do. Vargason said it would assist with deposits for high-risk tenants. For people to have some extra financial backing from the City or for the City to assist them on getting their foot in the door so they could get an application approved. It is common if a credit score is low or the income is low, a company is going to require a double deposit, which might be unrealistic for some people. So the mitigation fund was created but to be eligible one has to be turned down three times, so the intent for that was to help people and be available to people that are just really at the bottom of the barrel and criminal or whatever. His hopes were that it was going to help some people that he might rent to. He has been involved with the housing choice voucher program for years and has no problems with it he was hoping to just see some participation with private landlords. The tax incentives are all for the new stuff, but it's high dollar so in attrition they are creating some older and less valuable properties. Vargason noted if one chooses to live in Iowa City, that's a choice and it’s going to be expensive, but how do they help them? How to help these good people that are just in a bad situation. What he could see is some partnership here, not just only with the Housing Authority or the Shelter House but all others. If there was a clearing house system where there are properties that landlords have an inventory of that they're not getting rented, how about putting these into a central database where they can start helping some of these people that are on that threshold. Szecsei stated if the issue is deposits and that these people have to come up with a double deposit, as a landlord she has money from tenants that sits in a bank earning zero interest that is not being touched for the time that they're living in the place, so it almost seems like maybe the City could guarantee the money and if the landlord knows that the City is their partner in this, it might facilitate not having the City run out of money to give to the landlord, to have it sit in their account, to do nothing. Vogel stated this may run afoul of 562A because deposits have to be held by the landlord. Szecsei stated though if it's not a deposit as much as it is the City saying that they will cover any damage. Vogel talked about the Housing Choice Voucher Landlord’s Handbook. They originally first had a conversation about the damage mitigation fund, almost a decade ago, and at that time they envisioned that a landlord who takes in a Housing Choice Voucher client into a property that if at any point they left and left damages and rent due more than whatever the deposit that they held, the City would have a fund that a landlord could request reimbursement. In the guidebook, it talks about a couple other states, one has a mitigation fund that's paid through general funds where to access funds landlords have to pursue a small claims judgment and the tenant has 45 days to respond to the claims. There's another state that got rid of the small claims, but only allows a minimum of $500 anything under $500 the landlord just has to deal with. Vogel noted the mitigation fund was created as a line item in the city budget but was not funded for quite a few years, until the task force did fund it but the Shelter House was to administer it. To obtain funds it has to be someone that's coming through the Shelter House program. The task force had envisioned it as the way the federal government envisioned this kind of program, which is something administered as part of the HCV program. Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 6 of 10 6 Dennis asked what's the source of the funding. Kubly stated the risk mitigation fund is part of the general fund. It's part of the million-dollar affordable housing fund. Vogel stated at most it’s $1,000 or $1500 - they’re not talking about $10,000 or $20,000. It's the $2,500 landlords are concerned about when someone doesn't pay the last month. Vogel noted it could be a lot more than that due to potential damage. He also noted he doesn’t own any of the properties, so not sure what that would mean or how that would be handled. Dennis stated if any for profit landlord wants to apply for HOME funds they could. Szecsei noted that is a lot of work and a lot of effort, especially for someone who owns only one or two properties. She stated if the owners knew they would have a partnership with the City that if an owner rents to people, whether they're high risk voucher or not, if they trash the should the City will help. Vogel noted they wouldn't even be having this conversation if they had not heard from the City for years that there's not enough affordable housing. If the City was coming forward saying everybody who needs affordable housing in Iowa City is currently taken care of, they wouldn't be having this conversation. They are having this conversation because they're being told that there's not enough affordable housing. Everyone knows there's vacant units being held by private landlords, and in some cases there are landlords who will never accept Housing Choice Vouchers. Dennis noted to play the devil's advocate, as a taxpayer in the city of Iowa City, if somebody rents a house and trashes it, why are my tax dollars going to pay to repair it? Why should tax dollars be used to pay a private landlord who picked a bad tenant? Vargason stated the people in Iowa City in need of housing who may have some detriments in their background, the City's going to spend some money on these people in one way or another with assistance or shelter or crisis management. Dennis thinks they should separate that out a little bit. It sounds like the risk mitigation that Shelter House is administering is mainly for people coming out of the shelter or who are the hard to house. And then there are families out there who maybe don't have a good credit score. The adults in the family may be employed and they may have a Housing Choice Voucher, they just don't have a double deposit, but they still need a place to live, and they're not going to trash the property. It's two totally different groups, so put something else in there to provide a private landlord some other kind of incentive that isn’t specifically designed for the hard to house. Szecsei stated there will be many tenants who will not damage the property. That's risk mitigation - if the house is not damaged then that money is not touched and it doesn't cost the taxpayer anything because those funds haven't been used. But the landlord would have the security to take the risk because of the partnership with the City. Szecsei would appreciate the City screening tenants personally, because she doesn’t want to have to go find people. She would love to find somebody, a family who needs a home where she can provide that and then the flip side of it is, as far as incentives go, give her a bit of a property tax break if she doesn’t raise the rent and charge the maximum amount. Then she doesn’t have to pass those expenses on to her tenants year after year. Vogel noted there are some other discussions about the monitoring incentives from the federal side as well. He noted one of the things that kept popping up when they’ve talked about the CDBG stuff is senior assistance. One thing he is finding a lot lately is seniors who have been on a Housing Choice Voucher for years that really need more day to day assistance, whether it's someone coming over to just to help them take out the trash or do light cleaning, but they've been on the wait list for the senior apartments for a year, two years. Vogel wonders if there could be help transition current Housing Choice Voucher for people who are transitioning into senior housing. Some landlords don’t want to renew the leases for seniors because if the trash doesn't get taken out they become an infestation concern. Vogel stated when talking about incentives it would be interesting to see if there's anything that they could do, maybe a partnership with Iowa City Housing Authority, but it would be nice to figure out something Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 7 of 10 7 whether it's a fund or whatever. There are the senior issues as well as disability issues where they can't do the day to day tasks of keeping their place clean and it would be nice if at some point the Iowa City Housing Authority or City staff could figure out how these fee-in-lieu-of fund payments that go into the affordable housing fund could be used for that assistance. Dennis noted the fee-in-lieu-of fund is only for Riverfront Crossings and that’s the only place they can those funds. Kubly commented it would be helpful to know specifically from a landlord what's the incentive that they need. For example, how much money do they need to take on the risk? Vogel stated for the senior side it's not as much risk mitigation as it is assistance for health care or assisted living. Vargason wondered if there is any agency that works to channel these people to some place that they can live a better life, the fact of the matter is those places are in short supply. Dennis noted it’s been a daunting discussion. Vogel stated there's going to be legal issues surrounding it from all sides but he will put together the stuff he found from HUD and send City staff to pass on. There was a second report HUD did that states there's a handful of public housing administrators all over the United States that they basically gave incentive money to and said here's the nine incentives and they have to offer two or three of them. It is an example of public housing authorities utilizing these funds and are getting positive feedback that private landlords are expanding units and availability utilizing these incentives. There's a lot of the incentives he thought were good and not all of them are monetary. Some were just having a dedicated liaison at the public housing authority level, which would be Iowa City Housing Authority, so people would have someone to talk to. There was also an advertising component as one of the incentives, having the public housing authority advertise. Kubly stated that the Iowa City Housing Authority is not a Moving to Work housing authority and does not receive that funding from HUD. Szecsei wanted to bring up one other thing that she heard about in Oakland, California, where they've got a bunch of empty or vacant places, and the city is now starting to charge a vacancy tax to basically say if they're going to have a rental unit and not going to have it occupied, then they can pay a little bit more. So that's another outside of the box thing to do. Vargason stated one idea floated around was to have clearinghouse, some kind of a web-based platform where individual landlords could host or advertise they have properties to one general source. Right now the advertising platform goes up to 12 different sites and not everybody's looking at that stuff, especially people that only have their phone as their computer. If they had a central place where they could work again in partnership with the City to have a site where the private landlords can post the vacant places they are having trouble getting rented. Szecsei noted it seems like these solutions would get more bang for the buck than the buying a property for $400,000, that’s only solved one person's problem. They need to address that central section of people to help and actually have a meaningful impact. Vogel will get information out to the Commission and maybe come back with other ideas in the future. REVIEW AND CONSIDER APPROVAL OF FY26 LEGACY AID TO AGENCIES APPLICATION MATERIALS: Vogel noted this is the amended material that was discussed and agreed and worked on. For newer Commissioners he explained there was a whole process with the previous board where they had a couple commissioners that worked really hard on making some streamlining adjustments to all the application materials to try to make it more fair for everybody, a little more objective, and also make the Commission’s lives easier by not falling into the minutiae. Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 8 of 10 8 Thul gave a brief background on the process. The Legacy Aid to Agencies funding is an application that is accepted through the United Way Joint Application process rather than through the City directly like other funding rounds. So the City, Johnson County, Coralville and North Liberty all are using one application to make it easier for nonprofits. As Vogel mentioned there was a subcommittee that worked to make recommendations for the application and staff have worked to balance those with the needs of the funders to try and make one application that works for everybody. Kubly noted the specific changes to the application, the subcommittee developed an agency profile, which is information that's going to be the same year after year that the agency won't have to fill out again. They'll do a narrative about the community need that they're serving, which won't typically change year after year, and that information is not going to be scored anymore, because it's required for them to qualify. The subcommittee also resolved a lot of technical issues with the application, mainly in the budget section with a simplified form to help the applicants. In the application there's a lot of demographic information that is requested and they added an “unknown” field to capture all the beneficiaries, along with an explanation field for agencies to explain if they're missing information. For example, there are a couple agencies (like Free Lunch) who don't collect demographics as part of their mission so that will give them an opportunity to explain. They revised some of the language in the narrative questions and listened to the agency feedback to change a few things that would help them continue to use the funds flexibly for operations, which is the intended use of the funds. Questions were reordered a little bit and some of them are combined or separated, but still the same information. Finally, they updated the outcome measures. The agency will select which outcome measures they want to provide over time. Kubly noted they also revised the scoring criteria to match the new application. The timeline is that the application will go live on September 1 and be due on October 15. There will be opportunities for training for applicants through United Way. Dennis had a question on the general information page, it says City Steps priorities and their services to the homeless or those at risk of homelessness and then there's a whole list. Then on the common outcomes options, it talks about affordable housing services - is that covered under services to homeless and those at risk of homelessness? Kubly explained for the Legacy Agencies that are served, the projects aren’t direct housing. They might be for some of the other partner agencies, but probably not any of Iowa City’s. Also since they are going through the new City Steps procecss, they can update that as well for clarity. Dennis asked what the source of funds are for the Legacy Agencies. Kubly explained the source of funding is a portion of the CDBG public service funding, the City can use up to 15% of the CDBG allocation - that's around $120,000 and then the rest is local general fund. Patel moved to approve the FY26 Legacy Aid to Agencies application materials. Kivarkis seconded the motion, a vote was taken and the motion passed 5-0 (Borgen left the meeting). STAFF & COMMISSION UPDATES: Dennis would like to congratulate the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County as they're going to be celebrating their 20-year anniversary this month. There will be a celebration at Terry Trueblood at five o'clock on August 28. Thul stated staff has been working through the consolidated planning process. Staff have been busy holding stakeholder sessions and public input meetings. There's a page on the Iowa City website icgov.org/2030 where it lists information about how to participate in that planning process. There will be another stakeholder session on the 9th for anybody that may have missed the other sessions that wanted to participate. The Zoom registration link is posted on the City Steps website. Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 9 of 10 9 The other thing Thul wanted to mention is the housing survey. It is still available so please encourage others to take that survey, it is on that same website and it's available in five languages. As Kubly mentioned earlier, this information is useful for the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing report as well. Thul noted that there's a couple spots for presentations like they had tonight from Watson. If there's areas of interest that the commission wants to hear more about feel free to send an email with ideas. Vogel stated having the Iowa City Housing Authority come present is always interesting and that might be useful again for new commissioners. Vogel noted there is an opening for an assistant housing inspector so if anyone knows anybody who's interested in working with the City of Iowa City. Szecsei had a question, is there a program for down payment assistance for first time homeowners through the state, and how much do they offer. Thul replied that she isn’t sure about the state programs, but there is a program through the City where they offer just under $25,000 for income qualifying households. Qualifying income is under 80% AMI. The exact limit depends on how many people are in the household, there's an income chart on the website. Patel asked if it is restricted to certain areas of the city and Thul stated the program revised in the last year or so to include other parts of the city. ADJOURNMENT: Dennis moved to adjourn, Patel seconded the motion and a vote was taken and the motion passed 5-0 (Borgen left the meeting). Housing and Community Development Commission August 19, 2024 Page 10 of 10 10 Housing and Community Development Commission Attendance Record 2023-2024  Resigned from Commission Key: X = Present O = Absent O/E = Absent/Excused --- = Vacant Name Terms Exp. 5/18 7/20 9/21 10/19 11/16 3/21 4/18 5/16 6/13 8/19 Balde, Daouda 6/30/27 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- O/E Dennis, Maryann 6/30/25 X X O/E X X X X X X X Kivarkis, George 6/30/27 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- X Krotz, Karol 6/30/27 X X X X X O/E O/E X X O/E Vogel, Kyle 6/30/26 X X X O/E X X X O/E O/E X Patel, Kiran 6/30/26 X X X O/E X O/E O/E X X X Pierce, James 6/30/26 -- X X X X O/E X X X O/E Szecsei, Denise 6/30/25 -- -- -- -- X X X X O/E X Borgen, Horacio 6/30/25 -- -- -- -- -- O/E O/E X X X