City Council - CRHA Board Joint Work Session - Special Meeting   9/9/2026

Let me see, I called the Charlottesville City Council meeting to order.

It is a meeting, a special meeting with the Charlottesville Housing Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

I called the meeting to order.

Yes, Councilor Fletcher?

Here.

Vice Mayor Oschrin?

Here.

Here.

I'll move to make the motion.

Are we supposed to let CRHA have their roll call first?

Yes, I'm sorry.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

I'm sorry.

Commissioner Rosenblatt?

Here.

Commissioner O'Rourke?

Here.

Kathleen Glenn Matthews, Vice President.

Thank you, thank you.

Is there a motion to adopt the meeting agenda?

Okay, all in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

All opposed, please say no.

The agenda is adopted.

I move the motion that we reappoint

All opposed please say no.

The motion passes 5-0.

I was keeping from last night.

Was it last night?

Mr. Sanders, would you like to introduce the next section of the meeting?

This joint meeting was a request previously from the CRHA board, I think two years ago, maybe.

As a desired planned joint meeting to occur between the CRHA board and city council, it is something that we have tried to identify as regular activity.

Members of my team, James, as well as Steve, have interacted on a regular basis with the director of the housing authority.

I previously had that responsibility.

When I was the deputy, the intent was to maintain that connection to build that

That strength and relationship between the city and the housing authority because we interface on so many things.

So this meeting each year is a joint meeting and it's an opportunity for the housing authority to present an update on the various activities that you all have undertaken primarily because there's a lot of investment being initiated between the city and the housing authority.

So it just gives a chance for questions as well as updates.

Yes, so do you want to start with John's update or do you want to move on first?

Okay, so we'll start with an update on the executive director search and John is actually under the weather and we urged him to not join us all here today, so Kathleen will be doing our best to cover off for him.

But as far as the executive director search, myself and Gillette are the committee and then we're reporting back to the board.

We have successfully issued an RFP to recruiting firms that went out last week and they do have 30 days to get back to us.

In the interim, we are working on developing the job description.

so that we can turn that around pretty quickly for a nationwide search.

We have met with all of John's leadership team.

We're working on meeting with FAR.

We've also met with the attorneys.

I've met with HUD and we have been in contact with the, you know, I'm gonna forget it.

It's the Virginia Association, whatever they are, Housing Authority and community leaders.

I can't remember it.

So we are connecting with resources as we find them.

Based on our current timeline is by the end of September, we would select a recruiting firm and post the job and then hopefully be doing candidate screening and the interviews in November.

John's departure date is currently December 4th.

So

We will likely get into a situation where we're going to need to appoint an interim, but we are reluctant to do that until we have to just due to potential disruption with the staff and just having to manage through like multiple changes.

So there'll be more to come from that.

We're also consulting with HUD on if there are

EDs that could lean in from other locations if we needed that.

Any questions there on where we are?

We're trying to move as fast as possible, but are committed to getting the right person in every conversation we've had.

I'm sorry, Bridget, as part of the search firm that you have done, is it

Would they look at the compensation package?

I don't know.

It may be fine, but sometimes you realize you may be low or high.

I have some opinions about some of our compensation studies just because I live here.

And then I think about, like, I look at the places that we compare to because of where we are geographically, and that's not what it costs to live here.

So that's just my personal opinion.

We have not explicitly asked for a compensation study, but it is something that we can investigate.

You're probably going to find out as you get candidates or don't get candidates.

They'll probably let you know to the firm.

I can sort of rip on that for a second.

One of the things we found as we were over the last six years going through various applicants for city manager and city attorney and so on, is that, first of all, any recruiting firm, when you start talking with them about whether you want to engage them, will have a discussion with you about what they think the appropriate

what the appropriate salary would be and therefore obviously what their fee would be and it's tied to that and one of the things I'm sure if you talk to two or three you may there may be some consensus of what that is but I guess I would say without knowing kind of what range you're dealing with

I hope you wouldn't just say, okay, these folks are, I think we can do it for X number of dollars less than these other folks.

Yeah, no.

I don't think that we would at any point.

Yeah, I don't know, but it is a good call out.

I think the one thing, as far as the progress I failed to mention, we also have sent out a survey to

Key stakeholders, so we're trying to tap in wherever we can just to make sure that we gather everybody's feedback as we write the job description.

So a few things.

asks for you all.

Thanks for bringing up the costs because we wanted to ask, our first ask is to ask council for assistance with the cost of the recruiting firm.

We obviously don't have bids yet, but we estimate it will probably be about in the $75,000-ish.

Yeah, so I mean, how does that work?

Is there an allocation for things like this?

So I think ultimately, we go back and take a look at what available resources are there.

We don't really have a pot.

It's kind of mingled in different places.

So the question would be, I don't remember where our city-wide reserve exists.

That's really the account that we pull from when there's something spontaneous that comes up that we did not anticipate as a part of the budget because of what we did with the

And I was going to, I was about to say that that would be something also to take a look at is if you would deem that as a

I have more to ask.

So we do have a board work session this Saturday to look at our bylaws.

And currently the city code limits board service to six years.

We do not have a lot of tenure on our board.

I'm the longest and based on the current code, I would not be allowed to serve anymore as of next summer.

So for continuity,

And Mr. Maddox, you may help me if I'm misstating this thing.

I thought at one point we had sort of decided that if we're going to have a two term limit, it would be for four year terms.

And if we're having less than two, less than four year terms, we wouldn't have a term limit.

I can't speak to your hallucinations.

I will say I'm a little bit curious what code section you're referencing when you say six years.

I don't have it offhand, but I have it in my computer, but you don't want to wait for me to dig through that.

Yeah.

So I think that if we have something like that, then

And if the board, if council has the authority to, I'm sure we do, to change that, I would like to see if we can do it on a case-by-case basis, not like... For all the boards.

Right.

I'll tell you what my hesitation was is that you're talking about two three-year terms not a single six-year term?

That's correct.

Okay because I was looking at our charter here and it says not to exceed four years.

So just to be, make sure that we don't miss what it is that we're wanting to consider to bring back as a recommendation.

You're approaching six years.

So the request would be, and it's two, three-year terms?

Correct.

It could be.

It just seems like we've lost some, especially over the past, like we've lost people with tenure because their term, it's just, and it's complicated.

It's sort of the same issue with the police and oversight board, as I recall.

We have more authority with one of those boards than we do here, because for whatever reason, CRHA is laid out in the charter,

Or terms not to exceed four years.

That's what I was hearing.

We'll confirm that.

Back when the school board was a three-year term appointed, I think there was a

A sense that you could ensure a total of nine years, three three-year terms.

The other thing on the board service requirements that we have been talking about is allowing resident commissioners to be project-based HCV recipients.

I know that we've had some applicants, and Michael might be able to speak to this more, but they weren't public housing residents.

And so then they would have to be like an at-large member on the board.

It was an ordinance.

There was an ordinance that was created after HUD had taken over and they were putting the residents back on the board because the five city councils where the city was a housing authority board and they changed that to having two current public housing residents, a section eight resident, a city councilor,

and two regular common private citizens.

But we could never fill the seat properly with a Section 8 resident.

And so we ended up still just having two current public housing residents, a city councilor and whatever the other charter is.

But it was an ordinance that was changed.

You're exactly correct.

but only if they're project-based, right?

So not if they're like in one of the non project-based units that could be kind of anywhere but if they are living in the same areas as public housing recipients, right?

Session eight would cover that.

So what are your thoughts?

So then the question would also just be then for a city council to like accept a Section 8 HCV recipient as an applicant, right?

Which we know that there have been people who applied and they were told that they weren't qualified because they were Section 8, not public housing.

I mean, I would say, I don't, I think you could,

Be beneficial because recently for those two resident commissioner seats, we haven't had applicants who qualify under the public housing only definition that was covered.

CRHA has public housing units, and then it has units that are paired with vouchers that are technically public housing, even though they're CRHA units in CRHA developments.

So somebody getting a housing choice with a voucher but not living in the CRHA property would not qualify still.

And you're expanding the pool.

Correct.

But also as redevelopment and more units come online, it's more representative.

Yes, I just wanted to specify that there's a HUD rule on this point.

Every housing authority must have at least one resident on its board who is either

A resident in the LAPH system, so public housing or HCV recipient.

PBV does not count as far as HUD is concerned.

So who does not qualify?

PBV does not qualify.

The assistance is attached to the unit.

HCV are vouchers that are given to a tenant and the tenant can go use the voucher anywhere the tenant chooses.

The assistance goes with the tenant, not the hard unit.

With regard to the regulations that mandate that each housing authority have a resident commissioner on its board, the regulations specify that a resident of public housing qualifies or a resident who's a recipient of an HCV.

Yes, HUD only mandates that you have one.

But if there's

There's no resident commissioners.

We have to work to build it.

We only have one.

And I trust your council and our council can figure out the right language.

Yes.

Can I ask one question?

Yes, please.

It wasn't a direct ask, but when you referenced taking a look at the compensation package, are you indicating a desire for assistance there or are you just acknowledging that you know you're going to need to take a look at that?

I am not asking for assistance at this time.

We are taking a look at the structure and the standing up of the nonprofit and then just making sure that organizationally we are staffed and set up correctly for our next CD to be set up for success.

So there may be a future ask, but I don't know

Is the scope for the recruitment of the firm, does it include consideration of compensation to give you advice on that?

I don't think so.

You can wait until you recruited someone and see what that might be.

That might be an add-on or a request.

The reason I'm asking is because one thing that we could do, and I'm going out on my limb because I can't, we have an HR department, so we could loan a review of how we have packaged and take a look at that.

Okay.

Yep.

I think that that would be helpful to understand and also important for us to

Thank you.

I think there was still interest in having an organizational assessment, looking at staffing levels throughout the organization, looking at the wages and benefits are competitive, but that would be

That is not today.

I think we understand that we are

misaligned currently for the way that housing authorities are supposed to be structured so we are aware of that and looking at how that can be remediated or things in place for the next TD to hire a deputy and departments be distributed more evenly than they are currently but

So we are aware that that needs to happen, be a larger organizational, like we're trying to fix the problem, most pressing at this time, and then go from there.

Anything else on that before we...

And the last page of your thing here is typically talking about, you know, being a representative of a non-profit.

Has anything happened?

I know we voted to allow you to do that.

Yeah.

So the filings have been submitted.

Kathleen just sent me an email today.

to the state.

So I mean, it's moving forward.

It should exist before the end of the year.

But then we've got to, people have got to have capacity to do something with it for it to actually fulfill our needs.

And right now we don't have anyone that can be 100% dedicated to it.

We've been having a lot of conversations with Kathleen about that, but we need to figure out

I guess what I was, I was all in favor of you coming up with having a nonprofit.

The only question that I had had at the time was sort of operationally, how would the nonprofit and the governmental entity, so to speak,

relate to one another?

Would the boards be similar, dissimilar?

Would there be employees of both or either?

Yeah, so initially it's the same board, same ED.

You're going to be leveraging similar resources, but we really feel strongly that at least someone's

Yeah, I mean, ideally more than that, but today it would just be side of desk and we feel really important.

It feels like to get anywhere, it needs to be somebody's primary focus.

And is the figuring it out at this point

Correct.

It's this really fun volunteer job that I've taken on.

I imagine a lot of this will move forward once you've got an executive director in place.

I didn't know what you'd already done.

Yeah.

Okay.

We have a presentation from John Sales, who unfortunately couldn't be with us tonight.

First, he just wanted to talk about some of our redevelopment projects.

We currently have two major

Public Housing Redevelopment projects that are under construction right now, South 1st Street Phase 2 and 6th Street Phase 1.

We encourage people to drive by if things are happening really fast there.

It's pretty exciting.

The Housing Authority is continuing to work with the planners at West Haven who have been working quite a few years now.

We've received 9% LIHTC funding for Phase 1A.

and we're working on an application for 4% for 1B.

The current plan is we have a lot of questions around relocation and the plan is to look at starting the process in late 2027 or early 2028 because there's a lot of moving parts with that and we want to make sure a solid plan is in place.

Also just where families will be relocated to and managing that process, which also involves working with the schools.

There's a whole

There's a whole federal requirement for contacting families.

There's a series of letters that has to go to them with several notices preparing them for the process.

We have to also have a plan in place to have locations and a plan for places for them to go to.

They can be offered vouchers, but we would prefer to already have options available for them.

So we're looking at that with some of our current sites that are being worked on.

We're also looking at

We've learned a lot from our other relocation efforts about how to do better.

And so we're looking at that as well with having relocation staff who are looking at wraparound services.

Sometimes it could be elderly or disabled families that are being moved.

You know, thinking about how if they are going to be affected going to different schools, how that transportation is going to happen, working with the school on that as well.

I mean, ideally we're going to be having Phase 1A starting, gosh, what is the latest you guys have heard?

I mean, a lot of stuff, no question.

I'm really asking for my information not to put you under the gun or something.

And so if that starts right with construction roughly at the end of 2027, when would the building that was that thus started expect to be finished?

It'll be more than that.

And see, did we have?

We're going to break some of that out a little bit.

Yeah, but I have a relative question about the relocation process and the contacting families.

For families that

English might be a second language.

We have a language program and we have one full-time, one part-time staff and our relocation coordinator would be working with them from the very start on having a translator available, but also

Figuring out if they were a family that were given the opportunity to learn how to read and write, or if we also need assistance with that as well.

Thanks.

Great.

So for Phase 2, that's what I'm encouraging you to drive by right now, because it's been amazing how fast things are happening.

We have 113 homes.

It's a mixture of apartments, townhouses.

The range is one to five bedroom units.

The new community center is finished and it's really exciting.

We've already had some all staff meetings there and it's gonna be a space that we've needed for a long time.

The solar is being installed.

We're gonna have property management offices there.

And we also have down across from the church near Elliot space for resident services, which is also needed a lot as we're spread all over the place right now.

We're going to have dedicated high speed internet everywhere and as people move in they'll be getting assistance for connecting to that.

We've received, we have 23 units ready and we're working on paperwork inspections and everything on that.

to start moving people in as well as 20 additional units estimated to be November 2026, knock on wood, and the remaining 70 units May 2027, notwithstanding any issues with supplies and construction challenges.

All units are fully subsidized by vouchers, so these are the project-based vouchers.

So one thing to just call out.

So we've gotten the 23 units.

I believe it was 11 families that were moved out.

We are working with for moving back in.

So folks have received boxes and will be living there very soon.

They look amazing.

And they're beautiful.

Really just stunning.

Go buy.

We've got a few pictures here.

We've been trying to, you know, keep some historical records.

This is when construction first started over at South First Street.

Point of reference, this is Mount Zion Church here.

And we've been, and to where we are now, it's just been tremendous to see everything happen.

There are a lot of pictures here.

Here's another street angle as well.

All right, so I'm moving on to Sixth Street phase one that is in the location where the garden used to be next to Crescent Falls across from Kindlewood.

It's 47 unit apartment building and they'll have a mixture of one to three bedroom units.

All 47 are fully subsidized.

It's a combination of vouchers and public housing contracts and will continue to serve families under 30%.

We have been working really hard with some great partners like Jackie Martin at UVA.

I was just at a meeting with her in the residence about a clinic that they're going to have on site.

We're going to have a business center, a teen lounge, a fitness center.

There's going to be a community space there.

Our property managers will have a suite, and there will also be resident services staff in the building.

We also have solar with this.

This is kind of a picture of what the footprint looks like right now.

This is where the garden was.

We did have to take down a couple of buildings initially when work started.

Our Teen Center is currently in a little building here so it's going to be really exciting to move them over.

This is a more recent picture and even more has happened since this picture was taken.

I was just out there and they were starting work on getting ready to attach balconies.

I'll hear we went back in time just a little bit to show

And they were doing a demolition on some of the townhomes.

And going back just a little bit more here as well, just that you can kind of see in comparison to some of the other buildings.

I do encourage everyone like South First Street to drive by.

It's been really exciting to watch.

So West Haven Master Planning, we have one of the planners in the room with us, Ms. Johnson.

It's been happening for many years now.

For anyone that doesn't know, that is our oldest site, and it's so important that we get this right.

The planners have been working with a redevelopment team.

You know, a lot of challenges sometimes coming to consensus, but they've worked really hard to do that.

We are looking at

Having it, a lot of, you might hear a lot of things are talking about neighborhood scale community.

So we're increasing amounts of housing opportunities and having a mixture of townhomes, apartments, and more usable community space and more green space will be offered.

Some of the key features include a connection to West Main when this community was built, it was kind of dug out and sunk down and there were

It's been really hard for residents to access Main Street and to feel part of the community.

The phase one that's initially starting includes 150 deeply affordable units.

All of them are going to be subsidized with a combination of public housing and housing choice vouchers.

82 of the units initially will be a senior and elderly building, and then we'll have 68 units in a multi-family building.

And here's a drawing with many of the resident signatures on it that helped design it.

It's a pretty exciting day when we first submitted this.

A lot of here is more of a 3D image of the site plan.

A lot of thoughts have been put into also what it's going to look like if some of the buildings are built on Main Street.

And you may have heard a lot of conversations about that with concerns of how tall some of these buildings will be.

I'm going to pivot to the parallel track.

That's what we call, we work with communities that won't be undergoing redevelopment in the near future.

We've called it the parallel track.

It's where we're looking at doing major renovation work and it's all of our scattered sites, Mickey, Madison, Riverside, and some of our single homes.

Since 2024, we've been working on several projects and all these have included some participatory budgeting conversations with residents around our capital fund.

have done appliance replacement, exterior door replacement, including the hardware, security installation, which in some cases includes looking at how doors open and close, porch light replacement, a lot of electrical upgrades, and the big one is central air installation, which these communities did not have before.

We've begun

So Kathleen just quickly a few maybe a minute or so ago you mentioned

Opening and closing the doors.

We've had a lot of challenges over the years.

So just we really are supposed to make sure everything's uniform, especially for inspections, but just odd size doors from many, many years ago and finding screens that fit them and just making sure that residents are able to secure their doors as well as lighting.

Lighting's been a really big thing.

Are residents allowed to have those ring cameras and things like that?

They often do.

We have quite a few in the neighborhood.

But just as long as they're not wiring them directly in.

So these renovations were made possible by a $1.5 million competitive grant we received in 2024.

It was one of those long shots that actually came through and it was really exciting when it happened.

From HUD, we also had some private partners who helped make things.

Our private partners have made it possible for us to spend more a square foot than we would have normally been able to.

So these are some of the selections that were made by the resident planners.

They spent a lot of time looking at different colors and different materials.

And it's beautiful what they've been putting together.

This is from a renovated unit over at Nikki Drive.

That's off of hydraulic near Whole Foods for anyone who hasn't been over there.

And it's really come together well.

And all these colors were picked for the community.

Here's some of the work in the bathroom that's happening and the closets.

And then here's the kitchen, which was really dramatic.

Yes.

So you can see that's showing up so you can see it.

I'm trying to make it a little bit bigger.

Here's a general picture of some of the funding that's been going into the parallel track as well as we've added in the grant funding as well.

So do you, with city schools, something that's constant for them is replacing and fixing the roofs and painting certain sections of like the high school.

We also have a lot of metal roofs, which has had a pretty strong impact and saved some funding as well.

We've been gradually trying to make things more uniform and always looking if there will be future opportunities to install solar panels.

You know what, roofs can be a lot and they always seem to come at the same time.

It's okay if I move on?

So I want us to talk about what is affordability fortification.

So we have

We've been calling it the NOAA program because that's a term that's used nationally but it's naturally occurring affordable housing.

These are at risk of being lost as the landlords are selling them and other groups purchase them and we're trying to keep them affordable.

So we've been in partnership with the City of Charlottesville

and have successfully preserved and fortified about 80 units and it's been tremendous.

We've been calling it our city housing program.

Housing Authority has taken over ownership management of the units without large rent increases, which has fortified the affordability of the units to the current residents.

We're really grateful to the city's investment in the portfolio and it's what it's allowed us to acquire the units without large rent increases.

The property owners that are reaching out to us to acquire their properties are also hoping to reserve affordability of the families they have living in the units.

We have toured a six unit, three bedroom opportunity in Fry Springs just this past week.

75% of the individuals living there have been there in their homes for 10 plus years.

And so it costs about $5,500, $550,000 to develop new construction through our LIHTC program.

But that takes years to plan.

And it's impossible to be deeply affordable without having subsidies attached.

So we're trying to look at different ways to be creative with our public housing portfolio and project-based vouchers and see how we can subsidize and keep things affordable in a more creative manner.

So it's much cheaper to make a current unit deeply affordable than to build a brand new one.

You know, construction costs continue to increase and the cost disparity between is going to keep going up.

I have another question.

How do you find those units?

A large percentage of them is up in the landlords.

We've heard about the landlords wanting to sell that and there's a situation like that right up here.

But we have landlords that have people that they've been serving for a long time with their rentals and they're looking at ways of how not to displace these families because

On the market, these units are going to go for a very different amount.

So we have something here that's called the Silk Purse Acquisition.

It was solely owned by Jeremy Kaplan.

He has a lot of properties in Charlottesville.

It includes 70 individual scattered site parcels throughout the city.

And the majority of them are single family homes in 10th Page and Venable neighborhoods.

We've been in negotiation with him since 2025 and after he let us know he was interested in disposing of a portion of this portfolio to us.

And his goal has been to ensure the units stay affordable.

And there's not a lot of other groups in town that can give assurances of that.

And that's, you know, we wanna be able to see those families stay in their homes as well.

We know we can't afford to lose those units.

We also, sometimes as we're purchasing NOAA properties, we're finding some of our voucher holders are in those properties as well.

So we've looked at it as, you know, 100% chance that the affordability units will be lost if they're sold on the open market.

A landlord doesn't have a voucher holder as a rentee and

How do they know to reach out to CRHA if they're interested?

Sometimes it's been community partners, sometimes city staff.

We've been just trying to get the word out there.

Well, I think it's also, naturally occurring affordable unit is the technical term for it, but it's also a missed over because naturally occurring is market rate.

But this is where the subsidy doesn't come from the government or an organization that is associated with the government like CRHA.

It's not a public housing subsidy.

It's a subsidy by the

by the landlord.

So someone who consciously keeps their rent below market rate is probably plugged in already to this sort of ethos.

I was specifically thinking about when we had BCF meeting here and there was a

Definitely something you know we could make sure we're focusing on

We have not got a lot of marketing as an agency, but it's something we definitely do more with.

Great.

So when we're talking about the Silk Purse acquisition, we've, you know, we have a request of $3 million with that.

And, you know, we're looking at

11 properties consisting of 13 deeply affordable units.

I guess we're really trying hard to keep it affordable.

I know the housing market has a lot of pressure right now as well.

That's why we need the city as a partner.

We've been really grateful for that partnership.

It's due to this partnership that we've been able to keep these rents very low.

Each unit is rented approximately 1,500 below fair market rent.

We have

We, you know, we have our own team that's helping work on it.

We're also looking at, we have property management already in place, so we didn't have to recreate the wheel with that.

The rents are almost comparable to public housing rents.

The units cannot hold a loan with, you know, when you're looking at their current rent roll, you know, it's not gonna pencil, so we,

You know, we would have to triple them to go out in the general market to get a loan.

So we've been really grateful for this partnership.

How come if there's 70 units, how come it's these that are available for purchase at this time?

So it's density-wide.

Right.

Here's a slide.

Yeah, so I saw on the map it says the majority are in 10th and Page and Venable.

More within the city, you mean?

Yeah, I mean, the 70s are going to be more than...

The 70 across all-white area, not just 10th and Page and Venable.

Right.

And then it says a majority of those 70 are in 10th and Page and Venable.

I don't know.

I was making an assumption.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Necessarily, it just depends on what condition they're in.

We're trying not to have to relocate anyone, but if a unit was in very poor condition, that might have to be something considered.

We have had, with some of our NOAA properties, we've had individuals who were already on our waiting list and have transitioned

into public housing or a project-based voucher, you know, that's sometimes, you know, everything's aligned for that.

Yeah, I recall that Mr.

Sales said that, you know, he beefed up the property manager staff type of thing when he purchased the Dogwood Dale.

Here's just the map of some of these parcels to get more of a visual of kind of how it fits into the kinds of things as well.

So we also have another opportunity that

What I wanted to put out there is Rivanna Terrace Apartments.

This is a 48-unit garden-style lock-up apartment complex.

So there's stairs to the units.

There's two bedroom, one bath units.

They currently rent for about $1,500 a month.

The asking price for this is $9.6 million.

We put in a request to the city for five.

So the cost per unit would be $200,000.

And also, as you see here, asking for city investment of $104,166.

Where is that?

Off River Road.

As you can see, this isn't in that shape inside.

The city housing portfolio currently includes 80 units and they range from one to three bedrooms.

are preparing to sell one property back to Woodward because they had a first right to purchase agreement.

And so we're working with them on that now.

We've also engaged in disposing of property on Harris Street, which is going to be preserved and converted to commercial usage.

Both of these dispositions would reduce the developer portfolio by four units.

The Housing Authority anticipates submitting a tax credit application to repay the city and complete extensive renovations that are needed for all units at Dogwood.

I don't think we know the exact amounts.

Yeah, depending on the staff.

I don't think it'll be quite that much, but there will be funds, yes.

This is 801 Harris Street.

I have a quick question about a couple of slides.

I think I was looking at the map too close, so you're for now for a second.

Per unit breakdown.

So outside of the search for the executive director, what are your biggest concerns?

There's a lot happening.

with redevelopment.

So, I mean, I guess it ties back to the search, but like there's just a lot of complexity there.

It's a lot more than just running the housing authority.

And then as these, as more units come online, our mix is different.

And so there's just like the financing is still like just very complicated.

So you all haven't found any different funding or relationship with

I mean, yeah, there's, but we just keep losing funding.

I mean, continue to keep losing funding.

The local office of HUD, where is the local office?

I went to visit the young lady, I think it was

Last year I went to Richmond to try to seek more funds and I think she was like the only one on like a whole... Well, it's not up anymore.

Oh, she's gone.

There's been a lot of turnover there.

So, but I think it's just mostly

Money.

Money.

Money, all the money.

All the schools.

No, I mean, I think,

I mean like Sam has been very helpful as I panicked and was like I don't even know what I'm supposed to do.

There are going to be more moments of that as we go through this transition.

I'm learning my responsibilities are much greater than I realized after talking to HUD.

And as we go through the search, I think tapping into people's networks

to help us find the right person.

And then I think that we need to be supportive of whoever the new ED is as they come in and making sure we're backing them up, but also

So I have one other question about your board.

How many positions do you have open?

Two.

Two.

And what are those?

Is there, you know, it's a lot of work and it's going to be even more work.

And is there like compensation?

Thank you.

As far as what we can maybe look at as a day-to-day operational thing, and I know cities helped us out with this before, but some type of rent relief.

Some type of what?

Rent relief?

Rent relief.

Sorry, I'm a little choked up.

Yeah, we got an update on all of that last night, the different, you know, housing programs and what we're doing with the $10 million that we have allocated in different pots and so.

So I think

A couple of things from the residents perspective side of it is redevelopment, redevelopment to continue and not pause because it's been so long.

We talked about redevelopment for over 30 years and it just got put on the shelf and this is the first time that they start seeing buildings and so there is a trust there and

If there is a pause or if nothing happened with what needs to be finished, it's going to be hard to get the trust of the residents again.

So Sixth Street, phase two, still need to be done and planned.

And then you have West Haven, phase one with 1A and B.

but then also phase two which also where the residents are recommended that part of phase two at the very end of 10th and Page create an SRO.

So there is a whole lot of other unfinished things that needs to be done and I just think residents is afraid that what they're seeing at South First Street

The same quality and stuff, energy.

They may not see that going forward.

And also the fact that to support residents.

So I think what the city and city council can do is to continue supporting residents first.

and making sure that residents are at the core of what needs to be finished.

So there were 12 women for over three years who met on a Sunday who helped to design phase two.

They had a hand in phase one, but it wasn't the building, the structure, it was what goes inside of it.

And then with phase two, they met and learned about zoning and critical slopes and roofs and windows and every little nook and cranny.

And they also presented at city council and at the planning commission.

I think so.

Yeah, yeah I think we need to too.

And if you have some at Sixth Street and then now you have the stable planners who meets

I've been meeting for the last three years.

So those are the kind of things that give me heartburn is that I don't want to see redevelopment pause, slow down and not finish, especially on Sixth Street right now.

With the building that you all saw there, that's phase one, but phase two, which is going to be the townhouses, has not even been talked about.

And then I think

The partner who is helping us to raise money, we still need to raise another $15 million to $30 million, not billions.

So again, there's a whole lot of other pieces like fundraising,

to make it deeply affordable that we still have to be talking about.

Right.

Phase 2 is the end part of that is going to be single room occupancy, you know.

And so, but also what I'm hearing is that right now it's not anything that we're doing to delay that.

No, there's nothing that you are doing to delay that.

You just want to make sure it stays on track.

Presidents right now, that fear and that anticipation that things are not going to be moving the way it's moving, that it might slow down.

Yeah.

So in the event of you searching for an ED, redevelopment still have to keep moving.

Yeah.

Was phase two of Sixth Street paused, or it just hasn't started?

Sixth Street has started phase one of Sixth Street.

Is there some, is that?

We just haven't gotten to it yet.

We just haven't gotten to it.

It's not because it had to stop.

OK, got it.

So it's on schedule.

We just haven't hit that part of the schedule.

When we do, we have everything we need to keep it, you know, to do the things we said we were going to do.

Okay.

Got it.

Ms. Johnson, you had said use the acronym SRO.

Single Room Occupancy.

Ah, okay.

Well, we're talking about

the new executive director search.

What other staffing concerns or not concerns?

I think with, I mean, so obviously the demand on the staff goes up with each, you know, with every time we bring on more units and we're not increasing staff as we bring on more units.

We talked about the staffing of the nonprofit.

It's important that they are employed by CRHA for benefits of retirement.

But currently, it's not like somebody just has capacity to focus on the nonprofit.

And so

And that will be really important for our long-term success is having that raise money.

So I don't think, like I can't point to a specific gap right this second, but right or wrong, John was overseeing, has been over, like all of the departments are reporting into him except for resident services.

And that's actually not the typical model for housing authority.

And so we need to, particularly with how big redevelopment is, like we need a better distribution of duties than we have today.

They're all in-house, right?

We are actually the only,

Well, in Charlottesville.

And I would add on to that, I think one of my

concerns is just the particularly now as federal funding is kind of stagnating historically the federal government has invested more and we have ourselves locally as well a lot in the capital projects and buildings and we haven't necessarily matched that with increases in investing in CRHA's staff capacity so if you look at the number of staff that CRHA has

compared against the number of units they manage compared to Habitat or PHA.

That ratio is, there are just far fewer staff per unit at CRHA than PHA or Habitat.

And so I think there's a need to kind of figure out a more sustainable way to fund staffing.

And I think when you look at wages and benefits throughout the organization,

Particularly with our cost of living, I think there's a lot of room to increase those wages and benefits to reduce turnover in some positions.

And as was discussed, CRHA not technically being a nonprofit limits its ability to do some private fundraising compared to again Habitat or PHA.

I want to echo Kathleen.

We had a conversation with Kathleen earlier and that I mean, typically like having a nonprofit reversal, you know, in terms of fundraising takes three to five years, right?

And that's not a we create the nonprofit tomorrow, we have an extra $10 million, right?

And which would be lovely.

And maybe, you know, let's shoot for maybe that will happen.

Let's not turn away from that.

But it's not, I think, a realistic option, especially if we don't have the

resources to make it not a side of desk project, but they get a full time thing for at least one person to run it and also one person to be to be applying to all the grants.

Right.

And so I think, yeah, we in talking I mean, Bridget and I have talked with a number of staff people over the last few weeks and everybody is really committed and doing an astonishing amount of work to keep everything going with John still here.

Right.

So I think that when you get that executive director's funds here, but you have to work and cultivate, nurture those relationships, you're probably looking at someone who can get out there and press the flesh, you know, paying the 80 to 110, 120,000 and to have a support staff.

I think if you don't do that, you're setting yourself up.

Half the time and, you know, they have to also take out the trash and you know, whatever.

Well, that's exactly, that's exactly it.

And we definitely recognize that.

I have to go to Venable Neighborhood Association meeting.

Thank you.

One question about all of these different projects.

How do,

You're saying like the silk purse and the... Yeah.

Also just with the redevelopment, the big crunch is getting everything done and moving people in and not collecting rent.

It's once we start collecting rent that, you know, some of the gaps can get closed.

Because I know that's like the big thing right now is software street phase two is once we can actually collect to rent, then then we can hire more staff.

I guess what I'm concerned about as I'm looking at all of this is that CRHA wasn't really getting enough revenue to cover all of its obligations without infusions from us before this.

Are these sorts of expansions of the portfolio, are these going to help your bottom line?

We'll put more stress on the bottom line.

Are you going to be looking for more money from us than before?

So yeah, in a perfect world, as we increase GNNs, we increase rent.

Rent and our daily operating comes a lot from collecting tinnerette.

The new buildings at South First Street phase two are all project based vouchers.

So we are guaranteed, you know,

A certain amount of rent depending on the individual's income there, so that could be a steady flow.

As we do the lot type properties, we also get a development fund from that, which we can use kind of throughout to light the load.

But like the silver purse properties, seeing if they're, I've not been to the properties, Mr.

Sales has, but if they're in good shape, we don't have to put a lot of capital, you know, money in, fixing roofs or, you know, whatever they're, you know,

Also, that would help to increase rent and revenue flows.

I mean, we're obviously looking at hiring an executive director who's likely to get paid something significantly more than present.

You're talking about deputy directors and nonprofit directors and whatever all else.

and knowing that CRHA has often come to us to say, hey, we're going to need a hundred thousand bucks or two or three hundred, whatever it's going to be to make things work.

And knowing that we're going to have to keep in mind what our long-term obligations are both to the staff we've already got and to our housing commitments and to our transit commitments and all these other things.

I'm just, I'm just trying to,

I guess my question is whether it is possible at this point, and it may not be possible, whether it is possible at this point to say, okay, we anticipate that three years from now, we will get to the point where the temporary dislocations because of the moving around and everything will work out and then we'll be okay.

or whether you're simply adding more units to an already, that are, it's almost like that.

That would need further subsidence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lose a little bit on each one and make it up on volume doesn't work.

Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainties there, especially with hot funding being decreased over the last couple of years and not really sure how that's going to look in the future.

So the Dogwood portfolio, it is,

It's needed a lot of work, a lot of those units have.

So it's increased some expenses there.

And I know the city's helped us out with some risks and things of that nature.

So it's really just that portfolio, without looking, has been doing a little bit better than breakeven.

So it's abstaining itself mostly.

I think also like one thing to consider in this is the cost that will be accrued if we lose those as affordable units and then those families all don't have anywhere to go, right?

Or they have a hard time finding rents that are affordable.

They now have to get on the waiting list to get an HCV voucher or to get public housing assistance, right?

I think obviously the CRHA budget, like we want to be on our p's and q's and making sure that we're able to pay for things that I completely understand what you're saying.

I think that there's this element also of cost that the city might incur that goes beyond what kind of CRHA can predict if, you know, 11 units go offline there for the silk purse.

And I can't remember how many of the Rivanna units, right, but all of these families are now

going to need to find places to live.

I think you're misinterpreting the purpose of my question.

The purpose of my question is not to say, should we do this or not?

Right.

I'm not saying that that's what you're saying.

I'm just saying you could do another projection if you haven't done it.

What is the cost going to be?

And compare that.

And if you want something like that, I'm happy to work on that.

Plus we do have, you know, kind of base budgets on the flash of properties that are going to be coming online and the new builds.

But it would be accurate each time 0HA finishes.

LIPAC redevelopment is able to pair a voucher with a CRHA unit that is providing a new stable source of revenue and increasing the financial health of CRHA, correct?

So I guess one of the questions too with

Acquisition of NOAA properties is how many of those can be paired with vouchers to increase voucher deployment because that would make them additionally financially sustainable.

If the subsidies go up for section 9 public housing units, we can have some of those also in the bank.

It was already discussed, but I think making those changes to be able to, as soon as possible, get a resident commissioner will be very important as well as

We have never had every seat on the board filled, I don't think, in the entire time I've been on it.

Right.

I guess I have one more question, which was you had mentioned that the structure of the chain of command, like the reporting is off kilter right now, which makes me think about other housing authorities.

Not specifically, but just generally there's the ED and then

At least one deputy and departments are divided more equally, and we are doing that today.

Generally speaking, is there a housing authority that's just like doing it super great on from the development side to the staffing side and the, is there one locally or not locally, but not only that you've not, you know?

No.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're better than most of them already.

That's part of the

I'm reacting to from our original conversation that the desire would be for recruiting, retaining a vendor that can not just focus on the recruitment but also the assessment and then they can be tasked with looking wherever they need to look for models that might be possible for replication and then that in itself generates what funds are going to be needed to pay staff as well as a reorganization of the

I just want to say that as far as the structure of the board, where Charlottesville is unique in having two current public housing residents on it and or a section eight, as Ms. Staffine said, the regulation says one.

But because of the residents and working with city councils and agencies, we were able to create an ordinance that says two current public housing residents.

So if you travel around the country, most of the time, it's only one resident who sits on the board of how many.

So Charlottesville is very unique in how their board is structured, and they're also unique

in the redevelopment of having resident participation.

It could be so much worse, I guess.

Yeah, I just, I'd love to know your vision.

We are the leaders in the nation of what a... Well, I think if they have a full board, that's the first, but they have to have also training.

I think that's where that theme comes in.

I think the board training is essential.

I know when I served on the board, I served on the board for two, three times.

They couldn't find somebody to fill the residency.

I was able to go to NARO training.

I was able to go to part-time training.

I was able to go to see

commissioners training, how it should be done.

And I think that's the piece that I see missing from this point is that they're not going to a lot of trainings that can show them how, or even give them an insight of how things are done.

It hasn't come up in quite some time.

I think,

Right, like it's not just attending the meetings.

And I know, I mean, I don't know what other people's onboarding, like I drove, got to ride around all the sites and I went in different units and I did training with Delphine and I went to Naro training and I did.

And I don't think that's been, my assumption is that it's not been everybody's experience because that was like years ago when I,

did all of that.

So but there is a level of engagement needed beyond just like board meetings.

We have a lot of committees and different things where we are not participating as as fully as we should.

So

That is something when we're seeking board members like, right?

Like it's not insignificant commitment, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, it is.

But it's not a full answer, but I think in part,

I mean, an existing vision is if CRHA can complete the planned resident-led new developments and then with the non-profit arm build a strong internal fundraising capacity, that both of those things together will provide more

More of a stable revenue base and that that will make CRHA more financially sustainable and kind of help set a basis for beginning to increase the amount of staff and services and increase the amount of property acquisitions long term.

One thing I think John has done well and that we'll need to look for in the next CD is someone that

is creative in figuring out, wait, right?

Like public housing in and of itself, it's not like it like funds itself.

It's not like we need money to help us do that at all.

And so as you know, what we get from HUD continues under the assumption it continues to go down, like being really like creative and figuring out how to create

Like what we need to do to create sustainable financing is going to be really key in our next CD.

It's not a simple equation.

No, no, I mean, I was really I find it's very hard for organizations to have a vision like my vision for Charlottesville is like

Every single person has a home and I envision a Charlottesville where everybody's riding a bike and it looks like Amsterdam.

Like that's what I envision.

I'm like, what's your vision for Charlottesville?

Amsterdam.

So, you know, I don't know from a, and that's like, because a vision is really broad, but if you come down to the, a short-term vision, we're financially sound, we've got the projects finished, we've built trust with our residents and we are moving on in a really,

Robust capacity, not just to like, ooh.

You get out of triage.

You get out of triage.

Right.

And so then you can start building the operational plan.

OK, we're going to go to training.

You're going to go.

So you're you're you're answering it.

I just didn't know.

I was asking, like, is there a real model?

Is there an Amsterdam for housing?

And so I mean, I think there was a point where people thought that public housing was an Amsterdam for housing.

And it is just

100% not.

But we did write a mission and our vision.

We strive to build exemplary communities that integrate essential services, empowering our most vulnerable population to thrive in the city of Charlotte.

I believe in the essential services is the part that we have to really fund, right?

The staffing that makes it beyond a house.

So.

Yeah, I think.

Your I applaud your

Tenacity in doing so, and your endurance for that against all odds.

Yeah.

Well, affordable housing triage feels like a moving target these days, but we'll just keep building.

Yeah.

Well, and into that point, we didn't discuss it much today, but CRHA beyond the housing

The Resident Services Department does a ton and is really essentially one of our social services providers for a population that speaks dozens of different languages and facing all kind of different situations.

So there is a tremendous amount of work happening on that side too.

The only other question I can think of is I know in the past we've had kind of more structured mechanisms by which CRHA and the city met on a much more

regular basis?

And I'm curious if there are any thoughts from either staff or city staff or serial chase staff or serial chase board members, if something like that is needed or if that structure was actually helpful and constructive, particularly as a new executive director comes on.

Well, I will note at the executive level myself,

So.

I mean, so and I have connected with Sam as we've, you know, as we receive John's resignation and

I've given some updates and then Michael you're obviously connected so I don't know if through this process you guys want more regular updates.

We can work on developing further updates but as John, as James mentioned, the meeting with John has been occurring

That sense of transition from it being me when I was a deputy, but I wanted to make sure that it was going to happen.

I think that keeping consistency there is essential, especially with redevelopment to help keep things on track and to be communicating.

We're really hopeful with that relationship to help onboard the new executive director as well.

Maybe it makes sense to touch base again in December as

Any other points that you would like to add before we break out?

Anyone back there?

No.

Anything from staff?

No.

Do we have a motion for both sides?

So moved.

Thank you all so much.

Any opposed to motion?

Opposed to motion, all in favor?