Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Housing Committee, Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 5m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2749
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:34] Good morning, everyone. We're going to call the meeting of the Housing Committee together. And I am going to turn to our chairman, Jeff McKay, for a motion.

[00:00:51] Thank you very much, Supervisor Faust. And I do have a motion to allow Supervisor Palchuk's remote participation. I do not see her. Oh, there she is. So as a preliminary matter, Supervisor Palchuk will be participating remotely for the Housing Committee meeting for a medical reason.

[00:01:08] I'd ask Supervisor Palchik to identify herself for the record and provide her general location. Supervisor Palchik. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Supervisor Dalia Palchik here, participating from my home in the Providence District. Thank you very much. At this time, I move that the Housing Committee certify that the voice of the remotely participating member, Supervisor Palchik, can be heard by all persons assembled here in the Government Center, and I further move that the Board confirm that such remote participation by Supervisor Palchik fully conforms with the board's policy for remote participation in meetings.

[00:01:40] I'd be happy to second that motion. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? That motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Well, good morning, everyone, and we're looking forward to an interesting meeting today.

[00:02:00] We have the chairman of the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Melissa McKenna, with us. Thank you for being here, Melissa. She will make a presentation on the FCRHA's 2022 annual report. We'll then have a discussion. We'll return to a discussion of our concern about homelessness in the county and some of the issues that we want to address in that regard. We'll first have a presentation on the Home Investment Partnership American Rescue Plan

[00:02:39] program and some funds that are available through that program to address homelessness issues. And then we'll have a discussion basically about the continuum of care and how we as a board will set up governance for a separate continuum of care, separate from the AHAC where it currently resides.

[00:03:09] Melissa is a longtime friend, a former member of the Herndon Town Council. I don't know whether you're still a member of the Herndon Plan Commission, but you keep your finger in so many things. You've served on various task forces for land use task forces, some major land use task forces for the Janesville District.

[00:03:33] And now I understand you have taken over as executive director of the Dulles Area Chamber of Commerce, which is an awesome job. So, you know, we appreciate the time and effort that you put into housing in Fairfax County, and we look forward to your presentation today.

[00:03:59] I turn it over to you, Melissa. Well, thank you, Supervisor Faust, for the warm introduction. And for clarity's sake, I do not serve on the Planning Commission anymore at the town of Herndon, but did get debriefed recently about some things coming up with the 2050 comp plan. So staying involved.

[00:04:16] Definitely excited about my new role as president and CEO of the Delvis Regional Chamber of Commerce. And I want to thank all of you for the opportunities that I've had working with the county, serving on task forces that have really been part of preparing me for that role and understanding inter-jurisdictional needs and how we can take care of that region in a holistic way.

[00:04:38] So looking forward to engaging you all in that journey. So thank you. Turning back to the matter at hand today, I want to make sure that I start out by setting the table here. I have been so honored to serve on the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority now for many years and very, very honored to have served as its chair for as long as I have.

[00:05:02] None of that would have been possible without John initially appointing me to this position. And I feel very blessed to have been able to continue to work under your leadership, John, as chair, and Penny, yours as vice chair. I know if Bob Schwaniger was here, he would also say how important your support and your leadership that both of you have provided have been.

[00:05:26] So thank you for that. I am sure most of you know what the FCRHA does. But just as a recap for anyone in the room, the most important thing to realize about us is that we are the owner and administrator for thousands of units of housing across the county that really provide a place for people to call home and to shelter on a nightly basis in this county.

[00:05:52] We are also the local financing agency for affordable housing, and without that, so many of the things that have been possible over the last decade or more would not have happened. We are able to take that financing, provide loans and grants, and to work with the private industry to provide this housing that we are so honored to administer.

[00:06:16] Right now, we have 17,000 people that are benefiting from our finances and partnership as we remain committed to providing new housing opportunities throughout the county. And again, as I mentioned, the partnership that we share with the Board of Supervisors is possibly our most important partnership.

[00:06:34] It's with you that we understand the needs in your districts intimately, and we are able to have funding that is robust. And so your support is incredibly valuable, and we thank you for it. We look at our collective goals.

[00:06:51] One of those task forces I was lucky enough to co-chair was whenever we established our initial goal for providing affordable housing, and that goal has increased now to 10,000 new homes by 2034. And we do that really through two major prongs, through housing management and through housing development.

[00:07:11] With the housing management, we are so blessed to be a moving to work organization. And that really allows us to use innovative means to do things that otherwise we would not be able to do with our federal funding and programs. And also, we are continuing under management to focus on keeping occupancy rates high.

[00:07:30] That is our most important goal, is to fill every place that we have, and I can turn and say thank you to Tom and his staff for the tireless effort that I know that they put into keeping that a focus. In terms of housing development, a notice of funding availability for $52 million for fiscal year '23 was released, And almost all of that is completely committed.

[00:07:56] We have new development continuing with 1,023 homes under construction and 2,019 homes in our pipeline today. Just to dig into that a little bit more, if we look at the projects under construction, you can see there the breakdown of those 1,000 plus units.

[00:08:15] And a lot of them are coming online here in spring and summer. Very excited to see all of those coming online. I will tell you that probably the thing that makes me most proud of the work that we do is the fact that most people driving by our properties don't realize that they are driving by our properties.

[00:08:33] And probably my favorite one to talk about right now is Ovation at Arrowbrook since I drive by it often. And when I remind people that that is an affordable housing community, they're blown away. People are so excited about the retail that is going into the bottom of that building.

[00:08:50] And it's just really a great example of the quality that we provide and also the way that it integrates into and supports the community. So I think we're doing really good things with those projects. The other thing to note on this slide is when you look at the project types, you can see that obviously there's a blend of financing.

[00:09:11] Nothing we do is simple. Everything is incredibly complicated. And so, again, our staff is doing tremendous work in terms of making magic happen to make these things come together. If we turn to what's in our pipeline for development right now, you can see the 2,000-plus projects there, or 2,000-plus units.

[00:09:32] Wow, I just gave you a lot of work, Tom, with 2,000 projects. So those 2,000 units that we have there, you can see that they're sprinkled throughout the county, which is great, because there is need everywhere, and we want to provide opportunity everywhere that we can.

[00:09:48] Again, you'll see the variance in the different types of projects. And of course, we are in varying stages in terms of the development status of each of these projects. This one soonest to close is Autumn Willow, and we have a lot of them, of course, still just in the land use and design processes.

[00:10:13] One of the things that I'm very proud of is where we've taken our annual report over the last decade. It has become a much more interactive and enjoyable read, I think, as people today demand when they are reading annual reports and looking for information.

[00:10:30] And so I wanted to point out a couple of the highlights. I do hope that you will take the time to look at it in a little more detail on your own if you haven't already. We'll start just by highlighting the rental subsidies. One of the things that I really love about this year's annual report is the inclusion of resident stories.

[00:10:48] I think that's the most important thing for us to remember, that we're talking about people and families, and I think this year's report really brings that to the forefront. The rental housing subsidies portion that we're going to look at in here really talks about how we partner with HUD, and it's really one of our cornerstone activities.

[00:11:08] And again, as I talked about, that ability that we have as being a moving-to-work organization is so important. We administered over 5,000 vouchers in FY22 and served over 12,000 people through rental assistance.

[00:11:23] And we also were able to contribute more than $5.5 million each month into our local economy through our subsidies. So it really is an impressive way that we are helping to sustain things within the county. And an important thing to point out here are some of the quotes, again, those stories.

[00:11:40] As Heather says, our housing voucher has provided us with peace of mind in having a stable home situation. As a result, our household income has increased. Our dependence on public assistance has decreased. And we've even been able to start thinking about the possibility of home ownership again through the county's housing programs.

[00:11:58] Really beautiful endorsement of what this family is receiving. The next portion I want to highlight are the Fairfax County rental programs. We own nearly 4,000 units of affordable rental housing that serve our low-income working families and individuals with disabilities and older adults.

[00:12:18] In FY22, we owned and managed 505 independent living units for older adults, over 2,000 multifamily units, and 112 assisted living units for older adults. And really, as you guys know, I live right next to the Harbor House in Herndon, and I see every single day what that housing means to the people who live there and their families.

[00:12:44] So, so grateful that we are able to provide this across the county. TB, in her story that she shared, said, I've lived in a market rate apartment in historic Gum Springs for four years, but as rent kept increasing, I couldn't keep up. Living at Gum Springs, Glenn has provided a safe and friendly community that was conveniently located to my health care provider's office.

[00:13:06] So, again, a great endorsement of what we do and also a reminder of how important proximity is with our properties. I did want to take one moment to note here and say thank you to Penny for her longtime support to make Wedgwood Apartments so successful and vibrant as an affordable community.

[00:13:29] And that's really just another reflection of the kind of thought leadership that you've had. So thank you. The next place I wanted to look at was the specialized rental assistance area. We administer rental subsidy programs to assist individuals with special needs, including veterans and individuals with disabilities and those that are at risk of becoming homeless.

[00:13:52] In FY22, we serve 55 households with rental subsidy and service programs, 169 households who received emergency housing vouchers, And 155 households through the state rental assistance program and another 133 veterans through the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Vouchers program.

[00:14:13] This is a tremendous portion of what we do in terms of reaching out to people who really truly need a little bit of extra assistance and something that I'm proud of. The story here from Susan talks about the fact that rental assistance allowed her to find a home where she wanted to live, a place to accommodate my disability needs, and then ability to regain some independence again without the program i don't know where i would have gone next or where i would be today this is a great reflection of really the human dignity side of what we do whenever you look at a base need like housing making sure that we're taking care of

[00:14:49] people in a way that allows them independence and dignity is a hallmark of what we're able to do next slide is about affordable home ownership we provide qualified residents the opportunities to purchase homes at below market prices and provide payment assistance, reduced interest rates, and homebuyer education resources. In FY22, we were able to assist 71 homebuyers and we issued $560,000 in down payment assistance to folks and sponsored $11 million in First Trust mortgage assistance. As any of us who

[00:15:28] pay a mortgage know, this is invaluable assistance for someone who is looking to get going. Fatima and her four children, who are featured in our report, said my top three goals were to obtain steady employment, build good credit, and own my own home. My housing team connected me with English classes, financial education, computer training, and other courses.

[00:15:48] When I graduated, I had established credit and had a full-time job as an instructional assistant and was able to earn enough to qualify for a home loan. This again talks about the holistic approach that we are able to partner with different agencies from Fairfax County on with our private partners to make sure that we're thinking about success for our residents. And this is something that we saw reflected in the recent ribbon cutting and opening of our property, the Arden, in the Mount Vernon District. Thank you. Lost it there. That's a Wesley housing project. And if you guys

[00:16:25] we're able to go in and look at that. It's really so inspiring to see the services that are built into the facility so that they can help empower residents. And I think it's a great model for us to think about in all properties. Moving on to affordable housing development. This is clearly still an important part of what we do. And it's how we're helping with that goal of creating 10,000 new affordable homes by the year 2034.

[00:16:55] And it really is done through partnerships, innovation and investments, and inclusion of affordable housing within market-rate communities. The other thing that has been so critical when we talk about that puzzle of putting together any housing community that we have now is the fact that we are still heavily using PPEA and we really have taken the cost of land out of the affordable housing equation.

[00:17:21] So thank you for your support in this. Obviously, we have that exciting opportunity taking place on the grounds here very soon. So we're excited to see that. And so you can see here are some examples of properties that we have that took advantage of those things-- residences at North Hill, Oakwood Senior Apartments, and SOMOs.

[00:17:46] In terms of preservation, super excited about the fact that we continue to work on meeting goals that we put forth about preservation. And we've done that by really creating financial strategies to employ, to facilitate preservation, and also looking at land use recommendations that can help with preservation of these properties.

[00:18:08] Really again, also working closely with our partners and having those relationships within the county has been another key initiative for us to continue to drive preservation. And by doing this, we've preserved approximately 1,300 homes since the adoption of the No Net Loss Goal.

[00:18:28] Digging in a little deeper to our financing of affordable housing, within the last year, the FCRHA and the county have really worked together to make strategies about investment to develop and preserve affordable housing. And it really breaks down to both the local financing, local resources, and the federal resources that we have.

[00:18:49] And this is a moment where I want to really point out how wonderful our local resource support is. You can see there that $142 million in FY22 came together through the variety of funds listed there. And federally, there was almost $16 million in funds that came together through a variety of funds.

[00:19:11] This is an incredible reflection of what it takes, again, to make projects happen from the variety of sources. And I will take a moment to say to all of you, thank you for thoughtful appointments to the FCRHA. This is no light lift to serve on the FCRHA, and it is definitely something where we are grateful for, you know, having engaged board members who can take the time to dive into it and start to understand over the period of their term what this complicated opportunity necessitates.

[00:19:49] Moving on to our final slide, we're looking at inclusionary zoning. And this is what most of you commonly think of as affordable dwelling units and workforce dwelling units. This, of course, is an important part of our program that puts these units within market rate for sale communities.

[00:20:05] And during FY22, we had 269 WDUs and 88 ADUs constructed. And so, so far, we're just shy of 5,000 units that have been produced through these programs. And these continue to be important opportunities for our residents.

[00:20:25] Again, thank you all for your support. Thank you for your dedication to this important part of our community and how it supports our economy and our families and individuals that make up Fairfax County. Thank you very much.

[00:20:41] Before we open it up, I wanted to welcome Phil Nozelski-Eichner, who has joined us today but recently became chairman of the Fairfax County Planning Commission. So thank you for being here, Phil. Mr. Chairman?

[00:20:58] Yeah, first, Melissa, great presentation. I think it's important that, you know, even though some of this is repetitive for us, it's really important to outline the full spectrum of things that are happening. Because too often, people get fixated on one program or one project and never see in totality all the moving pieces and how they all line up countywide.

[00:21:23] And I think that's a really important exercise. The one question I have is, and I know we talked about this before, and that is on page 10, the Affordable Home Ownership Program. And, you know, we're doing so well in rental, we're doing so well in so many of the areas that were presented here that, you know, that still seems like it lags behind a little bit some of the energy level that is behind some of the other programs.

[00:21:50] And I know there's various reasons for that, but as we build more affordable housing all over the county and it's predominantly rental and people have an opportunity to, you know, bootstrap their way up by taking advantage of those opportunities, we want to make sure that the next step for many of them, if it is affordable homeownership, is available.

[00:22:13] I know we've raised this before. I don't need to necessarily have an answer to it now, but I am very interested in how we might broaden that program and what initiatives we might think about to try to promote that as we move forward and make it a little bit more robust, because we're doing so well on so many of these categories.

[00:22:34] It's just the one that kind of jumps out that seems to be the market lagger, so to speak. And that's not a criticism of it, because clearly there's a lot of people being helped here and a lot of interest being put into it. But I do think it's going to be something that we're going to want to talk about more, you know, as we move forward.

[00:22:52] I agree with you. I think that's, as we think about things like equity, as we think as things about disadvantaged tracks and where can we create opportunity, definitely something we should be thinking about more. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, it's certainly a piece of generational wealth that, you know, we emphasize a lot and one that, you know, certain people will be in rental opportunities.

[00:23:18] Perhaps that works for them in perpetuity and there's nothing wrong with that. But for people who want to step out and take advantage of a home ownership opportunity, we just want to make sure we're robust and can help with that. mr chairman uh just very briefly we fully agree from a staff perspective uh and based on the discussions that we've had here before we are certainly planning on coming forward with the further recommendations for retooling and expanding our impact here on homeownership perfect thank you thank you that's a great point on the comment i've spoken about it on occasion

[00:23:57] uh penny supervisor gross thank you john um mr chairman um melissa thank you for your generous comments about wedgewood but i cannot take a lot of credit for that um it actually was this board um when sharon bolivar was the braddock district supervisor when we had the opportunity to preserve um wedgewood it's 672 units i think it may be the largest complex that the county owns that's That's correct.

[00:24:30] Okay. And so I can remember those conversations in closed session about the cost and about whether we should do this. It was not unanimous, but we did the right thing. And it was in very good shape. That was part of the attraction was that it was in very good shape and it was a decent price.

[00:24:50] It has some townhouses so that you can have some larger families. And it's been very well managed. The private manager has been doing a very good job. And so when we redistricted in 2011, I remember that Supervisor John Cook at the time was more than happy to get it out of Braddock District and into Mason District.

[00:25:17] And I was delighted to receive it because it is a, I think it's a, you know, as you talk about people go by county properties and don't realize that it's a county property. It was still a very, very good decision, and the financial piece has been working for us.

[00:25:38] But I also wanted to bring up an issue that, and I don't think really the county can do a whole lot about this. We have a lot of aging apartment complexes that are privately owned. Fairmont Gardens across the street from Regwood is a good example, where we had a terrible situation over Christmas with no heat in many of the buildings.

[00:26:04] Our emergency management folks got involved. The county executive was there on Christmas Day. We managed to weather the storm, almost literally. But there are a number of apartment complexes that are fairly sizable.

[00:26:21] They're all sort of 1960s vintage, and they are providing housing, but it's not ideal. It's not good stuff. So, Tom, you and I have had a couple of conversations about, you know, should we look at some of these units?

[00:26:42] But I think that there's a larger issue on the horizon for us with these very aging apartment complexes. The county is not going to be able to handle them all. But we also need to be aware that if new folks come in and try to rebuild them or renovate them to market even higher market rates, we're going to displace a lot of people.

[00:27:08] I don't know that that's a discussion for here at our housing committee meeting. It may be something that we need to go further with some of our boards, authorities, and commissions. But I do think this is going to be an increasing challenge for us over time.

[00:27:27] Maybe I only see it mostly in Mason District. I suspect that in Franconia District, you have some of the same aging housing. So we need to figure out how we maintain units for people, but maybe even work with the private sector to make sure that they are putting the reinvestment into it, because quite often, they're not.

[00:27:52] So I'm just going to lay that out there as a challenge for us in the coming couple of years. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, thank you for the presentation.

[00:28:08] It's not been too long ago when the RHA would talk to us just about the mission of the RHA and the things under the RHA control. So thank you so much for taking the broader look and not just acknowledging, but also incorporating other things that are happening relating to affordable housing.

[00:28:30] So thank you for doing that. Certainly, Supervisor Gross and her comments. I think we have a lot of units, a lot of those developments built in the 60s and 70s around the county. I know that's a significant issue.

[00:28:46] And sometimes it's a matter of the landlord not making the improvements. Sometimes, and I know in my part of the county, it's a matter of the landlord making the improvements and then jacking up the rent and pushing folks out. So that is a big challenge.

[00:29:03] I did also just want to point to one other challenge. I know one of the things that I hear from time to time to residents in RHA properties is challenges with the maintenance and the continued upkeep of RHA-owned properties.

[00:29:24] So I know that is critical and central to RHA's mission, and just want to encourage you to make sure that adequate attention is paid to that while we are moving forward with getting new units in place because, you know, that's also a part of the puzzle. There's the market rate, affordable housing, but also making sure that our own affordable housing is properly maintained and sustainable. So, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[00:30:02] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How would you define or what, how would you, if you would define on the homeownership, the assistance that you provided, is that strictly you're talking about dollars or is there some other supports or some were supported with dollars, some were supported with just facilitation of loans?

[00:30:24] So, Supervisor Stork, there are sort of a couple of different ways in which we assist people with homeownership. I would say probably the most familiar and the largest part of that is the Affordable Dwelling Unit and workforce dwelling unit for sale programs where effectively we oversee this kind of closed circuit housing market where we administer the sale and resale of the homeownership units that are produced under our inclusionary zone policies. So that's one tranche. Second tranche is where

[00:31:00] we're providing down payment and closing cost assistance. We do have a small amount of federal funds that we use for that purpose and we're hoping to grow that part of our approach then finally there's our partnership with the virginia housing development authority which provides below market mortgages for income qualified uh home buyers and oftentimes it's a combination of the three um but uh you know one of the one of the the missing pieces that we have relative to our approach to home ownership that I am hoping to really expand and planning to expand

[00:31:39] is the use of the housing authority's powers as the local housing finance agency to be more active in terms of lending for first-time homebuyers. I think that is probably the most impactful and efficient way for us to grow our footprint relative to being able to give people an avenue to homeownership what is tell me i'm not clear about because i know talking about the revolving i know we've had conversations about some

[00:32:14] situations where there's turnover but it then gets resold and that obviously continues to be a opportunity for somebody to get their get on the ground floor fuel of homeownership of all of those that we do do we have a inventory of how many of those we are specifically engaged in or connected to or have supported. So in other words, is there some goal that we could put together that would also give us something similar to the 10,000 new units by 2034 type of goal, which would make that

[00:32:53] also a clear, I think, commitment of the board to people building equity. And obviously, home ownership is the key way to do that, particularly in our communities. In answer to your first question supervisor stork what i would say is that we have roughly forgive me for not knowing the exact number but it's about 1300 units that have been produced largely under the adu program since 1990 that are part of the home ownership pool if you will um i think certainly there are

[00:33:28] a number of things that we can do to grow that stock and you know certainly we would be very open to looking at, you know, establishing a goal. I think the first step towards that is for the task force that you've asked us to establish to reform the for sale component of the WDU program. You know, we need to resolve those issues. And I think that as an outgrowth of that, we can begin to look at, well, what do those goals, what could those goals possibly look like?

[00:34:00] So they literally can range from, if you will, 30% subsidy, I mean, 30% income, AMI income, to a WDU kind of level of income, 70%, 80%. I mean, do we run the range of those kinds of options, or is it mostly segregated at the upper level of the WDU type?

[00:34:23] So the average income served by our homeownership programs is about $60,000 a year. Six-zero? Six-zero. So right now that equates to about 50% of the AMI, depending on the family size or less.

[00:34:43] We do not have homeownership programs that focus on folks with extremely low incomes. It's mainly at that 50, 60, and up to 120 right now. Okay. Thank you. The homeownership issue is the subject of, I don't know, it was an entire board committee meeting or substantial.

[00:35:16] And we left it, as I recall, that with a bunch of options that you were going to evaluate and get back to us. I think it's obvious that this board is interested in trying to advance homeownership, affordable homeownership.

[00:35:33] So, if we could get a nip of where you're at and, you know, what your thoughts are at this point in time, it would be helpful, and then we can decide where to go from there. I had Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:35:50] I'd just like to maybe acknowledge some of the work that's being done around the manufactured housing, and I know that's not really discussed here. I would maybe recommend that maybe in the future we can maybe have a section that talks about what we're dealing specifically with the manufactured housing as well.

[00:36:08] So first, I want to commend that we're trying to make improvements from an infrastructure standpoint to some of those facilities and specifically what we've been able to successfully do in that regard. And then second, thinking about how we can help the units that might need some repair and upgrading.

[00:36:30] Because thinking about the conditions of some of them and acknowledging that many of us would probably consider those to be substandard. So looking at ways to support and help in that endeavor is one I'd certainly want us to continue to kind of make progress on and then be able to report out on how we are dealing.

[00:36:51] So I just want to make that point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Dan made me think about the affordable for sale units and then what happens when somebody does get a leg up, they want to sell it and they move on to something else.

[00:37:11] I'd like to understand that process. Is it just they sell it on the open market, they sell it for you? What is the profit that they can get to provide the down payment for their next unit? Right. So in the ADU and the WDU program, when a homeowner is selling their property, if they are within the 30-year control period, effectively the FCRHA purchases it from them, records new restrictive covenants, and then resells it to another qualified homebuyer.

[00:37:45] So when I talk about it being kind of a closed-loop market, that's what I mean. One of the challenges with the ADU program is this question of financial equity. The ADU program is, by design, a limited equity form of homeownership, and that is an issue with which I think we will be wrestling for some time in terms of how to address that.

[00:38:14] But right now, it is a very limited form of equity. Thank you. So that gets to the piece of how do you help somebody, their finances have gone up, they want to move somewhere else, but how do you help them afford the down payment on the next house?

[00:38:32] I would just say that that was one of the issues I think we left you with is we'd like to know how we could increase the wealth building aspect of being able to buy into an affordable housing.

[00:38:47] So, if there's no further questions or comments, I want to thank you, Melissa, and I ask you to please take back to the entire Housing Authority how much we appreciate the efforts they're making and the partnership we have with them, and we look forward to continuing a very successful relationship.

[00:39:14] Well, thank you, again, for all your support, and I will definitely take that back. Thank you. Tom is in the hot seat. We're going to move on, Tom, to your presentation on the Home ARP Allocation Plan and the Homeless System Governance.

[00:39:36] Two separate topics, but they'll both, I guess, sequentially here. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that kind introduction. I will courageously hand off immediately to Tom Barnett. I knew that you were going to do that.

[00:39:53] Tom. Good morning, members of the board. Thank you for your time today. I am discussing two different topics. Let's make sure the slides work great. So the first topic is specifically the Home ARP Allocation Plan. This is a draft plan of which we are currently in a period of public comment.

[00:40:16] and we're coming back to you following the last housing committee in November as well as the board's direction in December to provide some recommendations on the new continuum of care homeless services system governance. With me is Mr. Fleetwood. My name is Tom Barnett, Deputy Director of the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness. We'll start off with the Home our allocation plan fairfax county is a participating jurisdiction of the home investments partnership program you saw home referenced in the prior presentation as one of the federal

[00:40:53] funding sources that helps us provide housing for people in need fairfax county was awarded approximately 7.9 million dollars from the u.s department of housing and urban development to reduce homelessness and increase housing stability.

[00:41:10] It's specifically targeted at these five specific qualifying populations, people experiencing homelessness or those at risk of homelessness, those fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence and other types of violence and stalking, other families requiring services or housing assistance to prevent their homelessness, and households at the greatest risk of housing stability uh instability on this next slide we have a proposed budget for the use of these funds and we've touched almost all of the potential line items here starting with supportive services

[00:41:50] as well as the acquisition or development of non-congregate shelters these are where people have private individual rooms which become increasingly popular during the covet 19 pandemic tenant-based rental assistance is not allocated in the draft plan but the development of affordable rental housing is is the largest category here that's proposed and then we are maxing out the amount that is available for non-profit operating expenses we're not targeting any specifically for capacity building it but we are reserving some funding specifically for administration and

[00:42:28] planning, which will help support county staff and nonprofit administrative expenses through the life of this program, which is until 2030, 2030, the total allocation being almost $7.9 million. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development laid out some clear expectations around community consultation and public input. So you see here what has been done to date.

[00:42:55] The Virginia Tech Center for Housing Research, along with county staff, conducted a needs assessment and gaps analysis. You can see the draft plan on the webpage listed here. But in addition to staff and our contractors, we've also consulted over 20 different organizations participating in these consultation sessions, including people who are actually experiencing homelessness.

[00:43:20] These were both in-person and virtual sessions in December. we also published an online survey where people who couldn't participate in these consultation sessions could then participate and provide input through the survey the consolidated community funding advisory committee held a public hearing in early january where members of public could also speak both in support and with additional thoughts and ideas and we've conducted even more interviews with groups that are mandated by the u.s department of housing to be consulted including members of the continuum of care the housing authority and other important groups there's

[00:44:00] also been a public comment period which ended at the beginning of february on this draft plan but there are still opportunities as i'll explain in a minute for more public input i encourage you to look at the draft allocation plan because the details of the consultation and the feedback received are all provided there at several pages and we're trying to summarize the feedback heard from our community members and our partners throughout the county but really they kind of break down into four specific sections the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic

[00:44:37] are obviously still very real many people experiences drastic changes in their employment financial changes situations living conditions other finance family dynamics as well as their physical and mental health and those things continue until this day there are gaps within our housing and services system what was most notable is that the households at extremely low income below 30 percent of the area median income these are people who often have few options either in the rental market or within dedicated affordable housing programs and there are significant

[00:45:15] administrative burdens and a wide variety of populations that are in need in our community organizations that are serving these different populations or have some of the challenges which you've heard before around staffing the washington post for example had an article at the end of last week about homeless service providers in dc experiencing something similar that really providers all across the country are experiencing there's also increasing costs and challenges increasing their funding and finally there was a recognition that there are many more questions from people in our community about the needs of different subpopulations, not just older

[00:45:54] adults but transition-age youth, people who are involved in the justice system, and diving deeper into the disparities and disproportionality around people, black or African Americans, and people who are Hispanic or Latino.

[00:46:13] So to summarize, this is a rare funding opportunity that is specifically targeted to reducing homelessness and can serve populations at the extremely low income spectrum and it provides not just housing but money for the supportive services that we know people are need needed to stay in housing we have more than 88 permanent supportive housing units currently in our pipeline for development and they need funding sources such as this one chronic homelessness has increased disproportionately during the pandemic up 34 during the past five years and as we've discussed before

[00:46:51] permanent supportive housing is a research proven way to reduce chronic homelessness and keep people housed this can help with non-profit operating costs and as i mentioned really can target those people at the lowest ends of the income spectrum as i mentioned we are still in the period where we can get additional comments not just from you members of the board but from the community part of the requirement with the home our program is that we amend our action plan our one-year action plan that we always publish every year for the cdbg and home dollars on february 8th

[00:47:30] the public comment period was opened that'll go through march 10th and then on march 21st we will appear in front of you at your regular Board of Supervisors meeting, where we'll ask for approval of the Home Arb Allocation Plan and this substantial amendment, all leading up to the eventual submission to the U.S. Department of Housing and Development for -- or Urban Development for this Allocation Plan, which we should hear back within 45 days of whether it's approved.

[00:47:59] Perhaps I'll continue and then if there's questions at the end. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Continuum of care. So, the next section is specifically about the recommended structure of the Continuum of Care Board.

[00:48:16] This is like the existing Continuum of Care Committee under the Affordable Housing Advisory Council and the previous Governing Board of the Partnership to Prevent and End Homelessness. As directed at the December 6th Board meeting, we're coming back to you with our recommendations To show this quite simply, this really makes a more direct line to the board of supervisors, accountability to you, and simplifying the reporting structure.

[00:48:46] The purpose and the terms and meeting schedule is similar to what we have now. The overarching goal is that we have community leadership and policy guidance around preventing and ending homelessness, Grounded in Fairfax County policies and aligning with the county-wide strategic plan.

[00:49:08] The idea is that members would have two years. We'd be meeting at least quarterly every three months and be supported by staff from the office to prevent net homelessness in the Department of Housing and Community Development. The duties are really twofold.

[00:49:24] One is this alignment with that overarching goal around monitoring our policies and our progress, communicating with the public, engaging them towards this goal of preventing and ending homelessness, and reporting regularly to you, the board, we suggest on at least an annual basis on our progress.

[00:49:47] On the next slide, though, you see some specific duties that are outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations for Continuum of Care Boards. These are things that are a commitment of communities that receive federal funding through the Federal Continuum of Care Program that a COC must do.

[00:50:08] And the COC board acts on behalf of a COC. Not only are meetings held regularly with the full membership of the continuum of care, but they may appoint additional committees and subcommittees and workgroups, updating regularly a governance charter, consulting with federal grant recipients and subrecipients on setting performance targets and standards for delivering those services, ensuring that there's a clear, coordinated system for referring families and individuals in need based on their needs,

[00:50:41] Reviewing our homeless management information systems, policies, and procedures, updating those, and coordinating the implementation of our system, and conducting an annual gaps analysis of those needs and services available, and then ultimately establishing priorities every year as we apply for federal continuum of care dollars on what kind of new projects should we as a community be targeting or applying for.

[00:51:08] The membership is the most significant change here in what is being recommended. Starting at the top, the idea is that a total of 15 members would be the minimum, no more than 25. We want a large, diverse group of community stakeholders around homelessness participating.

[00:51:29] We are asking that there would be 10 appointees from each of the members of the board, as well as appointees from the mayors of the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, who are important partners in this work. I want to make sure we have at least six members of the housing and services provider community.

[00:51:50] They're the ones that are on the front lines doing this work day in and day out, and so their insights are very important. But ultimately, the people that matter most, the people that are experiencing homelessness. And so we want to make sure we set a floor, a minimum, of the number of people who have lived experience of homelessness.

[00:52:08] But really, we want to have as many as possible. Overall, the COC board should reflect the diversity of our population experiencing homelessness, to speak to their particular challenges and ways to engage and support people in their return to housing stability.

[00:52:27] The next steps is if we receive your endorsement, we would request board any direction today and come back for an action item at a board meeting. And then we would follow that with recruitment of additional members to our COC board, including appointees of you, and onboarding those staff, and then recruiting housing and service providers, maintaining a membership on top of what we currently already have.

[00:52:57] And then that board, as we discussed at our last housing committee meeting in November, would then develop a gaps analysis, a needs assessment, engaging the community, and setting some recommendations back to you, the board, for future fiscal year's budget.

[00:53:19] And with that, just happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. And thank you for coming back. I was with this continuum of care, consistent with what the board had asked you to do.

[00:53:34] I appreciate that. And I guess if the board has any questions, comments on that or the allocation, I guess, proposed allocation of the almost $8 million, we will get another shot crack at that, obviously.

[00:53:52] And we may need to look into it a little more individually if we have questions. But those are the items I think we have to talk about here today. Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and thank you for the presentation.

[00:54:10] The one question I have on the allocation piece on the Home ARP is I see under the qualifying populations, there's a reference to other families requiring services or housing assistance to prevent homelessness. And I guess that's an attempt to go at the issue that, you know, has me deeply concerned, which is the increasing population of youth that are homeless.

[00:54:31] I don't know if that's what that's code for or not, but I know youth are not specifically mentioned as a high-risk population here. And obviously, we see in our own data that that's a real concern in the county. And so I'm trying to reconcile that with the summary on page 8 and wondering if in the discussions there was any thought of prioritization for trying to help homeless populations of young people connected through FCPS or some other data source for us.

[00:55:04] And I know the complexity is significant many times in trying to help that population, but I also know that it seems to be an ever-growing one that can have a lifetime effect. So can you share with me any strategies in using this particular funding that might squarely line up with trying to help youth homelessness in the county?

[00:55:28] Yes, Chairman McKay, the youth is often captured in that qualifying population you referenced. There are different federal definitions of homelessness, and what the U.S. Department of Housing may define as homeless may not be counted by other federal agencies such as the Department of Education.

[00:55:47] And oftentimes those are families who are doubled up, not literally homeless on the streets or in a shelter, but they may be sleeping on someone's couch and not in a home of their own. And so permanent supportive housing could support families or families of children or single adults.

[00:56:09] Our recommendation is to provide financing for the projects that are currently in the pipeline and then solicit additional projects which may include projects for families with youth. Much remains to be figured out terms of the budgets for these existing projects and ones that are emerging, but I think these funds could support families with children and youth in the future. You know, I think it's an important thing to look at because, you know, we have this, as you point out, this rare funding opportunity, this infusion of federal funds, and I know one of the biggest headaches always is

[00:56:48] finding units that are sized appropriately to support families as opposed to supporting individuals. And I still am, you know, I'm still troubled by, we get that point in time count, still troubled by that homeless youth population number. And it may not be literal homeless, but we know within that population there are some that are literal homeless and may be attached to other adults who are in the same predicament. So I would like at least a little bit more information coming back as to, you know, what strategies we might employ to help with that and trying to use some of this rare opportunity funding to solve what we know is always a difficult thing to work with under normal circumstances.

[00:57:28] Can any of this be used to accelerate that? Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to piggyback on the chairman's comments, I would very much or I look forward to seeing information coming back on some of the youth issues and how we might coordinate or do some more things along those lines. It is really critical. I know it's something FCEPS is also very much engaged on, so, you know, we'll have some good partners, I think, in some

[00:58:05] of those efforts. I do just want a general comment. I think changing the role or the relationship of the COC is a very good thing. Appreciate this move, which will bring more visibility to us members of the board in terms of activities across the range of the COC duties. And I do just want to flag there are a number of things that I know are being done now and and are being reviewed for improvements um and i just encourage my colleagues uh to stay

[00:58:44] involved in that i mean it's everything from how uh you know how our hypothermia shelter program operates and you know maybe some small gaps in terms of the timing of that transportation services provided to folks there's just a long list of things that are under review and i think having um the board of supervisors be closer to those discussions and through our appointees to the coc is is a very good thing so i'm very supportive of this and appreciate you

[00:59:20] bringing it forward mr chairman yes i see you thank you um and again just want to echo the comments of of my colleagues who've spoken and i think this is critical work especially focused on the youth i guess my one question i don't know if i saw it on here was thinking about the regional response i know whether it's the city of fairfax or church or that as you know our community doesn't necessarily know our jurisdictional boundaries and i know you all

[00:59:55] do quite a bit of work regionally but was hoping that you could either just speak to that a little bit today or share some further information with us about the regional efforts on this Supervisor Palchik I may start with this one and hand off to Tom just taking a step back relative to our relationship with Falls Church and Fairfax for the purposes of CDBG home and the emergencies solutions grant both of those jurisdictions participate with us as part of our grant

[01:00:35] from hud so we have a we have a a formal regional relationship with them for the purpose of uh of that grant funding uh in addition um the the fcrha can act as the housing authority for both of those jurisdictions for the purpose of administering those funds uh including uh anything related to homelessness tom and i would just add that the city of fairfax the the city council and the mayor are very actively engaged in this issue around homelessness and are actually starting up a task

[01:01:11] force of their own to better understand through engagement with their constituents what are the challenges that they are facing in that city and they're looking at projects like the lamb center and wesley housings permanent supportive housing project through the acquisition and conversion of a motel if i may follow up sorry it's wonderful i'm wondering would the um i guess number one with the COC have representation from Fairfax and Falls Church. And then I guess my second question

[01:01:46] was beyond that regionally, what kind of collaboration or research is happening on this front geographically? Sorry. To answer your first question, Supervisor Palchuk, yes, both the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, their mayor would appoint a member that was consistent with what the former governing board for the community partnership to prevent and end homelessness had. I'm not sure I understand the second part of your question, but if you're asking about partnership and collaboration more from a broader geography, the Council of Governments

[01:02:22] plays a very important role in facilitating collaboration across sister offices around human services, including homeless services. Tom, the table you have that shows how the proposed allocation of the 7.9 million dollars there's development of affordable rental housing 2.7 million and we talked about focusing on 30 below in terms of now 2.7 million

[01:03:02] obviously does not buy a whole lot in terms of a building do you invest that in a an affordable housing project that in order to get some units where the rents will be lower than 30% AMI?

[01:03:21] Or how do you use that money to advance the goal? Supervisor Faust, with respect to this type of funding, the most efficient use would be for it to be part of a multifamily development. We have in the past and continue to use CDBG and home to assist organizations in purchasing scattered site units.

[01:03:46] That being said, you know, given the uniqueness of this particular funding and its focus in particular on preventing and ending homelessness, I think, you know, certainly one could anticipate that we'd be interested in using it within a multifamily context serving extremely low-income households.

[01:04:09] Excellent. Okay, thank you. Does anyone else have anything else? Chairman, I think I know the obvious answer to this, but for people watching in case they just heard what you were talking about in terms of membership, City of Fairfax, Falls Church, why not Vienna and Herndon?

[01:04:29] We're intentionally building upon the formal agreements that we have with the use of federal funding for homelessness, but it can certainly expand at your direction for others. Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I think we should look at if we're going to include those.

[01:04:45] If there's a technical reason why we can't, that's fine. But I know if there's people from Herndon, Vienna, other places watching, you know, they may want to know the answer to that. And obviously, you know, I thought the answer you were going to say is there's a city versus town technical reason why that has to be that way.

[01:05:04] And I don't know if that's the answer or not. If it is, it's technical, a city town thing. You know, that's fine. I just think if we're not gonna include them, we need to know the reason why so that we can answer that question.

[01:05:21] - Very good, anything else? Nothing else coming before the committee? We will be adjourned. - Okay.

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