MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE AND NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMISSION

SUMMARY MEETING MINUTES June 05, 2013 FINAL

Call to Order

The Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) Advisory Commission was called to order at 4:02 pm in the Assembly Conference Room,1st Floor, Room 155 at City Hall, 632 West 6th Avenue.

I. Roll Call

Roll call was conducted by Staff, as follows: A quorum was in attendance.

Members Present Members Absent Audience/Guests HAND Commission Dewayne Harris E Gabe Layman, Tamas Deak, Chair Amanda Price E Cook Inlet Housing Authority Andre Spinelli, Vice Chair Nikole Nelson E Tyler Robinson, Karen Kassik-Michelsohn Dean Williams E Cook Inlet Housing Authority Margaret Evans Brian Shelton-Kelley, Claire Waddoup NeighborWorks Barb Worley, DHHS Staff NeighborWorks Britteny Matero Matt Kropke, Carrie Longoria NeighborWorks James Boehm Kenny Petersen, Gina Riggs-Kaiser E = Excused Citizen Pat Monday U = Unexcused

II. Approval of Agenda

MOTION: Chairman Deak announced that Commissioner Waddoup would like to talk to us about a project and we will put it on in the report section. The Chair then asked if there were any objections to the agenda as written. There were no objections; Vice Chair Spinelli made the move for approval. SECOND: Commissioner Evans seconded the move. DISCUSSION: There was no discussion. VOTE: The agenda was approved by a unanimous consent.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 1 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes III. Approval of Minutes

MOTION: Chairman Deak asked for a motion to approve the May minutes. Vice Chair Spinelli made the move. SECOND: Commissioner Evans seconded the move for approval. DISCUSSION: There was no discussion. VOTE: The May minutes were unanimously approved.

IV. Conflict of Interest Declarations

No conflict of interest declarations

V. Public Comment – No non-agenda comments

VI. New Business

A. Read out for the record – Letter from Gary Wells re’ 2013 Action Plan.

B. Presentation on Consolidated Plan 2013 - 2017

Ms Longoria gave a PowerPoint presentation on the 2013 – 2017 Consolidated Plan, explaining the Needs Assessment and the Market Analysis which can be found on the following web site.

http://www.muni.org/Departments/health/services/neighborhoods/Docume nts/2013-2017ConPlanPresentation.pdf

Open for Public Hearing on the Consolidated Plan, 2013 – 2017. Chairman Deak reminded the speakers of the five minute and three minute rule.

Gabe Layman and Tyler Robinson with Cook Inlet Housing Authority (CIHA), Mr. Layman - Thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here today to comment on the Consolidated Plan. As a means of introduction, I am General Counsel and Government Liaison for Cook Inlet Housing Authority. Tyler is our Development Finance Manager; Tyler also has a Planning background and was employed by the Municipality. He has a very good background in the Consolidated Plan and will share our perspective in a little more detail later.

CIHA is the regional housing authority for South Central Alaska. It is also the tribally designated housing entity for Cook Inlet Region, Inc. CIHA administers programs that are funded by a variety of sources, not just Native funding sources but tax credits, a whole smorgasbord and administers them on behalf of not just Alaska Natives, but people of all races and ethnicities throughout the MatSu, Anchorage, and the Kenai Peninsula. We very much appreciate the investment that staff has made in putting together the Draft Consolidated Plan; it’s certainly no easy process. We do have some initial comments after our preliminary review, by providing some, I guess, framing for that we are also going to follow up with some more detailed written comments later on. So with

HAND Advisory Commission Page 2 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes that I will be happy to turn this over to Tyler, who is going to review our specific comments on the Consolidated Plan.

Tyler Robinson, Cook Inlet Housing Authority – Mr. Chair and members of the HAND Commission, and staff; I think I will start with the point that was most important to us and I have several. We will get to them if we can, if not we will follow up in writing. But the first one really, is there’s a couple opportunities in the Consolidated Plan to designate specific geographic areas in the municipality for additional revitalization efforts. The plan does not do so, it makes a statement that no area is sort of worse off than others and we just sort of make the point that I don’t believe that the data shows that.

I think there are parts of town that whether due to the census data or whether due to the land that’s there, the zoning that’s there, the opportunity for housing or public services; there are places that I think are in need and would benefit from being targeted or called out in the plan. I’ll give you some specific examples also of how this potentially helps projects in Anchorage happen.

When you apply for funding through Alaska Housing Finance Corporation they give you bonus points if you propose projects that’s both in a qualified census tract, which again is a HUD designated area as having a significant amount of poverty. But also is an area that’s identified in a municipally adopted plan, and so if those areas are not identified on the plan even though you’re proposing a project in a high need area you’re not getting credit for that, and the issue there is, we compete for projects. We and other developers compete for projects around the state and I think it would simply behoove the municipality to take a close look at some of those geographic areas and list them in this document as areas that would benefit from specific revitalization efforts.

We have the qualified census tracts that call out Fairview, Mountain View and parts of Mid-town. There’s other agencies; the New Market Tax Credit area looks at other areas; Russian Jack, Muldoon and Spenard. I had a meeting just the other day with someone from the EPA for Brownfield funding and they said well if you’re looking at a project in this area, is it identified on a municipally adopted plan as a sort of target area. I have to look through other plans and in some other plans it is, but again I would say that it really helps us align and leverage additional resources if we capture those areas up front. Again, I would also say that in addition to just funding opportunities these areas are also the ones we know generally are well served by transit, and they also have some of the oldest housing stock in town and multi-families. So you’re addressing all the things that you’re already calling out in the Consolidated Plan but calling attention to specific geographic areas and we can provide those areas for you in writing as well as these maps. In addition to that I would just add on I appreciate seeing the Mayor’s Kitchen Cabinet recommendations being carried forward here. I would simply say that I think you captured the kind of immediate four points that the Cabinet suggested as a five year document.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 3 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes I think it would be well served taking a look at the entire list of recommendations, I think there were seven or ten; I have a copy of the report here. Might as well put them in here and consider them and I think the same thing goes for the Anchorage Housing Market Analysis. You point out quite right that the market analysis basically identifies a shortage of housing and in twenty years a shortage of units of something like seven thousand units in the municipality or in the Anchorage Bowl, a surplus in Eagle River, but especially when you’re looking at multi-family and more , that shortage is alarming. But the other thing that study points out is that there’s a feasibility gap between multi-family projects of what you could actually build to help address that as it exists currently.

So you can’t be a developer without a significant amount of subsidy and build anything that’s going to address the shortage. That’s a problem I think. You know, the plan that I was encouraged to hear staff say that other efforts are helping to go through those lists of recommendations, but I would again maybe suggest that there’s an avenue to make sure you sort of capture some of the more salient recommendations as it relates to HUD, HOME and CDBG funding and sort of support those here. We have a real good track record in this city of putting things in plans and then just letting them go and not following up and making sure that we’re working on implementing them. Those are the big ones. I guess final point is, we get the need for very low income housing below 30% and that’s very clearly stated in the report and frankly it’s not a surprise that individuals that earn less than 30% of the median income pay more than 30% of their income on housing.

That said as an operator of rental housing, you have to understand that roughly the first five hundred dollars or so per month simply goes to keeping the lights on in a rental unit. Basically if you are recommending or committing to funding those types of projects, you also have to consider long term operating costs and I know that’s difficult to do with HOME and CDBG, but without that commitment you can’t make those projects feasible. So I think you need to look at the balance of who you’re trying to serve. Understanding that the very low income takes a whole lot of subsidy both on the capital side and operating per individual or per household. And that at times by sort of also serving people that are also struggling but maybe in that 50% – 80% range that, whose incomes can actually support a decent amount of operating as long as the unit is developed in the first place. You have to keep that in mind as our federal funds decline, those problems that depend on a lot of on-going operating costs are going to struggle the most and I think we have to consider that up front. So I think with that I’ll piggy back what Gabe said, we have other comments and certainly will have other comments over the next couple of weeks, and we’ll be happy to provide those in writing. Thank You.

Chairman Deak – Let’s open it up for questions, this is a great opportunity to maybe ask for other ones so everybody can hear what other ideas there are so any questions for Tyler.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 4 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes Commissioner Waddoup - Is there is a down side to designating those areas you were talking about for revitalization?

Mr. Robinson - I guess I will answer that in a couple of different ways. Number one, no one is suggesting that by identifying these areas you’re only going to designate your efforts over the next five years to those areas. What it may do is actually help somebody to go after additional funds that are not part of the Municipalities annual Action Plan. Because without them being called out in this document, you don’t get past sort of the initial screening for a state, federal or frankly even a private foundation. That’s show me where the community need is for this project in this particular area.

I think what you may be getting at. Is there a down side to sort of clustering affordable housing in all ready areas that may be already poor? I don’t know if that’s part of where you’re going. What I would say to that is, what we’ve found in Mountain View and other places, is by building quality affordable housing. We’re actually raising the incomes of those neighborhoods. And then third I would say this is something that’s always very sensitive in the business community in particular. You call an area a revitalization area; are you creating a stigma with that area? We hear that a lot. I think there’s a way to do it in a way that’s positive. We’ve talked about reframing the Municipality’s deteriorating area designation to call it a redevelopment area designation so you try to take some of the positive; you know the negative stigma away and bring only the positive, which is infra-structure development, new development that’s going to get rid of blighted properties. Those are the types of things that overall can have a positive affect on the areas that you’re not even going to be working on directly with these types of funds.

Mr. Layman – If I may piggy back onto that. I see this as a simple issue of bringing the most possible resources into the community; I see no practical affect of flipping around and say excluding certain communities from this list. It’s simply a matter of by including certain communities in this list, then, you may be opening other doors that aren’t funded through these traditional mechanisms but through low income housing tax credits or other things that are available on a state wide basis.

Chairman Deak – To speculate, this issue is based in economics and socioeconomics and maybe that’s one way to look at it because those are just numbers and no one should feel stigmatized if you show numbers. That’s one way to perhaps to do it without designating an area to be less advantageous to locate at than others.

Mr. Robinson – I use to sit where staff is sitting over there and produce these documents and I’d get call from real estate agents that would say, “Hey what does this mean that you’ve designated this area.” The reality is that they have access to the same information that we all do. We can all look at the census data and say, guess what. It’s really ultimately no secret that certain parts of town are more affluent than others. I think here we’re trying to sort of put a

HAND Advisory Commission Page 5 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes positive spin that really if we are going to continue to grow and redevelop as a community, as we talk about that lack of vacant land elsewhere; we need to focus on those areas. Those projects don’t pencil by themselves so we need to do everything we possibly can to sort of figure out how to turn them around.

Mr. Layman – And more critically Mr. Chair, there are some very new progressive efforts to educate the community at large about what neighborhood revitalization is; the role of affordable housing in the community. I think within the next one to two years you’re going to see some very coordinated community efforts in that regard. I think people are going to begin to realize that if you are in a community that everyone knows has economic challenges, challenges with housing stock, it’s a good thing to know that the community has been designated for additional investment and that’s exactly what this does; is it lets people know this is a community that the municipality has identified for additional investment.

Chairman Deak thanked Mr. Layman and Mr. Robinson for the presentation and noted that there wasn’t anyone else on the list and then closed the Public Hearing for the Consolidated Plan.

C. Presentation on 213 Action Plan

Mr. Boem gave a power point presentation on the 2013 Action Plan and its various programs which can be found at the following web site:

http://www.muni.org/Departments/health/services/neighborhoods/Docume nts/2013ActionPlanPresentation.pdf

Chairman Deak opened for Public Hearing on the 2013 Action Plan.

Brian Shelton-Kelley Director of Community Development, NeighborWorks Anchorage – Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the commission. Pardon my boots and my hands; we’ve been painting the town this week, so we’re in work mode. Just a few comments on the proposed 2013 Action Plan; first, we as a long time operator of the Minor Repair Program we appreciate the continued support of that program which assists approximately twenty homeowners per year with retaining and preserving their homes. In fact just today we were out painting the of a recipient of those services; we were able to replace their roof. Without that kind of program this home owner probably would not have been able to stay in their home. So the continued support of the Home Repair Program we feel is critical, especially when we’re seeing a focus on substandard housing and needing to work on those issues.

We’re also intrigued by the Mobile Home Repair Program; perhaps a couple of comments on that program. We work with mobile homes in the course of our repair and rehab programs and we’ve encountered substantial issues in working with the mobile or manufactured homes. Often it’s next to impossible to fully know the scope of work until you start getting into the building. Getting into the structure, costs can increase drastically. There’s a lot of liability for the provider

HAND Advisory Commission Page 6 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes or the contractor working on those homes, and at times we’re putting more in repair or rehabilitation into the unit than the unit is worth. So as the community ends the Municipality creates this program that we just ask to keep some of those issues in mind and figure out how we can really as a community address some of these challenges and issues we have with some of our aging mobile and manufactured homes in the community.

At times I think we’ll find that repair is not enough and putting a new roof on or just doing minor repair to some of these units may not go far enough. There might need to be a more systematic or structural approach addressing these issues that we have there. At the same time, mobile homes, manufactured homes are some of the most affordable housing in Anchorage so we do have to figure out a way to retain and preserve those units. So we’re intrigued by this program, we’re looking forward to learning more about it. If it looks like something that’s doable we would, you know be a likely or potential applicant or any kind of RFP or process.

We are also obviously interested in the Rental Housing Development funds that are being programmed in this Action Plan, and this kind of echoes the earlier comments made on the Consolidated Plan. Though when we’re talking about developing housing for special needs populations or very low income populations, development subsidy isn’t in of itself is not sufficient; we really have to talk about the long term operational, rental subsidies.

We can subsidize the capital development side as much as we want but we still have to keep the lights on, we still have to pay the insurance, we still have to pay for maintenance and upkeep and when we’re targeting or talking about populations with very limited means and only looking at 30% of their income towards rent that becomes a very, very hard equation to break. So without long term operational rental subsidies I think it’s going to be very challenging for this community to produce any kind of housing that’s feasible and sustainable in the long run. And that wraps it up.

Chairman Deak thanked Mr. Shelton-Kelley and asked opened up for questions.

Commissioner Spinelli – When you mentioned putting more money into a mobile home than what it’s actually worth, do you know what a mobile home is worth?

Mr. Shelton-Kelley – Why would you want to comment on that?

I’m actually the supervisor that administers the Minor Repair Grant,

Chairman Deak – Name please.

I’m Barbara Worley, Supervisor of the Minor Repair Grant, NeighborWorks, Anchorage – When we are currently doing the Minor Repair grants on mobile homes, we’re limited to roofs, and furnaces, and hot water heaters at this current time. In the past when we were doing minor repair on mobile homes we were

HAND Advisory Commission Page 7 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes looking at doing bathrooms, flooring, windows, a variety, you know, whatever’s wrong with the mobile home. When you walk into those mobile homes in many, many cases you find that the floors are so rotten that you’re afraid to walk on the floor for fear that you’re going to fall through; and the roof is leaking and the bathroom, the fixtures in the bathroom are barely working and so you have more than a $15,000.00 repair and a mobile home that’s barely inhabitable certainly can’t be worth much more than $15,000.00. So if you’re putting twenty or thirty thousand dollars of repair into something; and no we don’t know what the actual value of, average value, but when you walk into these mobile homes where folks have applied you can figure that, uh.

Commissioner Spinelli – O.K., next question, when you say that mobile homes are some of the most affordable housing; do we know how much a mobile home rents for?

Ms Worley – Some of the homeowners that apply for the Minor Repair Program, they already own the mobile home and they are just paying the lot rent and so their lot rent is typically up to, upwards of five hundred – six hundred dollars a month. Some of them own them free and clear, others are maybe making a five hundred dollar, or four hundred dollar a month mortgage payment or a excuse me, an escrow payment on that mobile home so they still, and it’s a housing choice where we find that folks in the mobile home, they own their home and they have a little yard space, they are not stacked in an style living and so they feel like they have this sense of ownership and that sense of freedom.

Chairman Deak – This is a Public Comment on the Action Plan itself, but you were very kind not to target any specific numbers or areas for approval or disapproval or anything in between. So, does NeighborWorks then support the Mobile Home Repair Program in general or does NeighborWorks support it because it may be a recipient of funds which then allows you to do work with them.

Ms Worley – I think we would like to see the structure of the program and what the program looks like before we can really say that we support it.

Mr. Shelton-Kelley – I think we would say that we do support efforts to address the housing quality conditions targeted to that style of housing.

Chairman Deak – Thank you, and any comments on the actual targets for allocations. The response was a no. Thank you, any other questions?

We have Kenny Petersen.

Kenny Petersen, Interested citizen and newly a member of the Anchorage Coalition on Board – I had a question about the Action Plan that kind of stems from some comments that I made last month which was, my understanding the Action Plan, it’s amazing all this work, thirty days ago I don’t

HAND Advisory Commission Page 8 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes think we had any of this and all of a sudden it just came together, which is fantastic for this and the Consolidated Plan. If I understand what the Action Plan is supposed to be is that it’s the plan of how we’re going to address two different elements, one is housing the other is services for homeless and if so; I was under the impression that the Ten Year Plan then would be incorporated in this, I was wondering if this is the document where the Ten Year Plan and all that is involved in if you know.

Ms Longoria – No, these two plans are very specific and follow HUD guidelines. The Ten Year Plan is going to be our community plan and it will incorporate what we have for the Con and Action Plans and the Continuum of Care.

Mr. Petersen – So the Action Plan is not yet, so there’s another plan that comes after this called the Community Plan.

Ms Longoria – Our staff will work on the Ten Year Plan after these [Con and Action] Plans are accepted by the Assembly.

Mr. Petersen – The other question that I had is that I didn’t see, one of the highest things we saw on the list was the Chronic Homeless and this has a lot of the items but this looks particularly, if this is the city plan, it seems like it’s just addressing only HUD money. I was at a meeting two, a week or two ago a semi annual Alaska Council on Homelessness, the governments coalition, and after the afternoon meeting I said what can we do as a community member and they said, well we have some extra money so if you can come up with some ideas how to spend the two million extra dollars we have; that’s what you can do and so, they were almost just asking for recommendations on where to put the rest of the money they have. So I thought that we would not just focus only on the ESG money and the HOME and CDBG money but there’s apparently some money, I don’t know where it was from, I don’t know if it was a SNUG or whatever acronym they use over there but they said there was some more money that’s available. So that was the question on that as well.

Chairman Deak – It’s one of those that generally everyone listens when they says extra money. Anyway, so Carrie is probably going to talk to you about this as we are certainly not aware of any other monies which is programmed for the Action Plan itself. It is about HUD what they have for us to allocate and that’s what the plan is about.

Mr. Boehm – The Action Plan includes all the funding from the Municipality. We send out requests to all different agencies that we’re aware of. And the Action Plan actually includes other agencies that are willing to submit information on what their plans and funding sources are for 2013 and they are included in the Action Plan.

Mr. Petersen – So then I guess that addition of two million that the Coalition I mean, not the Coalition, the Council of Alaska said that they had as extra funding, so we might be able to see about tapping into that somehow as part of

HAND Advisory Commission Page 9 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes the Action Plan. Then if it’s community money that’s available for it. That was what the head of the HFC that’s the Chair of it asked what we could do as a community, he says we’ll figure out how to spend this money, so it might hit towards some of the goals that we might be involved with. It’s not just HFC, he just happens to be the Chair and he’s from HFC, so it’s the Governors Alaska Council on Homelessness, so you can look at the minutes of that meeting to find out.

Chairman Deak – So that’s why I think what they’re going to do is request that you follow up, O.K., any other comment.

Mr. Petersen – The other question is with this as an Action Plan again, it’s just HUD money, I was wondering where city money comes into this; if we match with that, if it comes out of the taxes for it, why we’re only dependent on federal money that’s just going to keep going lower and lower and how would a business or how would a community council, how would a native group, how would a faith based group, how would additional community monies be involved outside of the traditional kind of things?

So I’m just interested, is this a plan and obviously it’s in the public and obviously this meeting is here but has anyone gone to business groups and to those kind of things? It’s not a traditional source but if it’s a good vision and I don’t know if the vision is in here but say I’m wondering if the visions is in there, if it’s good that it can be presented to those groups and if there’s an outreach effort and to say “hey you guys look, we can solve” for example. I’m interested in Chronic Street Corner Homeless and those in the shelters, and those that have sort of graduated for a time to Housing First, and if there’s a message around that says hey you guys if you want to solve this one here’s a good vision, why don’t you bring some money to it because we need such a thing.

And so I think that the Action Plan is just a spending plan of federal money which is a diminutive thing so this book should get smaller and smaller over time. But if the vision is good enough that I think that we can solicit additional money and maybe I’m just naïve about that but at least it’s worth a try to put a good vision out there if this is the vision I hope that we present it and one, how will we measure it? What will success look as a result of this, what are the three or four things that based on the Needs Assessment, the Handicap Services being the highest one, Chronic Homeless; two hundred ten people voted for it. What is the one measurement in each of those areas that we’re going to make a difference? Are we going to count every 30, 90 days how many people on the street corners, are we going to count how many people actually get out of the shelter program are we going to count how many people in Housing First that get self reliant? And so I’m interested in and actual number that we’re going to measure as a result of the Action Plan so that we can actually see 90 days from now, did we make a difference?

Chairman Deak – How do we address this one, this is bigger issue on the whole vision and it all comes together. Yes we have been for years we have been

HAND Advisory Commission Page 10 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes somewhat limited in our scope sometimes to the frustration sometimes they were just accepting it as the nature of the business but certainly it is something we need to have discussions on. Carrie, what are your thoughts?

Ms Longoria – Two thoughts, we do have a lot of information in there like Alaska Housing Finance Corporation about what they’re contributing for projects in 2013, which is what you’re asking for, a larger understanding of dollars going into these projects.

Number two, I think it would be great for every three months for each one of the projects that are funded to come back to the HAND Commission and give a report. How many people are served and how is it going. Which is what you’re asking, what’s our measureable outcome, what’s happening with the dollars and at that time we can also identify if that particular project which often does have other partnership dollars coming in, we can identify who those other partners are and how much money is coming in.

Mr. Petersen – To consolidate this down to a few sentences. Here’s our five measurable things these are the, put them by categories and say, these ones are going to do this, because to say that we’re going to fix so many roofs in trailers that’s good but how many will we do and is that uh but I didn’t see trailer fixing as the number one item on here.

Chairman Deak – No, it’s not, it’s one of the many.

Mr. Petersen – I was just thinking, that if this is the driving force, the Needs Assessment, then I’m interested in the number one Public Service Homeless Subpopulation “Chronic Homeless Individuals with Families.” What are we going to do about that group in the next 90 days and then the second one “Families with Children,” what are we going to do about that group in 90 days. And does this money actually target those items?

Ms Longoria – I just want to add something that Brian and Barbara already said, is that generally those individuals in the mobile homes are the low, really, really low, low, low income, they’re right there, and those are the ones we can bring back information. The owners and renters that we were looking at. They are not called mobile home owners, they’re just called owners or renters.

Ms Worley – Carrie, in addition to that, many of those folks, if they didn’t have that mobile home to live in, they would be homeless.

Ms Longoria – Right, I know that and that’s my point that we’re not using the term like mobile home owner but we know that the category need is the low income.

Mr. Petersen – I’m a mobile home owner, I put someone in one just so I could get him off the streets. Same idea.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 11 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes Chair Deak – Kenny, it appears that there are several issues here which would be very helpful to provide us the feedback for this process and I would request that you may actually have to have a meeting with staff.

Mr. Petersen – I go to all of them.

Chairman Deak – They are going to have written comments which are targeting certain areas of their interests while the more broad thinkers, they are looking at five year plan. I think the issue is they would like you to pursue that so that information can be captured in here and then when it goes to the Assembly.

Mr. Petersen – Which one particularly caught your attention that I could focus on?

Chairman Deak – The whole issue of metrics, to me, but that would be one way, how do you measure actual success. That would be one big one, but there are others certainly, but that would be the number one, I would think.

Mr. Petersen – Metrics in some of the particular things they said was the highest priorities?

Chairman Deak – Right, correct. Any other comments you have.

Mr. Petersen – That was the main one because if the rest of it was kind of reserved for the Community Plan, which is, is this the plan to reduce homelessness of chronics; how will we measure it, when, who, if this is the plan to move forward. This is obviously a funding plan and so this could be for this additional document but how’s the Ten Year Plan included in the collaborative effort, who’s going to lead that, who’s going to make assignments, who’s going to check that the assignments are measured, how does this coordinate with HCOSH, how does it coordinate with the Mayor’s Task Force and the Coalition? And then, how could additional folks come in to be involved, native groups, faith groups, community councils, how can they engage in it and then in my particular case just my own little segment, how do, can we count the people on the street corners and will that reduce or can we count the people in the shelters will they get out or can we count the homeless and will they get out? I’m just interested in that particular metric personally; but you also have the families and so on and it goes beyond that

Chairman Deak – If I may then I request that you follow up with these comments with I guess Carrie would be the first one.

Mr. Petersen - Then I will attend the HCOSH meeting which is where that’s probably more fined tuned.

Chairman Deak – Any questions

HAND Advisory Commission Page 12 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes Commissioner Spinelli – My only comment would be, if you are trying to count people on the corner, you might just keep counting forever unless you actually count the people you put into a house. I don’t know if you can, I just think that there might be a number of things that apply.

Mr. Petersen – We have the HMIS and so you can do it by name and so and forth, they are willing to, so there are some metrics by names through HMIS and so on. But that is true, they could keep coming over and over, but they’ve often found that there’s usually about two hundred that are repeat and maybe start with that. I don’t know how it is, but you’re right you would have to do it by name and keep the list growing.

Chairman Deak – O.K., thank you, anyone else, this is a public hearing you’re welcome to contribute.

Tyler Robinson, Cook Inlet Housing Authority – Thank you. A comment on two of the proposed projects, one is I want to add to the discussion about mobile homes. Several years back just for context, we did look at a lot of different solutions and partnership with NeighborWorks and others about how to sort of both recognize that mobile homes are an important part of our housing stock. But how to preserve those long term; and you know it was at a time when a number of the parks had sold and homes had been relocated. At some degree CDBG funds, and it’s becoming harder and harder to find parks that will accept a lot of these older homes.

Some make straight out that declaration that any home that’s pre 1976, HUD code is not acceptable as a new move in. There’s also a code that was written by HUD in 1992 that was an energy efficiency code that was put on and it was sort of a number that we use to at least contemplate when we as a municipality did weatherization on mobile homes. So I think as you go down this road, I certainly understand where Assembly members come from when they say you know boy it’ll cost me $260,000. a unit to build a rental development or if I can slap fifteen grand on a home even if it’ll only cost fifteen grand it’ll only cost me fifteen grand to keep somebody in a home.

That said, if you go down this road, you really have to understand that you’re still; putting money into something that you’re likely putting more money than value exists on that home. You need to consider policies that recognize whether the park owner is actually a secure park owner. Some parks you can know just by looking at the ownership and looking at the for sale sign out front that it’s likely not going to remain a park for very much longer. So I think the fact that the Minor Repair Program, there have been limits to what can be done to mobile homes. I strongly think that should be considered and perhaps this money would be better spent providing somebody a down payment for a new manufactured home in a more secure location. So food for thought, I understand it’s a difficult issue. I shared with staff a paper that I produced; a 25 page report on mobile home parks with some policy issues a couple of years back, and it tried to capture a lot of these things that we sort of wrestled with. So

HAND Advisory Commission Page 13 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes I recommend as you contemplate, that maybe if you’re up for it take a little read and it will save you some time of researching those issues.

The second item I want to talk about is rental development. I read that specifically it’s reserved for Community Housing and Development Organization (CHDO) for support housing for chronically homeless or high priority populations. I certainly see the need for that and I recognize that there’s a CHDO set aside for HOME dollars and I not here to try to sort of take money away from good projects. What I would simply suggest is that you consider maybe a two tier approach to this activity and say that in the event that a CHDO is not identified or a project is not identified, you contemplate making that rental development money available to the broader community for maybe broader rental development. Again we discussed in previous comments just the whole shortage of housing units regardless of the population. So you can still target where your greatest need is but maybe leave yourself an out so that you don’t have to come back and amend the Action Plan. But if it turns out that you don’t have a project moving forward, you have a way to keep that money rolling I think, as you’re expected to do. So, those are my two comments on those activities.

Chairman Deak – Thanks you, any questions on those.

Gabe Layman, also with Cook Inlet Housing Authority – I actually just wanted to reflect back on a couple of comments that were made by Kenny, is it. There’s a couple of things that Kenny pointed out that I think merit a little bit of additional discussion. The first was, what exactly is the whole purpose of the Consolidated Plan and of the Action Plan and is it just limited to HUD funds, and what are we trying to do here and I think it’s important to recognize that these efforts typically begin in municipalities and jurisdiction as a tool to access HUD funding. You want the HUD funding; you gotta do the plan, right?

The question is, whether as a community we can do something more with this, and I think we have to acknowledge that staff is constrained in what they can do because they have to follow certain HUD prescribed methodology within the plan tends to make the plan convoluted in terms of the data that’s gathered and the data that’s assessed but there’s also perhaps some real opportunity here for the Municipality to look at the Consolidated Plan and kind of vision what can this be.

Can we turn this into a true planning document that draws additional data sources that’s highly quantitative in its evaluation and it’s something more than just checking our HUD boxes to get funds. I think staff has done a good job of expanding towards that ultimate goal, but there’s probably also still work to do there.

Second, Kenny hit on this idea of, what are the other sources out there, we’re focused on HUD funding, and staff is absolutely correct that for example, Cook Inlet Housing Authority and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, other sources of funds are identified. But something that’s more important here which

HAND Advisory Commission Page 14 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes is, that in a declining Federal funding environment if housing and community development is really a priority for the Municipality; it needs to put on its thinking cap and try to figure out how to leverage additional funds.

Cook Inlet Housing Authority, for example is facing a declining federal funding environment, it’s been our core source of funding for a long time. When we acknowledge that that was the impending reality, we immediately got to work trying to figure out how to diversify our funding. We branched off and looked at additional foundation relationships, we branched off and looked at additional debt financing sources that we could make feasible, we began to look at social enterprise, business oriented solutions to socially motivated mission based friendships. So the point being here is that if the Municipality wants to look beyond Federal funding it’s going to have to get very innovative whether directly or in partnership with other entities. And finally there’s this issue of benchmarking data analysis, however you want to put that together. One thing I would say in that regard is, it’s sometimes silly to box ourselves in and simply count units built with money available when it comes down to, how much money did you spend on one unit.

Cook Inlet Housing Authority, for example we gather that data, we can count that data, but what we wanted to know for example in terms of our investment in Mountain View was, what are the impacts on the whole community, right? So we’ve actually commissioned consultants to come in and take a look at the overall impact on things like transiency, and school performance, and household income. So I would simply suggest that if the HAND Commission and Municipality begins to look at really evaluating data, be smart about it, don’t’ simply count dollars spent on units actually developed. Let’s look at how investments impact what’s important to us and what we see in our communities. And whether we’re actually achieving those outcomes in education and health, etcetera through specific investments in housing and community development. So with that I would be happy to take any questions or go back to my seat and be quiet.

Commissioner Spinelli – So when I count how many units and what they cost, I’m well aware of the other impacts that housing provides in society, but I still need to know how many units and what they cost. Is there, I don’t understand why you say don’t say that.

Mr. Layman – And don’t get me wrong.

Commissioner Spinelli – I didn’t know if you’re just saying that there’s other things to consider and maybe it’s just obvious to me or.

Mr. Layman – And don’t get me wrong Commissioner Spinelli, I’m not suggesting that we focus on the number of units that we can actually produce with “X” dollars. What I’ suggesting is there’s a variety of tactics, strategies that you can employ to try to meet our community objectives, whether it’s supportive housing versus independent housing, whether you’re focusing on a population

HAND Advisory Commission Page 15 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes that’s making 30% or less of median income or those making 50 to 80%. The issue is being able to measure what the outputs of those different investments are and whether they move the dial more or less based on what type of investment you’re making. That’s certainly important but it’s a question of which investment gives you the best bang for your buck, based on what your vision of your community is in the long term.

Chairman Deak – Anyone else?

Mr. Layman – Thank you very much.

Chairman Deak – Last call for, looks like Kenny, go ahead Kenny.

Mr. Petersen – I think I have 15 seconds left. Today is John Court’s birthday, or would have been John Court’s birthday. John Court was one of the first residents of Karluk Manor. I got a phone call from his mother today just to acknowledge about his birthday, he was one of the first ones who moved in and shortly died thereafter with dignity in the home. So that’s one of the fundings I think that came from this group and his mom wanted to thank us for having put him in a home for the last part of his life kind of thing, and he would have celebrated his birthday today and I got a call from his mom from wherever she is in Missouri or something to thank us for that.

Chairman Deak – Last call for the Public Hearing on the Action Plan, anyone else is interested, seeing none I am going to close the Public Hearing. Thank you everyone for attending and speaking and please continue with your follow ups through staff, so they actually, these ideas actually land in some fashion in these documents and I think the more exciting part of this is that they land in a document that is truly looking at a broader scale at all these issues. So thank you again.

VII. Old Business

There was none.

VII. Report.

A. Staff Report

Ms Longoria – Reported on JBER and the possible squadron move from Eielson Air Force Base. There will be Public Hearings held on:  June 17, 2013 6:00 p.m. Alaska State Fairgrounds  June 18, 2013 6:00 p.m. Clark Middle School  June 19, 2013 6:00 p.m. Westmark Hotel & Conference Center June 20, 2013 6:00 p.m. North Pole Elementary School North Pole, AK. We have the HCOSH meeting with a continuing of the Public Hearings for the Action Plan and Consolidated Plan, which continues through the 28th. Ms Longoria thanked everyone who commented and added that there are things that we will incorporate HAND Advisory Commission Page 16 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes Ms Longoria brought up the issue of meeting during summer and it was decided that a scheduled will be worked on.

B. Commissioner’s Comments

a. Commissioner Evans – I just wanted to tell staff thank you for whoever copied all these for me, it makes it a lot easier for me to read as I can actually see it. Other than that, thank you for all your hard work for this meeting and have a good summer. b. Commissioner Waddoup – I have one question I forget the gentleman’s name but they were talking about the revitalization areas, and that can be incorporated? Ms Longoria answered, yes, we did have maps but we had a time line that we had to meet. Commissioner Waddoup also announced that the organization that she works for, Partners for Progress was awarded some money by the state to do a re-entry housing program in Anchorage. We can put people into transitional housing, we’ve also been working with motels and hotels during winter time and off tourist times but these are people who would end up being homeless and we will support their housing for a couple of months and hopefully we will help the situation in Anchorage. c. Commissioner Karen Kassik-Michelsohn – Kudos in getting the reports finished, great job. I do have some questions on some of the things I’ve heard today and talking about the trailers and Minor Repair Programs. It seems to me that putting money into a mobile home is just money not well spent, it’s wasted. There’s nothing there, it’s going to deteriorate no matter how much money you put into it. It would seem to me a much better use of the funds to have some kind of rebate program; or instead of putting fifteen thousand dollars into a mobile home to repair it, put fifteen thousand dollars into some long term financing program to buy a new home. I wonder if any mobile homes have any scrap value, whatever metal that is in them; if they have any value at all that could be contributed towards, give up your home, let it be scrapped, that money plus grant money goes into your down payment. I come from Florida and the Brownsfield redevelopment programs they had there were huge, somehow the city of Orlando got almost the entire city designated as Brownsfield. So the Federal money there was big. I don’t know if regulations have changed now, but it might be worth looking into. d. Vice Chairman Spinelli – What Tyler said about investing in mobile homes and for spending money, it seems like a touchy one seems like you could really throw some money away by accident. On moving these F-16’s down, something to consider is, the base is pretty close to the valley and Eagle River where they don’t really have a shortage of at least land for housing. And if it helps you any while you’re considering it, you should look into the cost to heat buildings; it cost about ten times more than it is here. So I think that’s a huge thing. That’s all I can remember. e. Ms Longoria – I have something for you Andre, on JBER’s web site, they have on line their construction time lines. It starts in 2013 and goes I think, to 2017 or 16. I would like to forward that to everyone that kind of lines up that they’re trying to make some accommodations for the housing issue. f. Chairman Deak – I do have some comments as well, they echo what you heard, I recognize the Assembly’s desire to address the deterioration of the HAND Advisory Commission Page 17 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes housing stock which otherwise would not be available. But the only reason I believe, this is the only state in the United States which received during the oil boom an ability to finance mobile homes through the Federal Government, and the consequence today is, that stock is running out of it’s life expectancy, and now we’re going to have to probably look at a much more global way of addressing that. And I don’t believe the global way of addressing it is sinking money into it. So I would be very concerned with that program. That doesn’t mean that this program should not exist because I’m sure there are needs which can be met and they are reasonable. I think what needs to happen is that there is good program which defines what those are. I think what Brian was talking about when you get into these problems you discover how deep they are and then you are into it way deeper than you ever wanted to start. So that’s one for sure.

The other one is the whole idea of the Consolidated plan, the ability to gain funding not just through the government by designating certain areas but also this idea of how to put into this plan those seeds which then allow collaboration and outreach for other funding sources which you heard about today. I don’t have an idea of how to do it but it would be, I think, a mistake not to recognize that there are other possible funding sources beyond Federal funding especially since that is diminishing.

Ms Longoria – Because HUD is so very narrow, they’re very definitive in what they want for you to give them in the Con Plan, they even repeat themselves but we can probably do two things, when we move into the Ten Year Plan, it can be more of a community plan, perhaps that will have more strategic ideas about partnering with other folks and continue to get a close relationship with AHFC and Cook Inlet Housing Authority. The other issue with the mobile home concept, I really like the scrap value program idea. There are lots of ideas but I think we need to educate or share these ideas with the Assembly; it’s the Assembly that wanted us to set aside those dollars for mobile homes; they received so many phone calls and they listened to their constituents. But, if we have another option, I think that we can do that over the next few months; and that would be in time for the 2014 Action Plan.

Chair Deak – So with that, any other discussion on the business of the Commission?

Mr. Petersen – Speaking to Chairman Deak, you concluded the last meeting a month ago, you had asked about the Kitchen Cabinet, I was there a year and a half ago and I found the document I got from that and it tells what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s available for me to give to you.

Chairman Deak – Would you mind to share it with staff as they are our conduit with that information, yes it probably is helpful as we were wondering about it. Thank you.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 18 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes So with that I will entertain a motion for adjournment.

Commissioner Kassik-Michelsohn made the motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Evans seconded the motion.

Meeting adjourned at 5:32 p.m.

HAND Advisory Commission Page 19 of 19 June 05, 2013 Meeting Minutes