Disability Housing Network Northeast Regional Meeting September 14, 2011

County of Summit Board of DD 89 E. Howe Road * Tallmadge, Ohio

PRESENT: Steve McPeake, CEO, North Coast Community Homes Keith Werbeach, Executive Director, Maple Leaf Community Residences Dianne DePasquale-Hagerty, Executive Director, Medina Creative Housing Buck Buchanan, Property and Construction Manager, Summit CBDD Tom Jacobs, Executive Director, Summit Housing Development Corp. Al Sprague, Executive Director, Murray Ridge Housing Corp (Lorain County) Mary Jo Allen, Residential Project Coordinator, Cuyahoga CBDD Jim Huntington, Director of Administrative Services, Ashland CBDD John Vogt, Executive Director, Residence Living of Trumbull County Troy McCollister, Assistance Deputy Director, Ohio Department of DD Bill Bone, Administrator, Ohio Department of DD Jacalyn Slemmer, Executive Director, Disability Housing Network Cathy Allen, Technical Assistance Consultant, Disability Housing Network

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS DHN Director Jacalyn Slemmer opened the meeting and conducted a round of introductions so people in the room could get to know each other better. Steve McPeake, past president of the DHN board, thanked everyone for coming and indicated that Jacalyn has been a great addition to the DHN team. She brings extensive knowledge of housing development and finance. DHN is growing and doing well under her leadership.

FOCUS ON A HOUSING CORPORATION Ashland County Residential Services, Jim Huntington Jim Huntington provided an excellent overview of his organization, including a slide show with pictures of the properties. Some of the information he shared included: . ACRS started 17 years ago and bought its first house in a neighborhood now surrounded by Ashland University. . Jim is the ACBDD residential director and takes care of the housing corporation from that position. . They own a property that is perpetually in trouble with the neighbors. But the guys who live there are independent people, with a right to drink, have parties, etc. . One house was renovated with IO waiver funds and adapted for a person with a severe disability. The house has an efficiency apartment in the back that is occupied by another tenant. . A year and half ago the “county home” closed, giving ACRS about 60 days to prepare homes for people. One of the houses we bought at auction for less than $100,000. We had to put emergency exits in this house. Usually we expect to pay $130,000-160,000. . Another house has an efficiency apartment in the basement, which we were able to move an individual from another house into. . We do the bid process for all of our projects, but we have one contractor who regularly wins the projects and therefore works with us regularly. Some of the contractors in our area have gone out of business in recent years, though we have some who help us with our preventive maintenance as well as regular maintenance. . We have one house where the tenants don’t use the garage so we used that space to build an entrance ramp. It’s great because we never have to remove snow from the ramp. . Ashland has had its share of flooding this year and ACRS has had one house with 6 inches of water in it. We got it cleaned up right away, and the insurance has paid out so we aren’t really harmed, except for the extra work. We are currently working with city council about some infrastructure changes that will keep this from happening again. . We do inspection regularly, of course, and try to address issues as we find them. Chimneys, etc. We like to stay on top of things before they get to be a big problem. We have a preventive maintenance plan and a replacement schedule. . ACRS does not have paid staff of its own, and the county board staff take care of everything. We used to provide them with a bookkeeper, but we are moving away from staffing them so much. We are hoping to redirect our support from in-kind to direct subsidy so they can hire their own people. . Seven board members. The initial board members were very well-connected community people, who are no longer on the board but remain friendly and supportive. That helps, having good people in the community who know your organization. . All income comes from rent. We just raised it this summer to $250 per month per person. This pays for the maintenance, the accounting firm, the snow plowing and lawn mowing, trash, water, sewer, everything. . We have a number of preferred vendors we work with, so if a maintenance call comes in, our CB staff know who to call for what. . We updated our bylaws last year. . We’ve had some good meetings lately between the county board and the provider agencies. Those relationships are definitely improved. . All of our homes are in the City of Ashland, but this is where our folks want to live, connected to transportation and/or nearby where they want to go. . I attended a recent summit on bed bugs and came away realizing that in order to avoid this problem or nip in the bud early if it happens is to take a role in training our local exterminators.

LOCAL AND REGIONAL ISSUES A question was asked concerning current trends with respect to county board staff taking care of non-profit housing corporations. We know that some folks are sharing services, and others are making the move to separate, but there is no statewide push for this, just a trend. Lack of resources for housing operations continues to be an issue for independence. Many housing corps simply cannot afford administrative costs if they are to keep rents affordable for people with disabilities. Some county boards may prefer the control that providing staff support gives them, because coordination with separate entities can be difficult. Each county is doing what makes most sense to them.

PEER REVIEW Bylaws – Murray Ridge Housing Corporation, Al Sprague Peer Review is a new feature of the regional meetings, relating to the DHN grant from ODDC. We will ask for a volunteer at every meeting to bring something they are working on to the group to look at together and provide information and guidance. First up was Al Sprague of Lorain CBDD and Murray Ridge Housing Corporation who allowed DHN to hand out copies of his organization’s bylaws for group input and comment. Group members noted the following: . There is no provision for removing a problematic board member, which can often be helpful. . These bylaws allow the Lorain CBDD to review and advise on new board members, but they do not have authority to appoint or reject board members. . These appear to need some updating, to remove reference to CBMRDD. . There is a provision creating a CEO position with additional responsibilities which may be a paid or unpaid position. At present, Al is filling that role. DHN Technical Assistance Consultant Cathy Allen additionally noted the following: . The bylaws have not been reviewed since April 2003, so it is time to have the board look at them again and make any changes they see necessary. Cathy recommends ensuring the bylaws are functional, that they reflect the board’s true board governance practices. This can be especially important in the area of board member or officer duties. . There are no provisions for establishing a diverse composition of the board, for term limits, or for handling board vacancies. DHN recommends those as best practices. . All other DHN recommendations regarding housing corporation bylaws are in place.

DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES PRESENTATION Capital Funds Review Troy McCollister, Assistant Deputy Director * William Bone, Administrator of Capital Funds

See attached document: Department Presentation.

NEXT MEETING

The next Northeast Regional DHN meeting will be held on March 6, 2012 at the Summit County Board of DD.

ADJOURN

Attachments: Department Presentation