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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved 4.04.24 SKHHP AB MinutesPage 1 of 10 SKHHP Advisory Board Meeting April 4, 2024 MINUTES I. CALL TO ORDER Dorsol Plants called the meeting to order at 3:33 PM. ROLL CALL/ESTABLISHMENT OF QUORUM Advisory Board members present: Tina Narron, Uche Okezie, Olga Lindbom, Rumi Takahashi, Kathleen Hosfeld, Kent Hay, Ashley Kenny, Cathy Sisk, Maju Qureshi, Menka Soni, Maria Arns. Other attendees: Claire Vanessa Goodwin, SKHHP; Dorsol Plants, SKHHP; Abby Anderson, KCRHA. II. MARCH 7, 2024 MEETING MINUTES Tina Narron motioned to approve the March 7, 2024 minutes, seconded by Kathleen Hosfield. (11-0) III. EXECUTIVE BOARD LIAISON REPORT Kathleen Hosfeld provided an update from the March Executive Board meeting. Much of the agenda reviewed the 2025 Work Plan and Budget and the 2024 Housing Capital Fund Guidelines, and the Executive Board made some modifications. An interesting discussion occurred around the topic of 'homelessness' and what having the word in the SKHHP's name means for our work. The discussion was interesting because of how diverse South King County is on the topic, but despite those differences, there are places where everyone converges. There was an interactive mixer to start the meeting, and Carmen Rivera won the interactive icebreaker. IV. 2024 WORK PLAN ACTION ITEM: EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT Dorsol Plants reviewed the Education and Engagement document provided to the Advisory Board in the Agenda Packet. The document aimed to enable the Advisory Board to select an education and engagement approach to fulfill Action Item 13 in the 2024 SKHHP Work Plan and Budget. SKHHP staff have been coordinating an Affordable Housing tour for the September Executive Board meeting as part of the education and engagement work. This will allow the Executive Board to learn more about the affordable housing needs of South King County and to visit a couple of the projects for which SKHHP has awarded funding. While SKHHP staff will plan and coordinate the event, there is hope that Advisory Board members can attend the tour to share their expertise with the Executive Board and provide greater insight into affordable housing. The tour will include stops at the Multi-Service Center (MSC)'s Victorian Place II and Homestead Community Land Trusts' Willow Crest Townhomes. Uche Okezie suggested that rather than leading a public gathering, the Advisory Board could support another organization that is doing one. Dorsol Plants supported the idea but mentioned not being aware of any events the Advisory Board could support. He encouraged the Advisory Board to recommend events or gatherings to support. Page 2 of 10 Maju Qureshi mentioned doing a similar event in 2021-22 but acknowledged that it was significant work. She recommended connecting with the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness to potentially partner with them on an event since they are doing advocacy and policy work. Dorsol Plants acknowledged the idea, but part of what would determine our partners would be the topic selected. Ashley Kenny liked the idea of presenting to the Executive Board if they were open to it and suggested it could also be a series of presentations. She continued that homelessness prevention was essential when discussing the housing crisis and recommended providing a presentation to the Executive Board on the topic. Rumi Takahashi suggested creating a list of topics of expertise the Advisory Board would feel comfortable presenting to the Executive Board on a more regular basis. The presentations could be shorter, and the Advisory Board could present on a variety of topics. Menka Soni said that there are different reasons for homelessness in our area and that there are not many shelters in our area that support Mental Health concerns. She suggested collecting data, understanding what services exist to meet the variety of needs among the homeless community, and presenting what support is needed. Maju Qureshi suggested doing multiple virtual tours rather than one open house, which would be logistically easier and enable the Executive Board to see more locations. Dorsol Plants echoed to the group that there seemed to be the most support for either presenting to the Executive Board or holding a public gathering on a topic related to affordable housing. Kent Hay supported the idea of presenting to the Executive Board and either the multiple presentations or breakout sessions. Kathleen Hosfeld supported a presentation to the Executive Board, the Affordable Housing tour in September, and a public gathering with breakout sessions. Dorsol Plants responded that, because of staff capacity, it would be challenging to accomplish both a presentation to the Executive Board and a public gathering in 2024. He continued that it may be possible for SKHHP to partner with an organization already holding a public gathering. Olga Lindbom responded that holding a public gathering would combine a couple of the suggested engagement ideas and seemed time-consuming. She felt that it would be better to focus on a presentation to the Executive Board and supporting the affordable housing tour this year. Dorsol Plants added that the education and engagement ideas could be carried into 2025 and the Advisory Board can begin planning a more extensive gathering event now for next year. Rumi Takahashi said that if there was an event that the Advisory Board could partner with, the participation wouldn't have to be significant but would still be a public-facing event. If not this year, it could be something to consider for next year. She suggested supporting events like the Housing Washington Conference. Menka Soni asked if the engagement and education event must be in South King County. Dorsol Plants responded that the Interlocal Agreement (ILA) firmly directs SKHHP's work to focus on South King County, but if it contributes to the subregional work here, we may be able Page 3 of 10 to include it. Dorsol Plants added that part of SKHHP's role was to encourage events in South King County to raise focus and awareness on our region, which is often ignored. Maju Qureshi suggested doing an event to support HDC’s Affordable Housing Week. Dorsol Plants acknowledged that would be a great opportunity, but Affordable Housing Week is in May and might not give the Advisory Board enough time to prepare for something this year. Dorsol Plants confirmed that presenting to the Executive Board had the most support in 2024. Claire Goodwin suggested following Rumi Takahashi's idea to survey the Advisory Board's expertise and what topics they would feel comfortable doing a presentation. Dorsol Plants said he would send a survey and prepare the responses before the May Advisory Board meeting to plan the next steps. V. 2025 SKHHP WORK PLAN AND BUDGET Claire Goodwin reviewed the final draft of the 2025 Work Plan and Budget and relevant changes to the 2024 Housing Capital Fund guidelines. Due to Claire Goodwin's impending maternity leave, SKHHP is on an expedited schedule to adopt both documents by April 19. Claire Goodwin began by framing the work through SKHHP's established mission and purpose. When considering how to define our coalition or who SKHHP is and what we do, two places provide insight. First is the SKHHP Mission Statement: “South King County jurisdictions working together and sharing resources to create a coordinated, comprehensive, and equitable approach to increasing housing stability, reducing homelessness, and producing and preserving quality affordable housing in South King County.” Second are “the Whereas” introductory statements located in the SKHHP Interlocal Agreement (ILA) adopted by all the SKHHP members. SKHHP formation ILA Whereas statements: “WHEREAS, the Parties have a common goal to ensure the availability of housing that meets the needs of all income levels in South King County; and WHEREAS, the Parties wish to provide a sound base of housing policies and programs in South King County and to complement the efforts of existing public and private organizations to address housing needs in South King County; and WHEREAS, the Parties wish to act cooperatively to formulate affordable housing policies and strategies that address housing stability, to foster efforts to preserve and provide affordable housing by combining public funding with private-sector resources, to support implementation of the goals of the Washington State (the "State") Growth Management Act, related countywide planning policies, and other local policies and programs relating to affordable housing, and to do so efficiently and expeditiously; and WHEREAS, the Parties have determined that the most efficient and expeditious way for the Parties to address affordable housing needs in South King County is through cooperative action and pooling public and private resources; and Page 4 of 10 WHEREAS, the intent of this cooperative undertaking is not to duplicate the efforts of nonprofit corporations and other entities already providing affordable-housing-related services; and WHEREAS, a cooperative work plan with a primary focus on the production and preservation of affordable housing is needed because the lack of access to affordable housing is one of the key contributors to homelessness;” SKHHP's purpose, as described in the ILA, is: "All parties to this agreement have a responsibility for local and regional planning for the provision of housing affordable to residents that work and/or live in SKC. The parties agree to act cooperatively to formulate affordable housing policies that address housing stability and to foster efforts to preserve and provide affordable housing by combining public funding with private-sector resources." Claire Goodwin concluded that it would be helpful to review those items before discussing the 2025 Work Plan and Budget and presented a diagram of the work plan development process. The work plan development process began last month with surveys sent to the Executive and Advisory Boards. An initial draft work plan was shared with the Staff Work Group, which provided additional feedback. Claire Goodwin developed a draft incorporating input from the surveys and the Staff Work Group. Based on the direction Claire Goodwin received at the March Executive Board meeting, she updated the budget but didn't make any changes that haven't been presented to the Executive Board. The final draft was presented to the Staff work group yesterday and will receive its final review and adoption at the April Executive Board meeting. After the Executive Board adopts the 2025 Work Plan and Budget, each SKHHP member Council will need to adopt it. Claire Goodwin reviewed the changes proposed to the 2024 Work Plan and Budget for 2025. Based on conversations with Executive Board members in December, there was no desire to see any significant changes to the work plan, so four goals remain intact. Several items were removed and are not to be carried forward in 2025. The first was to remove the action item to develop a long-term funding strategy for the Housing Capital Fund. The Executive Board discussed this in 2023 and agreed that a positive approach is to partner with others, advocate for funding at the state and federal levels, and target philanthropic partners. Sentiment was also expressed that SKHHP is still building a collective funding response by pooling new resources from our members. Much of our focus last year and this year will be on facilitating those new revenue sources for the Housing Capital Fund. Next, the action item was removed to work with member cities and project sponsors to develop a pipeline of projects to be funded over the next five years. Claire Goodwin recommends removing this action since this isn't critical work for SKHHP, and a regional pipeline of Low- Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects is already being developed in collaboration with other public funders. Next, the action item was removed to continue refining and updating the housing policy matrix. Claire Goodwin recommends removing this action since this is not a body of work currently connected to any active project. This can always be reinstated administratively if it is a relevant resource. Page 5 of 10 Next, the action item was removed to produce public-facing communications content highlighting South King County through social media and newsletters. This is an item SKHHP staff have been doing since last year, and they have found that the newsletters take an incredible amount of staff time to ensure we are publishing accurate, well-vetted, public-facing materials. In practice, we would still advertise the Housing Capital Fund NOFA and the Advisory and Executive Board's recommendation on funding through a newsletter and social media. Next was to remove the action item to manage the Affordable Housing Inventory Dashboard contract. This action item referenced the Housing Action Plan Implementation (HAPI) grant that funded the internal SKHHP affordable housing inventory dashboard for our members' planning staff. SKHHP finished that contract last year. SKHHP staff will be engaging Berk Consulting to continue the maintenance and data updates this year through funding provided by SeaTac, but that contract is a simple one and doesn't rise to the level of being on the work plan. The last was to remove the action item to advance work to establish logistics and administration and pursue federal nonprofit status for a SKHHP Foundation. Claire Goodwin recommends removing this item as it is an incredible body of work where an additional Full-time Employee (FTE) would be needed to manage the 501c3 and resources to fund a contracted auditor with subject matter expertise in 501c3 accounting. The work's original intent was to increase funds available for South King County-based projects. That goal can be achieved in other ways that don't involve the establishment of a 501c3, such as working with philanthropies to fund projects in South King County directly. Three Action Items were added to the 2025 Work Plan, reflecting the work SKHHP is currently doing and anticipates continuing to do in the next year. The first action item added was to develop and execute contract documents and covenants for projects ready to move forward. The second action item added was to meet with legislators as opportunities arise to inform them about SKHHP's mission, goals, and the Housing Capital Fund. This was critical during this year's legislative session when Claire Goodwin met with a leading affordable housing state representative who was unaware of all the excellent work going on in South King County with our Housing Capital Fund. The goal was to continue informing our legislative delegation about the work we are doing to address the affordable housing crisis. The third action item added was to connect affordable housing developers with property owners who intend to sell naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH). SKHHP staff will forward that information to nonprofit developers for South King County cities with notice of intent to sell policies. Additionally, SKHHP staff have received a couple of inquiries from NOAH property owners asking for information on how to connect to nonprofit developers who would be interested in maintaining the affordability of their properties. Some action items were modified from the 2024 to the 2025 work plan. Action Items related to the administration of the Housing Capital Fund were broken apart, and details were added. The Action Item related to developing a subregional preservation strategy has been updated to acknowledge the progress made over the past year. Page 6 of 10 Claire Goodwin concluded that those were all the changes suggested by SKHHP staff and would review the results of the Advisory and Executive Board surveys related to the 2025 Work Plan and Budget development. Rumi Takahashi asked if the work for the Affordable Housing Dashboard was being outsourced, and that was why it was being removed from the work plan. Claire Goodwin said the Action Item specifically referenced the contract associated with the project, which is complete. The new contract is a smaller update and maintenance of the existing dashboard. The Advisory Board was asked to consider Action Item 13 from the 2024 Work Plan, which states, "Coordinate with the AB in collaboration with housing organizations and stakeholder groups to provide education and engagement opportunities for elected officials and community members." The survey asked the Advisory Board if they thought the item should remain on the 2025 Work Plan and Budget. Over half of the respondents said it should stay on the work plan, so it was left intact. Claire Goodwin reviewed the staff capacity analysis provided to the Executive Board. This was an attempt to quantify the time the two SKHHP staff members dedicated to completing the work plan. These calculations include factoring in vacations and holidays. The current Executive Manager's capacity is at 106%, and the Program Coordinator is at 95%, enabling them to support items as they arise during the year. The analysis was to help provide context for the removed work plan Action Items and to help inform the conversation on the addition of new items. Question four on the survey asked if anything were missing from the 2024 work plan you would love to see added to the 2025 work plan. It is important to note that adding any items to the work plan would lead to removing or deprioritizing an existing item. Claire Goodwin still likes to ask this question to see where there is alignment and consensus on new areas of work for SKHHP. Four Advisory Board members felt it was very comprehensive and didn’t see a need to add additional items. Two Advisory Board members said that as newer members, they weren't familiar enough to comment, and two Advisory Board members left the question blank. The four items were suggested to be added to the work plan. One was coordinating funding for maintenance, management, staffing, and insurance of existing affordable housing stock. When consulting with ARCH and King County, SKHHP staff were advised that these kinds of contracts are even more labor-intensive and complicated than capital contracts. Unless directed by the Executive Board and provided with additional staffing, it is unlikely SKHHP will undertake this work anytime soon. Another suggested item was supporting jurisdictions in understanding how to take advantage of recently approved legislation. This item may directly reference the bill passed this year that allows SHB 1406 funds to be used up to 80% AMI for homeownership. For this particular bill, we will be working with our members who may need to update their enabling legislation for those funds to be used by SKHHP at that higher AMI level. There will be an update on these efforts when we discuss the guidelines next. Since this type of work is part of SKHHP's mission, it doesn't need to be called out in the work plan. Page 7 of 10 Another suggested item was to add coordination around homelessness. This suggestion could be interpreted in many ways, and it didn't add context. SKHHP would need to add staff or drastically cut some of our current work to add this item to our work plan. The last suggestion was to pool funds for homelessness prevention. Claire Goodwin stated that she feels SKHHP does this through funding preservation projects. There are many ways to fund homeless prevention, and many of our SKHHP member jurisdictions do that through rent assistance programs. The Executive Board was asked the same question, and Claire Goodwin provided an overview of their responses. None of the items put forward by the Executive Board had the majority's support to pursue next year, so none were added. When asked what items could be removed from the work plan, the Advisory Board had the highest number of votes for removing the production of the public-facing communications, which was removed. Claire Goodwin felt this was a hard question for the Advisory Board because they are not as familiar with SKHHP's work plan as the Executive Board. The Advisory Board also welcomed six new members this year. For Claire Goodwin, this may be an area of opportunity for SKHHP staff to inform the Advisory Board more about the work plan and asked the Advisory Board if they were interested in learning more. Kent Hay, Ashley Kenny, and Rumi Takahashi said they supported additional briefings on the SKHHP work plan. Kent Hay asked how the work of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) to develop a subregional approach to homelessness aligns with SKHHP and if we partner with KCRHA. Claire Goodwin responded that SKHHP focused on the development and preservation of housing, and KCRHA focused on services for sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. KCRHA did present to the Executive Board in 2023 and SKHHP staff could provide the recording to the Advisory Board. Kent Hay responded that there is a lot of overlap between affordable housing and how to interact with the homelessness in our region. Claire Goodwin concurred and cautioned that the SKHHP staff is just two people and that KCRHA is an organization with potentially 50 staff members. Abby Anderson said she was willing to have further conversations as there is much alignment between SKHHP and KCRHA. The Executive Board responded to the same question about Action Items to remove. Their responses were all over the map, which is fine. Similarly, the Action Item that received the most votes to remove was public-facing communication production. A few votes were also received to remove SKHHP's effort to begin a 501c3 and the creation of a pipeline for projects in the next five years. Both of those items were removed. Claire Goodwin stated that she did not review the budget because she wanted to focus more on the draft work plan. VI. HOUSING CAPITAL FUND PRIORITIES Claire Goodwin transitioned to discussing the 2024 Housing Capital Fund guidelines. She still needs to finalize a draft for the Advisory Board to review as she makes administrative changes Page 8 of 10 to the guidelines. A finalized draft will be available in the Executive Board meeting packet distributed on Friday, April 12. 2024 will be SKHHP’s third annual Housing Capital Fund funding round. The Executive Board adopted annual guidelines in 2022 with the Advisory Board’s assistance and made a few revisions last year. Dorsol Plants reviewed the Housing Capital Fund process at last month’s meeting. SKHHP members pool resources from SHB 1406, HB 1590, and the general fund for affordable housing construction and preservation/rehabilitation. The ILAs for pooling sales tax receipts to administer funds under RCW 82.14.530 and 82.14.540 require that for each funding round, the Executive Board identify funding guidelines that include funding priorities, the amount available, eligible activities, geographic areas, and more. Every year, the Executive Board adopts the funding guidelines with minor tweaks, and SKHHP staff ask for the Advisory Board's input regarding the funding priorities. Claire Goodwin reviewed the changes being proposed to the priorities for 2024. At the last meeting, feedback was provided from the Advisory Board to ensure SHB 1406 funds were made available for homeownership up to 80% AMI based on legislation that passed this session. SKHHP staff have limited ability to influence city council action. So the following language was proposed for the draft guidelines, "Projects that can provide homeownership opportunities for individuals and families earning up to 60% AMI or 80% AMI pending all funding jurisdictions have adopted any needed amendments to enabling legislation granting this as an allowable use per the passage of SB 6173." For preservation projects, the current language did not call out income-restricted units needing rehabilitation. Last year, the Advisory Board recommended funding for Victorian Place II in Des Moines, an income-restricted unit. The following language was added to denote the inclusion of income-restricted projects, "Projects that preserve affordable housing through acquisition and/or rehabilitation are a high priority. This includes housing units with expiring affordability requirements, income-restricted properties, and residential rental properties that are affordable to households earning up to 60% AMI but do not have affordability requirements (naturally occurring affordable housing)." Kathleen Hosfeld asked for clarification on the preservation priority and whether it was primarily to preserve NOAH or support existing affordable housing. Claire Goodwin responded that the goal was to make it as broad as possible to include the many ways to preserve affordable housing. She recognized that the kind of preservation project SKHHP funded in 2023 was not listed as a priority, so the priority was changed to include projects like Victorian Place II. Kathleen Hosfeld supported the language around affordable homeownership but recognized that SKHHP had no control over when jurisdictions would update their codes. She will work with Jason Gauthier to provide education about the legislative change to support jurisdictions that need to update their codes. Uche Okezie asked if all the SKHHP funding jurisdictions had to adopt the 80% AMI change for SKHHP funds to go to those projects. Claire Goodwin responded that some of the language used by the jurisdiction was specific to the RCW when the code was written, so it explicitly states that funds can only be used for projects serving up to 60% AMI. Some jurisdictions used Page 9 of 10 more flexible language and didn't need to make changes. SKHHP does need all the partner cities to make the change before funds can be awarded. Rumi Takahashi asked if this meant jurisdictions would have to provide evidence that they had changed their code or if SKHHP staff would follow the changes. Claire Goodwin responded that SKHHP staff would follow the changes at each city and provide updates as the application process moves forward. Last month, four members of the Advisory Board expressed interest in proposing Universal Design among the funding priorities; three were unsure, and two were silent on the issue. The Executive Board was interested in learning more about Universal Design before adding it to the funding priorities and requested SKHHP staff bring in developers to hear their perspectives and someone who can speak to the intent of Universal Design. SKHHP staff will be working on this sometime before early next year. Maju Qureshi asked if the NW Universal Design Council would be contacted by the Executive Board before the April 19 meeting to discuss Universal Design. Claire Goodwin responded that she offered to bring forward more research but was told it would be too quick for this funding round. Conversations about Universal Design are taking place among public funders, including King County. Uche Okezie asked how not including Universal Design as a priority would align with the Evergreen Sustainable Development Standards (ESDS), which the state uses, and which have Universal Design components as optional points in its funding application. Claire Goodwin responded that she spoke with a developer who had been awarded SKHHP funding in 2023, and they responded that they do include a lot of Universal Design principles in their projects. While it might not be directly asked in our information, the Combined Funder's Application does include some elements. Dorsol Plants added that the ESDS has a 50-point minimum, so a developer could choose some of the Universal Design elements to reach the fifty points, but there is no requirement or need to implement Universal Design to reach the threshold. Rumi Takahashi added that this should be a priority for SKHHP in the coming years, and one way to do that is for SKHHP to boost applications when applicants select Universal Design options listed in the ESDS. Claire Goodwin responded that the evaluation scoring that SKHHP does is used as one data point and does not determine funding awards in the way that some public funders use their scoring system. VII. ADVISORY BOARD GROUP AGREEMENT Dorsol Plants reviewed an updated draft of the Advisory Board Group Agreement based on feedback received at the February meeting. The agenda packet included a redlined draft and a clean version of the draft. Uche Okezie asked for a better description:" Actively bring all your responses from the first question to conflict management." Dorsol Plants responded that he interpreted it to mean that the Advisory Board discusses complicated topics, and it's essential to be thoughtful when discussing them as a group in a public meeting. Olga Lindbom asked if this meant something like "Ask to be Present" or "Just be Present." Page 10 of 10 The Advisory Board unanimously adopted the Advisory Board Group Agreement upon modifying" Actively bring all your responses from the first question to conflict management" to "Just be Present." VIII. UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS Dorsol Plants informed the Advisory Board that the survey results related to the best day and time for the Advisory Board showed that a majority supported maintaining the Advisory Board meeting on the first Thursday from 3:30 to 5:30 PM. IX. CLOSING/ADJOURN The meeting was adjourned at 5:11 PM. Program Coordinator-SKHHP