Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Housing Committee, Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 27m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3243
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 2026-11-01. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] Good morning and welcome to the February 27th Housing Committee meeting. I believe it's the first one of this new year and this new board. So we're excited to have everyone here with us today.

[00:00:19] We have two presentations today, two discussion points. First of all, if anyone had any feedback on the summary, those of us who were at the committee last year, let us know. You should have had those notes from November 28th. Just a quick overview of what we discussed. Seeing none, number one, we have Tom Fleetwood and Anna Shapiro and a whole team here.

[00:00:47] I'll let them introduce themselves to talk about, actually, this, I think, is the old one. We're starting with eviction, correct? Okay. So we will start with, you might have the old agenda, we might start with um the eviction prevention and intervention rental assistance update i was saying i see amy garcia here and sarah allen um and that team so we will discuss um where we are and the things the team has been doing uh since the pandemic and next steps forward and then after that we will go to taking stock um the progress of our housing initiatives and development

[00:01:25] some exciting work from the investments we've made to date what's under construction and what we're looking forward to in the years ahead. So to that, unless Mr. Leonard has something to add, I will send it over to Tom and Sarah, directly to Sarah Allen and her team. Thank you, Sarah.

[00:01:46] Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Sarah Allen, Neighborhood and Community Services. It's a pleasure to be here. I'd like to introduce my colleagues that will be speaking with me today. To my right is Amy Garcia. She's the Division Director of Access and Economic Mobility. And and Luis Ray, who is over Coordinated Services Planning and is the director of that section.

[00:02:04] So thank you very much for having us. I want to start by thanking you all and recognizing the very important work that we've done since the pandemic. So if you'll bear with me, I just want to make sure that I cover all of the thank yous. And so today we'll be providing an update on the Rental Assistance Program.

[00:02:22] But before I talk about the agenda, I'd like to acknowledge the board's support and resources which allowed this comprehensive and expansive response to housing needs during the pandemic starting with the cares act funding emergency rental assistance cdbg funding and currently arpa funding in addition to the resources that you all have provided for us and for community members i'd like to acknowledge and thank the staff of your staff for your unpre for the unprecedented ways that we've worked together and came together to address county needs and urgent health and housing needs that we saw during the pandemic this collaboration and willingness to

[00:03:01] work together hasn't been unprecedented in my career and has been amazing also i'd like to acknowledge that although ncs is here describing this response with rental assistance there have been countless staff agencies community providers that have come together to make this happen not just happen not to make it happen not to just make it happen but we also came together to challenge each other, to ensure that we had excellence, to ensure that we did process improvements, and that we always used an equity lens when we were doing this work.

[00:03:34] Our public facing social services staff and your staff have done an amazing job working with community members in their most challenging times, and I'd like to thank also the staff from DPMM, Office of the County Attorney, DMB, HCD, DIT, and the Sheriff's Department for all that they have done to support these efforts.

[00:03:53] You will hear today in today's presentation how the over 20 community providers came together as well as legal services in Northern Virginia to work tirelessly towards ensuring residents had stable housing. This presentation today will be in the structure of where we were pre-pandemic, during the pandemic what we were doing, post-pandemic, and then where we will be moving forward.

[00:04:17] Our agenda, we will take a little time to talk about the housing cost burden, the housing continuum, how residents continue to access rental assistance and what that process is, as well as some process improvements that we've done, as well as talk about the HHS eviction prevention strategies that have been new since the pandemic, our rental assistance expenditures, the funding sources, and the service details.

[00:04:47] and we're also going to take a little time to talk about the eviction process and data that we have and then we're going to then have Chris and and any questions that you all might have at the time but Chris is going to talk about moving forward and what rental assistance looks like in FY 24 and beyond so where we'd like to start is this slide that talks about house or illustrates rather that Fairfax County annual housing occupancy and cost burden We wanted to show the range, albeit that this graph has stayed relatively the same.

[00:05:24] We'd like to point out two illustrations here and two main things. First, if you look at the annual comparisons of people's housing cost burden, and this looks at those that are spending 30% or more on their housing, and it breaks it down from renters as well as owners.

[00:05:44] Renters are in blue and homeowners are in orange. The first annual comparison show that the percentages have remained approximately the same. So what that means is residents are spending about the same amount in terms of their percentage of their total income on housing.

[00:06:02] However, what we'd like to point out is that it has remained relatively stable. And although it may not be a direct cause to all of the supports and rental assistance, we'd like to just point out that there has been some stability in this area. um and we would like to point that out that almost the um we have over the past four years since the pandemic we have had um been able to disperse over 115 million dollars in rental assistance and we do recognize that that has uh stabilized the housing market on not although not completely um removed this this uh data element here which um is pointing out that um people that

[00:06:38] are spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing are of course at risk. The second thing we'd like to point out here is also that renters of course are in a situation a little bit more dire than those that are owners and so that's 46 percent respectively. So we wanted to just set the stage about what we're talking about here in terms of the conditions in the in the county. Okay now the next section that we'd like to talk about here is to go over our housing continuum. You're going to hear this morning a number of things that we are doing in the

[00:07:14] investments that we have for housing. The important piece with this slide is that although we have had significant investments and programs and processes in all of these different areas, we are focusing for the sake of our presentation on the first two sections here. And so in those sections, the education and outreach, as well as homelessness prevention, those are the efforts that we'd like to highlight and we have louise will speak to those areas which we were doing some pretty good work prior to the pandemic but we have truly enhanced what we've been doing and that has been because of the collaboration both with you all with your staff with community-based

[00:07:54] providers as well as county staff and so again for the purpose of our presentation we're going to be focusing here and although this continuum does look as if it is siloed i just want to ensure and recognize and commit that these things are actually integrated amongst each other, that there is supportive and reliant efforts on each one of these steps in terms of what we're doing for housing. So for example, in the homelessness prevention, we put that there are all social services or human services supportive programs. And basically what we're saying that is if someone is receiving support from another agency to help with food, for example, or to help

[00:08:33] with mental health or health, those are absolutely integrated with ensuring that someone has housing as well. So just wanted to make sure, although we broke it out this way, that you know that we are integrated, our programs are connected, and of course there are referrals back and forth. So now I'm going to turn it over to Luis, who is going to describe, and the next couple of slides will be setting the stage for our very specific response and details around eviction prevention efforts and as well as how residents continue to access our

[00:09:05] programs. Good morning. So what we're looking at here is just different ways to access rental assistance. The first block we have there is traditionally how we do coordinated services planning. Coordinated services planning was established in 1997 to connect Fairfax County community members to organizations and resources that promote self-sufficiency and enhance well-being.

[00:09:37] CSP, Coordinated Services Planning, builds upon community members' strengths to develop creative solutions and address immediate and long-term needs. So through this first block, community members call our social services call center, where our callers provided a broad-based assessment, which takes an average of about 30 minutes. Throughout this call, we aim to connect community members with multiple resources to address identified and underlying needs.

[00:10:04] Example, someone calls seeking rental assistance, but throughout the conversation we learn their utility is at risk of being disconnected, and they could also benefit from additional food resources. Through this process, they are screened for various resources that could include financial assistance via community-based organization funding, pandemic funding, possible private fundings leveraged to support community members. The second block we have here is the eviction prevention intervention unit. So this was implemented since the pandemic and this team

[00:10:44] works with landlords, community members, and facets which are on site at the courthouse providing service navigation and linking community members to rental assistance. The county has supported additional legal staff through legal services in northern Virginia that provide legal assistance but always informing impacted community members about the rights as a tenant and additional resources. We'll follow up a little bit more on these details in the subsequent slides. The third block here is the third way you can access rental assistance is through our online application

[00:11:23] process and landlord portal process. The landlord portal is a landlord-driven process where the landlord can apply for rent assistance on behalf of the tenant with the tenant's participation. The online application process is where a community member can self-navigate and apply for rental assistance.

[00:11:47] Generally speaking, eligibility criteria for most Coordinated Services Planning facilitated support is 80% area median income and 150% fair market rent. However, some community-based organizations are able to go beyond this criteria.

[00:12:04] Again, all these efforts are to ensure housing stability where possible, and if preserving their housing isn't possible or reasonable, CSP, according to services planning, supports community members through a variety of options, including where appropriate, financial support with security deposit.

[00:12:24] In this next slide here, we're talking about pre-pandemic strategies, what we've done prior to the pandemic and then the circles the flower circles on the right is what has happened during the pandemic and where we are currently so if you see here in on the on your left pre-pandemic we've done rental assistance we continue to do that and at times we can leverage up to one month of

[00:12:59] assistance pre-pandemic homeless services listed there is you know at times we can if the housing is at risk we will definitely look to homeless services to see how we can use prevention funds diversion efforts and if at risk we might have to explore shelter resources affordable housing resources we have listed here is we definitely explore what options we have and definitely link

[00:13:36] them to housing resources that are going on in the county outreach to vulnerable persons We stay committed to community outreach and connect with our nonprofit partners, community-based organizations, making sure that our voice is heard and community members know how to access services through calling coordinated services planning.

[00:14:01] The brown circles on the right, we'll talk a little bit about just where we are now. Since the pandemic, we have an announced, for enhanced technology, we announced an estimated wait time through our call center. When the caller calls in, they'll hear an estimated wait time.

[00:14:20] In addition, we have the callback assist feature, which throughout that quota time, someone cannot wait. They can leave their phone number and they'll be called back to connect for an assessment. We also have a new CSP database, which will support enhanced electronic communication with our partners.

[00:14:42] Secure, better, reliable, and automated program data will be available. Also, enhanced technology is Fairfax County Eviction Dashboard, which was in partnership with Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, whereby all stages of the court-involved eviction process data is shared.

[00:15:01] As mentioned earlier in the previous slide, landlord portal and a customer online application process is what we're doing now since the pandemic and currently. We also have the court liaison and service navigation supports is contracted with FASIS to have on-site service navigation supports for residents to improve communication with the courts on rental assistance status.

[00:15:27] We do have dedicated CSP staff to support access to rental supports for court-involved residents. Also, we have expansion of legal services through Legal Services of Northern Virginia and soon-to-be-launched Access to Counsel and Evictions ACE program, which is under development.

[00:15:46] A memo to the board will be provided when the program is fully operational. Lastly, enhanced service coordination. The Eviction Prevention Cross-System Workgroup, formerly the Eviction Prevention Task Force, is a multi-agency, multi-sector workgroup that aims to look at current trends, practices, processes for community members at risk of or facing eviction. Some examples of outcomes of this group include the creation of the eviction dashboard through a subcommittee of this group,

[00:16:17] the creation of access to counsel and evictions program. This slide is regarding the rental assistance funding dispersed, and this is by the unique households on a calendar year. If you see Over to the far left-hand side, you will see that pre-pandemic timeframe, and it is an average of calendar year 16 through 19 with an average, and as was mentioned previously,

[00:16:54] one to two months of assistance was provided during that time, and it would be community-based organization funds that were leveraged in addition to the consolidated community funding pool funds to be able to assist community members.

[00:17:11] Moving over, you will see the introduction of the federal fund, and what this allowed for us to be able to do is to do multiple months of assistance, which was very necessary given the environmental climate, the economy, the health challenges that were mounting for community members. So we began with the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, which

[00:17:48] is also known as CARES. This allowed for multiple months of assistance and also introduced the inclusion of mortgage assistance. From there, we moved to the Community Development Block Grant Fund, CDBG, which also allowed for multiple months of assistance, upwards of three months of assistance was allowable with that program.

[00:18:15] We then moved to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, both iterations one and two, which allowed for us to be able to assist community members between 12 to 18 months of assistance, allowing them to be able to seek that assistance based on the criteria of the program more than one time, so multiple times to be able to access those funds.

[00:18:46] During this time also we continue to have the community-based organization existing funds as well as the consolidated community funding pool funds to allocate during that time as well. And then we have transitioned to the Emergency Rental Assistance Bridge Program, both iterations one and two, and there it allows for three to four months of assistance.

[00:19:10] And this is an intentional step-down phase of moving toward the pre-pandemic assistance coordination, but also recognizing that the climate is much different, and we're in a recovery phase from the pandemic. And so you'll see noted on the bottom as we kind of move through across from that pre-pandemic to the pandemic, the federal emergency ended May 11th of 23. And so that kind of signals unofficially our move into that post-pandemic phase.

[00:19:54] I'd also like to mention that, as we talked about that equity lens being so important as we determined how the funds would be allocated, that we did do research in terms of the historical needs related to rental or housing needs, and on a regional basis looked at how we could allocate those funds to make sure they were available for the community to be able to access.

[00:20:27] So I wanted to highlight that as well. I want to walk through a little bit about the Fairfax County General District Court eviction process with this information is on the Sheriff's page and we really value the partnership that we have there to be able to walk through assisting community members.

[00:20:52] the landlord notice to the tenant is that initial step one, when they are made aware that there is a five-day pay-or-quit notice. And so that's one of those phases where coordinated services planning, our eviction prevention intervention team, and our community-based partners, we coordinate and are able to kind of assist community members throughout this process.

[00:21:19] The step two of the summons and the unlawful detainer, that's the first court involved point for both the landlord and for the tenant in regards to the housing obligation that is in arrears.

[00:21:36] And in calendar year 2023, you see that there were 7,618 unlawful detainers that were issued. Moving down to step three, where there's the writ of eviction and unlawful detainer proceedings, there is a 10-day period of appeals that is involved in this process.

[00:22:05] And then once that time frame is elapsed and not successfully executed, We then move into the writ of eviction for the unlawful detainer being enacted.

[00:22:20] We had 2,961 of those that were issued in calendar year 23. At this point, there's a 30-day window that the Sheriff's Office has to be able to issue the eviction notice in step four for the community member that is impacted.

[00:22:43] And in this phase, there are two different ways that the eviction could be conducted. It could be a full eviction where the belongings of the individual are put in a public space. Here in Fairfax County, most often what is used is the 24-hour lock of the residence, which the community member can remove their items from that location.

[00:23:08] And in that phase, we did have 962 evictions that were conducted, which accounts for 12.6% of the unlawful detainers that were issued.

[00:23:26] And the source of this information is, again, the data dashboard, informed by the Sheriff's Office. this slide here, it walks through the numbers of summons for unlawful detainers, the writs of evictions, and the evictions that are conducted by location, and this is based on a calendar year. I want to point out that a very important factor that is an overlay for this timeframe

[00:23:59] that we're looking at is the eviction moratoriums. So without the eviction moratoriums that were in place that allowed for people not to be evicted, the picture would look dramatically different than what we see depicted here. I also want of note is that our 2020 data that is depicted here does not represent a full calendar year because the data collection

[00:24:32] began in July of 2020. Of note, as you look at the information, and I want to particularly point to the table that's located below, you can see how there is growth in the unlawful detainers, the writs of eviction, and also the evictions that are conducted.

[00:25:02] But what is also of note in this information is that the collective intervention and prevention efforts, the outreach and engagement certainly does have a positive influence in terms of that trajectory where we start with such a high number at the beginning and we get down to the 962 evictions being conducted, which we certainly don't want to see any evictions

[00:25:38] be conducted. But there are collective efforts along the way to be able to engage with community members to make sure that both landlords and tenants are aware of their rights, the Sheriff's Office working as an intermediary between the two to make sure that, you know, throughout the process that folks are supported and have the available resources to be able to move forward.

[00:26:08] So, in summary, during that time period that, you know, most of our Fairfax County community members were covered with the eviction moratorium actions, and we continue to work very collaboratively with the community. Call volumes continue to be higher than they were pre-pandemic, and we do continue to see new cases on a monthly basis at levels that are indicative of the continued need throughout the community.

[00:26:47] Before you hand it over to Chris, I just want to add something. Can you speak back? I apologize. I forgot to mention in my section. When a resident receives information from the Sheriff's Department, information on how to access legal services as well as coordinated services planning is in an information sheet that they receive.

[00:27:07] So at every step along the way, they're also encouraged and pulled towards calling CSP to not have it be that 12% number. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. I'm going to flip the slide, the last slide there. I'll take us home to the questions.

[00:27:25] So where are we now? Currently in FY 2024, we have the $4 million from our funding pool, emergency funding, and our second tranche of the ERA bridge. So that will get us through this year. And that will be inclusive of the enhanced legal supports. And as you've heard this morning, those enhanced legal supports are very important, and we propose that they would continue for our new rent assistance program moving forward. For FY25, obviously, you just got Brian's budget last week, but you won't see anything for rent assistance beyond the 5% increase to the funding

[00:28:01] pool, which is where some of this money comes from. And the reason for that is because we're going to utilize additional ARPA for FY25. That will do a couple things that will obviously be able to help us support the need but it'll also help us continue to monitor and figure out where we're gonna land with regards to what the what our need is out there for future rent assistance from from from the county and from our community partners I will highlight that in 2022 the board approved what we called a big swing was for the first time in 20 years we moved the funding

[00:28:39] pool from a single fund where we had basic needs competing against after school programs and literacy programs, all great programming, but we needed to make sure that that basic needs was pulled out and protected, and we were able to split that into two different lanes.

[00:28:55] We're just finishing the first cycle of that, very successful. We have heavily used that to leverage our ARPA dollars to be able to provide for rent assistance. That will continue, and those two lanes, I just wanted to point out that that has been a tremendous success for our funding pool piece.

[00:29:12] And I just wanted to highlight that and thank you for your approval with those actions. But, you know, for 2026 and beyond, I anticipate we will have a request, a funding request. Obviously, it's going to be significantly more than was in the baseline.

[00:29:27] But this extra year utilizing ARPA will give us additional time to be able to figure out what that needs to be. And certainly, I know you're hearing from several of your advocates. We are monitoring this. We have full commitment from the budget office to be able to talk this through as well as we see spikes come and go.

[00:29:46] I am confident that this is the approach that will be able to take us through 25, and then next year we'll be sitting here with a budget request for what 26 and beyond the rent assistance funding needs to be. So thank you, and with that, we'll take any questions. Thank you so much, Chris.

[00:30:03] Thank you to the entire team, Mr. Ray, Ms. Garcia, Ms. Allen. I think having you here really shows this coordinated approach, right, and the ability to meet the needs, especially seeing while there was a huge spike in the actual unlawful detainers that we are able to get down to 12% last year.

[00:30:29] But we know that there's still, as you said, quite a bit of need. We know that housing costs and other costs of living continue to be very high. whether it's cost of transportation, food, and daycare, or support for families.

[00:30:48] So we appreciate the nuanced approach. I have a couple questions, and I'll turn it over to the chairman and to my colleagues. Number one, I think you clarified in the charts that for 2020, we're looking at just half a year, July 20.

[00:31:05] Thank you for sharing that. If we're updating this, let's make sure to put that in there. And if you have the dates, I can't remember the exact date the moratorium ended. I'm assuming it was 2022 sometime, but do you have that date? So there are, I want to say, six or seven different types of moratoriums.

[00:31:29] So there was some federal action as well as state action. And so we can summarize all of that for you. But they all had a slightly different bend, and they all impacted positively these kinds of things. So we'd be glad to put a summary together of what all those were and how they impacted these numbers.

[00:31:47] Okay. Sure. That would be great. Thank you. And definitely the legal support continuing to ensure access to that. I'm wondering sort of overall, I know, first of all, I just want to commend you on the very quick work to getting this put together.

[00:32:02] Do we know right now how we're comparing to surrounding jurisdictions or as a region to other regions? Is that information we have access to? I don't, but we can. We can see what other jurisdictions are doing.

[00:32:18] I know that the state, you all heard during the legislative committee meeting that the state has the VERP program, VERP program, where they're offering localities, not ours, but other localities, grant opportunities to do rental assistance or court-involved or court-diversion kinds of programs, service navigation, et cetera, and that totals this year $3 million for the state and those localities, and some of it is rental assistance.

[00:32:43] But be glad to do a jurisdictional assessment of what they're doing in terms of rental assistance. And I guess the impact on the evictions. Yeah, certainly we can talk about this. I also want to just remind the board, maybe Sarah, you can touch on this a little bit, that for the ERA program, the 68 combined program, how many jurisdictions did their own thing versus how many, I think there's only two, did their own thing?

[00:33:09] And you may want to touch on that as well. Sure. So, we opted to be able to take the money ourselves from the federal government. It was us and Chesterfield, I believe, Chesterfield, so just two areas or localities in Virginia. And of course, we did that so that we could ensure that people get connected to additional services beyond rental assistance.

[00:33:29] And we were able to more holistically be able to support them and, of course, have our system already be integrated with other resources that we do here, whereby the state system was actually just dispersing directly to, excuse me, was dispersing it to landlords but not necessarily looking at other resources that people could. And I mention that because I think part of the pandemic we saw that there was a lot of jurisdictions that did not have a pre-pandemic rent assistance program. So we had one already stood up. It made no sense for us to tell our residents to contact the state when we already had that. So I think we'll probably see that as

[00:34:04] in terms of what do other jurisdictions have moving forward is probably similar to what they had before the pandemic, which was not much. And then finally, moving on, looking at the graph on page seven, clearly a big dip, about a quarter being spent in 23 versus 22. And I know this is what we've had a lot of conversations on coming out of the pandemic and what is the step down and then how do we um ensure what what are you seeing um that we're able to meet and what are i guess existing gaps um that we're seeing and then finally i assume while we have the baseline

[00:34:44] funding if we see that it runs out of the need that we're able to do uh one time or other funds but i don't know if you could just touch on that a little bit of that stark contrast between 22 and and post-pandemic sure and that's that's what that's what we called it the bridge program when we went from arpa not everybody other jurisdictions did that this board allowed us to utilize arpa to establish a bridge program because we knew that the step down from the two years there that you see to back to back to four million dollars was not reasonable so we were able to do the bridge program but what the bridge program also was intended to do is buy some time and figure out

[00:35:23] what that needs to look like because in the height of this we had people getting assistance for 12 to 18 months well that that is not uh possible with our new program but what does that need to look like does it need to go back to a month is it two months what is it so we're still working with those things um and trying to figure out what those are and what helps people but also understanding that this is not a housing choice voucher program you're not intended to be on this for five six months this is an emergency assistance to help you through a tough time you've lost your job you've lost your car which impacts your job etc and so you can't

[00:35:58] pay rent for a year a month or two that that's what these are intended for to make sure you're not going to get pulled out of your out of your apartment or wherever you are because you can't pay because you can't pay that so what this does is allow us to do exactly what you're suggesting supervisor project is is to make sure that we have as much data post-pandemic as we can get to figure out what that new baseline program needs to look like.

[00:36:27] Thank you so much. I will pause there and turn it over to the chairman. Yeah, just very briefly, and you took the question I was going to ask, which is the hard one. I mean, we're sitting here looking at this. We know we've been through a lot. I think what this demonstrates is how well our county staff used every federal dollar that we could and used it flexibly to serve the community, and clearly, you know, this is a COVID graph.

[00:36:53] I guess the real question that we all have, going back to the pre-COVID number that's there, being dramatically different than even where we are today, I guess the question is, as calls come into the CSP, what patterns are you seeing? Are the calls that are coming in today, emergency food, utilities, seen as more one-time emergency needs, or are we getting calls from people that more or less have a systemic problem still related to COVID? And one of the reasons I ask that is because this is dollars spent, not necessarily illustrative of need. And so when I

[00:37:32] go back and look at that pre-COVID number that's there, that doesn't necessarily tell me what the need and the underlying need in the community was before COVID hit. We spent a lot more because a lot more people were affected, but are we down to what we think those numbers at the end of this graph are more reflective of need, and so we need to be looking at more permanently investing more money in this area based on what's happening with CSP calls? Because we've talked a lot about rent stability here, and I get that being a driver, but it also is the most expensive program that we have because housing is the biggest cost for most families.

[00:38:11] Are we seeing at least that going down, but maybe because of pressure of rents and other things, other calls going up for other things? I'm just trying to get a sense of when you're, if we were all sitting at the CSP, what are the trends that we're hearing in terms of where the most need is?

[00:38:27] Is it still housing or is it other things? Thank you very much for that question. So I think we still are historically seeing rent be one of the largest needs across the community members that we work with.

[00:38:43] We are also seeing needs in regards to shelter, health, you know, housing search continues to be one, job search continues to be one, inquiries around SNAP, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and dental.

[00:38:58] So those have historically trended, and what has changed is the percentage of those that of those needs across the various time frames that we read that information. So I would also say that a driver is certainly the economic influences.

[00:39:21] So the costs that are impacting community members, households, and families certainly continues to be an issue. And then in regard to employment, I would say that folks are still recovering.

[00:39:37] So, you know, if they had a full-time job before, maybe there aren't as many hours that are available for them or they've had to move to a different kind of industry and maybe are not at that same rate of pay. So that has a trickle-down effect in terms of the impact for the households as they are trying to maintain and to stabilize and to get back on sure footing.

[00:40:05] So I think you rightly say that, you know, that it's beyond just the housing cost, but we are continuing to see more needs, and I would say also a complexity of needs, layers of need for households.

[00:40:20] I appreciate that. I think, you know, this is one of the reasons why the efforts we're making on affordable housing, which I know we have an update coming up, are so critically important because, you know the the emergency assistance is great to help people through a hard time as as chris acknowledges is not you know a house choice voucher program but if we can get those people into stability and have the availability for that housing and out of this emergency situation i mean that's obviously good for all of us and that's where we hope we hope to be heading you know sitting here today i would hope that you know we have a lot more affordable housing opportunities

[00:40:58] today than we had before COVID hit. Of course, that is countered by the fact that we know rents have gone up. And so one of the things that would be, I think, helpful for us to know is where we see that rent going out in the private marketplace, because there was, you know, huge increases over the last couple of years. But I'm hearing that a little bit stabilizing.

[00:41:20] And I just, you know, it's not really a question to answer here today, but I think it's an important one for us is market affordability and what are we seeing with rents over you know the last 12 months and what are we forecasting for the next 12 months because I think it will steer the type of calls that are that are coming in to the CSP and so we're all trying to grapple with what that new number is I do appreciate all the work that staff has done on kind of this bridging and and weaning. Nobody can expect that that type of financial support is something that can be

[00:41:54] sustained by any jurisdiction. And so what we need to continue to work on is figuring out, as Chris says, what is that right number? How much this is the last year we'll likely be able to rely on ARPA. So it is really important that we try to get that right and to match the need.

[00:42:10] But I appreciate all the work that's been done. The collaboration, the use of federal funds has been amazing throughout the pandemic and as we wind that down and try to get back to normal I think we're all trying to just figure out what that actually is and and it's a lot of people working on this so I appreciate that. Thank you Mr. Chairman and for making that connection between this being emergency rent and then letting my colleagues know that the next one will be on where we are on the longer term affordable workforce housing. So to that I will We'll begin at that end for this time with Mr. Bierman, and we'll work our way forward.

[00:42:46] And please be mindful of time. If you could share all of your questions, then we'll pass it on to staff. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I just have one quick question. On page 5 and on page 4 of the PowerPoint, you talk on page 4 about education and outreach, and on page five about the comprehensive assessment that you conduct.

[00:43:15] So my question is, you know, one of the big challenges in local government is connecting with the residents who need us most. As a wise member of the board once said, the residents who need my help the most are the least likely to call. That was James Walkinshaw, wise member of the board.

[00:43:32] But so my question is, when you're getting these calls, Where have they learned to call you from? Do you feel like your outreach programs are being effective? And what do you think are the most effective outreach methods to get people who need help to actually call?

[00:43:54] Thanks. Thank you very much for that question. We have continued to leverage our relationships with our community-based organizations as they are trusted partners in the community and seen as a primary resource so we have continued to leverage those relationships we also have a CSP outreach squad that we work with the community with nonprofits with private groups to

[00:44:30] be able to share about our services with coordinated services planning so we we also have leveraged that i think in terms of our kind of interaction with other county entities we certainly are very proactive in that regard in terms of using vehicles like the care van those kinds of opportunities partnering on different outreach efforts to be able to promote the word about coordinated services planning and as louise pointed out we've been around a long time so

[00:45:06] there is familiarity with the community, so I think a combination of all of those things is necessary to make sure that we're reaching the community, but to your point, the unreached aspects of the community as well, and so always taking note of that and being cognizant of that, so we continue with those efforts.

[00:45:28] And then in terms of our engagement with the community, we certainly are focused on the lived experience, really listening for their voice, their experience, and from a strength-based perspective to be able to leverage on things they've successfully been able to do and then broaden the considerations to work in a partnership with the community members.

[00:45:56] Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I have four others who asked to speak, and then I'll ask everyone else if you could hold your questions until the next presentation. I've got Mr. Jimenez followed by supervisor lusk and then stork and alcorn well thank you so much and real quick again is the chairwoman and chairman mentioned the coordination here is fantastic and it's exactly what you would see in best practices right and and so that's fantastic i'd also like to thank you all it's really nice to see you all and thank you for helping to update me and our staff as as i come into this role so thank you for for being such a great resource i have one quick question when it

[00:46:36] comes to unlawful detainers and rights of eviction and evictions conducted is there a breakdown by district around this yes there is and um on the eviction dashboard which the link is there um we we also you can do it by locality so if you have a chance please go look at the the dashboard and you can i believe it's by magisterial joystick and by zip code so you yeah you can look at it at your leisure i appreciate thank you thank you supervisor lusk uh thank you madam chairman um i will say I agree and appreciate all the work the staff has done both on the

[00:47:12] creativity and flexibility and I'll note that in my own district how many folks were impacted and who needed the rental assistance and I want to commend Northern Virginia Legal Services the work that they did was extraordinary and I thinking about now Judge P.E.K.D. Smith and the work that she did to ensure that people didn't get evicted and just the time and the commitment so i appreciate your point earlier about expansion of legal services so i'll look to see once you put together that um nip kind of the

[00:47:47] detailed um additions because i think that's going to be really critical and important um so i've got a couple quick questions um i'm trying to remember i think during the pandemic there was an option for the landlords to actually apply for assistance based on the needs of their tenants.

[00:48:05] Do we still do that? Is that still an option that's available to the landlord? Yes. Yes, it is still an option. The landlord portal is still open on our eviction prevention website, on the county website. And how often is that used?

[00:48:23] It's still actively used today. Okay. That's good. And then on the point about, I know this is tough, the 2023 data showing the 962 individuals who got evicted, that's a percentage that's lower, but that's still 962 people.

[00:48:42] What did we do specifically to support those residents? How did we help them through that crisis of eviction? Thank you for that question. So, in terms of that kind of eviction process, CSP can engage with community members at any point through that process.

[00:49:07] So, you know, our goal is to be able to stabilize and preserve the housing, first and foremost, and instances when that does not occur, we are working still collaboratively with the community member to take a look at what their support network is, their circle of support, to walk through contingency planning.

[00:49:30] We're working with homeless services in regards to families that may possibly be displaced. So we're that coordinated entry access point for those individuals. If it's a single individual, we're working with the single side of homeless services to be able to coordinate in that regard.

[00:49:53] If someone has located someplace that's more affordable, Maybe they have family in another location, and then we're working to try to coordinate, you know, how can they get to that location. So still staying engaged in terms of, you know, the supports and resources have changed at that point, but making sure that people are connected to the proper supports and resources to be able to walk through a very challenging time.

[00:50:19] Okay. No, I appreciate that. And then I'll take this last question. This is the final one. Thank you. This one's offline. I appreciate the slide four that talks about affordable homeownership, first-time buyers program. If I can get the number, I can't remember if we have a number of how many folks were able to help through that first-time homebuyers program.

[00:50:38] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Lowe. And just reminding my colleagues, feel free, any other specific questions, you can email to staff, ask us as well. I know there's a lot of information that we all want to know about all of this. To that, Mr. Stork and then Mr. Alcorn, if you could keep your questions brief so that we can do the second presentation.

[00:50:56] Thank you. I will keep them very – first off, I think this is a great example of not letting a crisis go to waste, stepping up, learning, improving, and I think you did all that. And that's just, I think, excellent results. My questions are I'm going to just rattle them off and then look for answers in the future.

[00:51:14] The number of economic versus behavioral evictions, I know we talk mostly about economic, I know there's behavioral ones that I'd like to understand better and how we address that. The second one was on your slide seven, the numbers there, you have the dollar amounts, but the numbers of evictions and support that you provided in the range of 2016 to 2019, I want to compare what our numbers were versus the amount of money we spent supporting that, which my next one kind of ties to that, which is in slide nine, you have in 2023, you have pre-COVID average, I guess I'm looking for pre-COVID average numbers for, again, the same

[00:51:53] kind of numbers that you have there. And then the percentage compared to others, get an idea of how Fairfax County stacks up to Arlington, Alexandria, et cetera. And then the last one I have is how are we helping, I don't know if you said this, I didn't hear it, but how is the county helping folks after they've been evicted with past evictions, how do we help them through? I know we have Good Shepherd housing and others who support that but what else can we do how can we help those folks so thank you very much sorry we didn't get a chance to do more all right thank you madam chair uh very quickly

[00:52:26] slide nine um this is great that the the number at the bottom there uh is is low i mean that clearly shows that you know the things that we've talked about uh over the last couple years are working uh to do that my question is the next step on the continuum because we end up with say 962 evictions in 2023. Of those, you can look at it two ways. How many end up being homeless, at least temporarily, or maybe a more positive way to look at it? How many of those 962,

[00:53:01] on average, end up with housing, end up somewhere else? That would be really good to know. And then my last thing on slide three, it's great that there's stability. I love that, terms of the burden thank you for putting that up but i just want to remind everybody and the chairman refer to this stability is better than it getting worse but this is not our goal you know our goal is is is to have those numbers come down and i know we're doing a lot and that's the next presentation so thank you thank you um mr harry waskis questions and then um you all can come back

[00:53:37] to us with just a lot of responses real quick i assume the answer to supervisor lux questions will we'll go to everybody on the home ownership. I'd like to see that. And on chart three, if we could get what that looked like in 2000 and 2010, just to give historical perspective, that'd be interesting. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Sarah, Amy, and Louise for your work on this and your entire team for keeping our community safe and protected throughout and post-pandemic. Thank you. And so to that, we move on to the longer term question, the other one being

[00:54:14] around emergency eviction and pandemic and post-pandemic, and the next one being it is just a little bit of an appetizer, as Mr. Fleetwood calls it, as to what has been going on in the longer term taking stock of our housing across the county. And so Mr. Fleetwood and Ms. Shapiro, take it away. Madam Chairman, thank you very much and good morning members of the board. Tom Fleetwood with the Department of Housing and Community Development. I'm joined to my right by Anna Shapiro, our deputy director for real estate development and finance.

[00:54:50] Just to get started here, we had wanted to take this opportunity at the beginning of the new board's term just to kind of take stock of where we are, particularly on the development front, but I did not want to miss the opportunity, particularly for our new board members, to just provide a couple of quick headlines, if you will, with respect to our Housing Choice Voucher Program and homelessness governance.

[00:55:16] So we can go to the next slide. First, with respect to the Housing Choice Voucher Program, we have implemented a new set of payment standards within the Housing Choice Voucher Program, our federal long-term rent assistance program, that is data-driven and designed to provide participants with much more choice in terms of the markets where they seek to rent using their voucher.

[00:55:44] We are very fortunate as a housing authority to have the federal moving to work designation, which gives us substantial flexibility to design local solutions to address local challenges. And I'd be very happy for our staff to provide a more direct briefing for our new board members if you're interested in that.

[00:56:03] Next, with respect to homelessness governance, the board has reconstituted our continuum of care board. which began meeting in late 2023. It is chaired by former Fairfax City Mayor David Meyer, and he's been providing very thoughtful and very helpful leadership to the group.

[00:56:24] And we are working to provide ongoing recommendations and new strategies for improvements to our homelessness services. So just a couple of very brief headlines on the rest of what we're doing with the Department of Housing and the Housing Authority.

[00:56:40] I will turn it over to miss Shapiro to walk us through where we are relative to development and preservation Thank you Anna Shapiro deputy director of the Department of Housing and Community Development Regarding our our Construction and pipeline and everything in terms of development. We wanted to give you all an update on kind of where we are from here Since 2020 which is when sort of the original 5,000 unit goal was established We've delivered 879 units in five properties as well as our ADU and WDU program, and these are all 60% and below of the area median income.

[00:57:14] So these are serving kind of lower end of the income spectrum, but all the way down to 30% in a lot of cases as well. And as you can see, there's a mix of multifamily and senior housing that we've delivered. Under construction, we have four properties, and three of which are delivering this year.

[00:57:34] One University, Idles Overlook, Autumn Willow Sr., and then the exchange at Spring Hill Metro. That's a total of 986 units that are under construction currently, and we expect 470 to deliver this year.

[00:57:52] In our development pipeline, we have approximately 1,100 units. As you know, these kind of move around from time to time, but the top part of the chart, from Telestar to Little River Glen, Those have all been approved for financing, so they're well on their way to either closing this year or soon after.

[00:58:11] And you can kind of see some of the status of those projects. So that's a huge number of units that's right in the pipeline ready to go. And we also have a number of projects that we're still doing some evaluation on, design work at the bottom of the chart. And on the next slide, you'll see some of our planning pipeline.

[00:58:31] This pipeline is some recently conveyed as well as previously conveyed properties as well as some projects that we know are coming down the land use pipeline from private developers that have come to us to sort of say they're going to come to us for some financing requests in the future.

[00:58:48] So we want to make sure to capture that is a potential project that could come to the county. I'm happy to answer any questions on any of those charts, but I'll keep moving. our WDU for sale plan amendment we just wrapped up at the end of 2023 the task force was completed in October and then we came to the board's housing committee in November to give you an update on the task force recommendations we're also going and we're doing outreach to individual board members through our staff and in partnership with DPD to make sure there's a kind of a refresher as well

[00:59:22] as we can answer any questions about some of the planned updates to the comp plan as well as any specifics that kind of touch your own districts we're working through those plan changes and I'll give you a schedule in just a moment about how that's going to shake out and along with all of our other policy initiatives and also just to update you from the 2023 annual plan in a report that we published 247 WDUs were constructed in 2023 in FY 2023 as well as 64 ADUs so to date that's a total of over 5600 units through those programs that have

[00:59:59] been delivered. And that's without kind of a dollar of additional money, right? We also wanted to give you an update on an accomplishment of the preservation program. This year, we received a notice to sell from a property owner in the Mason District of 106 units that were affordable. They were restricted, but we have a right of first refusal on the property.

[01:00:25] So when we looked at the property, we really wanted to see another kind of private developer own it and then we wanted to see a lot of capital improvements made to really make sure the residents have a great place to remain. And so we put out a solicitation to find a designated buyer of the property and were able to successfully close by the end of last year with Enterprise.

[01:00:47] So Enterprise bought it directly from the owner. We were able to support the property through our existing loan, so no new money was added to the project, and that was about $4.3 million that remained to help finance the acquisition, and then they'll be recapitalizing the property for a full renovation in the upcoming year or two. I'm happy to answer any questions at the end about that, but I'll keep moving.

[01:01:14] We also have a number of preservation activities coming up for 2024, so I wanted to give you kind of a look ahead, and then you'll get a lot more information about these soon. So Right now we had the preservation partner pool open, as you can recall potentially, like last year we had our first opening of this partner pool.

[01:01:32] It was a really exciting opportunity for developers to come to us, let us know they're interested in partnering for very quick sort of quick reaction opportunities, like the one that Enterprise executed. We had 21 partners on the pool last year, and we've already received 24 applications this year to remain or add to the list.

[01:01:52] So we're really excited to leverage that pool. We're also gearing up to do our 2024 market affordable survey. As you'll recall, in 2022 was the last survey, and there were 8,317 units identified in 44 properties.

[01:02:09] So we're going to be taking a look at that new survey, and we're working on a scope to get a contractor on board to help us with that. The Manufactured Housing Comprehensive Plan Amendment and the grant program I'll actually talk about on the next slide.

[01:02:24] We wanted to show you all of our policy and planning initiatives kind of all side by side so you can see sort of all the things moving at once. We are working currently on the WDU for sale Comprehensive Plan Amendment and the update to the guidelines to capture those amendments.

[01:02:42] And those are going to be coming to the board. We hope the entire process can complete before recess. The important thing to note there is that there will be you know some outreach that's going to happen right now We're starting with the board and then we're going to be publishing the the text doing additional outreach to the community And then we'll be coming back to the board The relocation guidelines are also in process We have a draft that we're developing currently and they're going to be coming to you all as well as the public for for comment And we really want to sort of treat that as an introduction to the relocation guidelines as a whole

[01:03:18] We want to make sure it's clear that there are sort of relocation guidelines we need for our projects that are going through the preservation process, as well as those financed by the county that may be, you know, renovating or redeveloping a property. But we also understand there's going to be a manufactured housing chapter as well.

[01:03:34] And so we want to eventually have that be one full document, but we'll be doing it in phases both on just because of the breadth of the work, the different strategies we need to take for outreach, and also staffing as well. And finally, the Manufactured Housing Pilot Grant Program.

[01:03:53] We're currently structuring a tenant survey to be able to update some of the surveys that were done during the task force process so we can really get a sense of the tactical needs of the manufactured housing owners. And then we can begin to start structuring the RFP, which we have a framework for.

[01:04:12] We also have the Manufactured Housing Comprehensive Plan Amendment that will be coming down the pike. that will have probably a much more comprehensive engagement strategy and a little bit different from what you've seen from preservation, but also we'll try to engage very broadly and very specifically to the members of those communities.

[01:04:30] You can see that those will be starting off in May, and that's when we anticipate having our new staff person, which is the Manufactured Housing Coordinator, in place. Take some questions. Well, thank you so much, Ms. Shapiro, for going through what is really quite comprehensive multifaceted work between rental, homeownership, the guidelines, WDUs, ADUs. I'm probably missing a little bit of the alphabet soup there.

[01:05:03] But I know that this is probably the most important goal that we're looking at, and especially toward that 10,000 unit goal. I know the chairman will have a few additional questions on that. I have one. Well, first of all, a pitch. I can't believe March 6th is next week.

[01:05:21] And so I know you and your team have also been working really hard to create such a successful housing symposium yearly that we've moved to a new location at Mason, I believe the Harris Theater. So if you want to put in a little pitch or share the information with us, I don't know if registration is still open, but I know many of us will be participating.

[01:05:43] Madam Chairman, thank you for that. But I'll first note that we are, I believe, registered at almost capacity, almost at 300, although I think that we could in all likelihood find space for all of your colleagues.

[01:05:58] I know it's a full day and people come and go. So if you have not had a chance to attend or your staff, highly, highly recommend it. We get to hear from the experts in the field. So thank you for organizing that. My big question when we talk about locations and units and great to see so much happening across the districts delivered and coming forward.

[01:06:19] Have we been able to sort of overlay where we are building based on where evictions or other communities needs and neighborhood of opportunities we're seeing, especially as we look at families and seniors wanting to stay close to where they are currently located?

[01:06:39] Is that something we've looked at? We can certainly evaluate it through that lens. As you know, as the board knows, so much of what we do is also opportunity-driven. Exactly.

[01:06:55] But I am very pleased to say that from our two developments that we have in Tyson's and one university and sort of the collection of other work that we're doing, we have so much going on in areas of opportunity, in areas that are transit-rich, that the opportunities that have been presenting themselves have happily been consistent with those needs and those goals, but we can certainly also evaluate it more planfully through that lens.

[01:07:26] Yeah, I think, like you said, it's difficult because we are looking at opportunities and we're looking for where there's transit, but knowing as housing becomes more and more expensive, are there areas where we're not seeing opportunities arise that maybe we should be and us on this board targeting those those areas as well because we're not seeing that availability arise um so that it's just happy to work with you on that um but one one question that still is uh in my mind is i try to map these in my head of where they are i want to make the gaps thank you

[01:08:02] if i may madam chairman i think certainly maryfield comes to mind as a as an opportunity thank you i wasn't asking that was not i did not ask you to say that but i appreciate that So do that. I will turn to the chairman while he's speaking. If you are interested or have a question, please raise your hand. I will take names, especially those who did not get a chance.

[01:08:22] Just very quickly, to be more direct to the question that was just asked a moment ago, I mean, one of the things that certainly makes me happy looking at this is that we're building affordable housing in every corner of the county and not just in the same concentrated areas that we did for decades.

[01:08:39] and so one thing that might be helpful is for us to get just a refresher on these by magisterial district. Maybe you could just give us a map of the county and tell us how many per magisterial district just to make sure that, you know, we continue on that pace of making sure that affordable housing is available in every corner of the county. One comment and then a question. My comment on slide 12 is very happy to see these timelines. Based on the last presentation that we had, I think it's really important for us as a board, as a community, and as staff to make sure that we meet

[01:09:15] these timelines. Because some of these things, for good reason, you know, have been being discussed for a while. But I think it's really important. Time is of the essence here, especially looking at that eviction number that we saw earlier, to make sure that we get regular updates. And if there's for some reason why we might not be able to meet a timeline that's on page 12, that we understand that ahead of time and you know do everything we can to try to accommodate that the only the only question that I have and and the chair acknowledged this

[01:09:48] on slide 9 we have the 247 WDUs 64 ADUs and then we have this number at the bottom 5619 I'm assuming the 5619 is the totality of all the units that are mentioned in the charts before and the 247 and 64 are is that the number that's generated specifically and only through the ordinance requirements for new development is that what that is so the they're all actually the the zoning ordinance and the comp plan units and the five you

[01:10:24] know the adu program has been around for a lot longer than the wdu program and so the first two numbers are only for FY23, and the 5,600 is for the entire life of those programs. Not necessarily from 2020 on then. Right. Okay, because the reason I'm asking this is there would be disputes over the numbers.

[01:10:43] I mean, we set out the 10,000 goal. We have that clearly. We know that everything in these charts leading up to this is opportunities that have come about to try to chip away at that number. But simultaneous to that, we're making progress on just the sheer use of our other tools, which is when new development comes forward, getting WDUs, ADUs set aside.

[01:11:06] If we can see since the board set the original 5,000 goal and now have upped it to 10,000, kind of what our countywide progress is towards that at some point in time, where you could take the items that are in this chart that are specific opportunities that we have executed through a lot of creativity and work, and then also simultaneously what's happening with the other tools that we have, whether they be triggered by new development or other things, just to see how we're chipping away towards that 10,000-unit number in totality.

[01:11:38] And the important thing to remember about the WDUs and ADUs is they range, right, up to 120% AMI. So on actually the slide up on slide five, you'll see the last line is how many units we are counting towards the goal. So that's 50 units that are below 60% AMI in those programs since 2020 that have been delivered.

[01:12:00] So the remaining, which is, you know, a lot, are actually in the 70s, 80s, 100, 120% ranges. Yeah, what would help for us since we set the goal is to populate a chart within those ranges just so that we see. I mean, I know obviously our target is the lowest range, but I don't want anyone looking at this presentation thinking these are the only things going on in housing and not thinking about them in their totality.

[01:12:23] Whether or not we wanted to count them towards the goal we had or not is a different question, but I think just being aware that some of these other things are organically happening in parallel to all the efforts that the board specifically is making with the opportunity areas that are in here I think would be helpful just for us to see the whole picture.

[01:12:41] But really, really great work by our housing department and staff on all of these, and definitely delighted to see all this progress that's happening. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to that, I think I was just doing some back-of-hand math. If it's correct, we're about 4,000 planned or constructed since 2020 from our program, if I'm reading that, plus through the housing ordinance.

[01:13:09] That's correct. I would say it's a significant amount towards our goal, but I would just caution the board to recall that every project has ups and downs, and so we just want to make sure that especially the pipeline is really, we sort of look at it through a lens of just making sure that we're continuing to sort of push forward and that we're, as we are, but also that we are also thinking about the sort of entire life of those projects, and also the ones that are in the pipeline and under construction that they're still going to be delivering over the next, you know, five years or so.

[01:13:43] Example, the 500 units at the exchange, which will be delivering in 2026. Exactly. And I know Mr. Alcorn has put the competition out there, so when we asked by district, I know he wasn't in the room. I have Supervisor Walkinshaw followed by Supervisor Herity.

[01:14:02] Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to the previous presentation and Supervisor Herity's request for that housing burden, housing cost burden percentage going back, I think it would be important when we get that information to have some benchmarks.

[01:14:18] Obviously, folks being more cost burdened is a national phenomenon, certainly a regional phenomenon, and I think we need to be able to put our situation in that context. So I'd like to see that set of data as well.

[01:14:37] I also think for these presentations, one of the things that I would appreciate moving forward is a look at where we are in terms of average market rate rents across the county. I recognize that's maybe a little bit outside of your all's scope, but I think that's an important marker for us.

[01:14:59] obviously you need to benchmark that as well to CPI or regional. And, you know, you all would understand what index is best, better than me. But, you know, if we aren't able to match supply and demand and put some downward pressure on market rate rents, your job is going to be even harder than it already is. So I just think for all of our awareness, that's an important indicator.

[01:15:24] And final question not to be answered today, I am curious how close we are to kind of maxing out our opportunity to utilize county-owned land. I know, you know, I've sat down with you all and scoured the county-owned parcels in the Braddock District.

[01:15:46] And my sense is, probably across the county, we've taken advantage of the easier opportunities and the larger parcels, but maybe that's not the case. I just don't have a good feel for how much additional opportunity there is at county-owned parcels.

[01:16:05] And that's complex. There are different categories, right? Some are vacant. Some have existing uses that maybe could be repurposed. Some have future plans. But I'd like to have a good feel for that as well. thank you thank you mr rockechel supervisor harry a couple things i want to ask all of them here um page seven um fair oaks business park's trying to put a light tech proposal through and that's trying to get through our planning process so i was surprised that wasn't on here right because

[01:16:44] they're not asking for funds from the county but it's important to note with respect to the letters of local, you know, notification that there are occasions where we, the housing department, are not notified of them before they're put out.

[01:17:03] So I was, you know, our agency in some cases has been surprised by some of these. So good reminder to make sure that it's communicated to the housing office. Okay. The home ownership proposals that we were working on, I didn't see that in here as a part of this, and if it wasn't in the coming up slide, because that's something I'm very interested in. So it's a direction I think we ought to be looking at solves the generational wealth problem and a whole bunch of things. Absolutely. We are in the process of hiring

[01:17:41] our new home ownership director, and we're hoping to be able to move those recommendations forward here in due course. Okay. And are you, just at the housing department in general, since we're talking about progress on affordable housing, tracking any of the efforts to build market-rate affordable housing?

[01:18:06] We certainly, you know, in the case where we have developers that are interested in working with us in some form, we track that very carefully. We are aware from time to time of developers that are interested in building lower-cost housing without subsidy.

[01:18:27] As a matter of policy, it's sort of hard for us to track that which we don't know about. So I would certainly encourage you and all of your colleagues that if you become aware of such things that we need to know that to be able to A, track it, and B, be able to render assistance as appropriate, even if it's non-capital subsidy type assistance.

[01:18:54] And it'd be interesting to get a list of the ones you're aware of, and I'll share one or two that I'm aware of. Okay, thank you. But I think it's, especially to help those get through the process, land use process as affordable housing. I would just add on the land use process, we are partnering with DPD and as well as LDS to kind of get more embedded into the process for reviewing housing proffers.

[01:19:20] So we've in the past sort of received the ADUs and WDUs that have come through. We're also going to be kind of seeing them more on the front end. So we're working through that process to make sure we're... I was more looking at projects that are market rate, period, without, anyway.

[01:19:36] Right. Well, I want to make sure that they are able to focus on producing, knowing that land here is probably the most costly piece. I do want to point out that Mason District does have two homeownership opportunities coming because it was land owned by the county. And so if you have opportunities in your district of land that can be used for homeownership or affordable housing, highly recommend that.

[01:19:59] As you know, it is at a premium and properties are selling with burnt down houses at very high cost just because the land is so valuable. To that, I have Supervisor Jimenez, Lusk, and then Stork, and we will be out of time in five minutes. So I ask that you ask your questions all at once.

[01:20:16] Thank you. Thank you so much, and I will be brief. So great to see you all again, and thank you again for coming or virtually coming in to update my staff and myself earlier last week. My real quick question is with the slide pen, I believe, with the preservation of the garden department, which I think is fantastic, as we talked about.

[01:20:39] My real quick question is, what is the timeline for these renovations? Do we know when these renovations will occur and what kind of things are included in the renovations? Sure. The developer has submitted a tax credit application to the state. And so, assuming everything goes according to plan, I believe they should start within the next year.

[01:21:02] And do we know what would be included in those renovations? We can send you a list as a follow-up. Sounds great. Thanks so much. Thank you. Mr. Lesk. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Let me go quickly. My comment first is on page 12.

[01:21:19] Appreciate the work that's being done specifically with regard to the Manufactured Housing Pilot grant program and then the other Conference of Plan amendments, it's so important. One of the things I appreciate you also indicating is that the Manufactured Housing Coordinator will be here in May.

[01:21:37] So I assume that person is going to help us in setting up the pilot grant program. So just out of curiosity again, what is the amount of funding that's set for that program and then do we, I guess we don't really know how it's going to be deployed yet, but are Are there partners that we will be working with in that program as well?

[01:22:00] So currently, Supervisor Lusk, it's half a million dollars in CDBG funds. And the idea is that we would bring in a partner who specializes in assistance to single-family homeowners to actually operate the program.

[01:22:18] Now, again, appreciate this opportunity. I think it's one that's very needed, and the community is anxious. So, again, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, and Supervisor Stork. Thank you, and Tom, I think you know what I'm going to ask about.

[01:22:36] We have an amazing facility in North Hill, and we have less than 10% occupancy after more than a year of substantial completion. How do we make sure that when we get something done, which we all believe was done more than a year ago, we get it filled?

[01:22:54] That's question number one. Question number two is, and the other thing I'm really, as you know, very concerned, I'll say dissatisfied about is the fact that we built this housing along Richmond Highway to, in my mind, first and foremost, make sure that folks along Richmond Highway that needed more affordable housing would get it and not to advertise for Spotsylvania and Prince William County and other places for them to come and become residents there.

[01:23:22] So we have two, in my mind, significant challenges. And I don't think this is unique to this project, although maybe it's even more glaring example but how do we prevent this kind of experience for some of the other many projects that we have here that i think are wonderful and as you know i've been deeply supportive of so a few things on that supervisor stork um number one as you're aware there is a preference that is in place for the north hill project that is specifically for zip codes that straddle the

[01:23:57] richmond highway corridor and that that was done at your request as you'll remember um second with With respect to the marketing of the project, there's nothing different about the way that project is being marketed than any of the other projects that our private developers have built in partnership with us.

[01:24:20] With respect to the challenges relative to lease-up at that property, as you're aware, there have been some unique challenges relative to the actual finishing of the buildings and the turning over the buildings that we have not frankly experienced in our other developments i think that you know a it's important to recognize that you know that when we have these projects and they deliver it's very important how we communicate about their state of readiness when

[01:24:52] we open them as well yeah well i hear you and maybe that's more of a developer specific issue but it's I think it's one that is really community is obviously not doesn't understand it and our job is to helpfully explain that better and make sure that it's delivered when we are representing that it is which is when we're cutting the ribbon so thank you thank you mr. Stark I will take this opportunity if I may I know we're a couple minutes over I know there are a lot of projects in here and especially I know those of you who are newer to the

[01:25:30] board have been spending time I cannot stress enough the knowledge that is held by the staff and I know we're always trying to staff up for probably more than a dozen of different projects that they are types of projects that they're overseeing so definitely recommend spending time with them reaching out if you have issues or concerns or opportunities in your specific district to work through those as was mentioned every single project is a little bit different brings different opportunities and challenges.

[01:26:01] And so I know definitely doing that work with the team, with the staff, not necessarily while we're here, is very beneficial and can help us come to the table with even higher numbers as we come back around to housing.

[01:26:18] So to that, I want to thank our staff. I want to thank our colleagues and their chairman for our work toward this very, it's probably, again, The hardest challenge, but the most important one, I would say, that we have in ensuring not just equity, huge, but it also, as we know, impacts our economic opportunities, our ability to have the workforce live and continue to live here and call this their home.

[01:26:44] So I was just going to say we've run over a couple minutes only, but take a couple minutes and let's get the environmental committee set up so we can be ready to roll. Thank you.

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