Jun 07, 2021 City Council on 2021-06-07 1:00 PM (JOINT MEETING WITH DENTON HOUSING AUTHORITY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS)

Welcome to this meeting, the joint meeting of the Denton City Council and Denton Housing Authority. So we do have a quorum. It is 1.03 p.m. on June 7, 2021. And so I'll call the meeting to order on our end and then turn it over to Commissioner English. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, City Council. This is a part of the joint meeting. Denton Housing Authority meeting is now called to order. All the members are present and accounted for. And the time for our records is 1.04. Okay. And I think we are going to -- so Commissioner English, if you could introduce us to everyone, and then the floor is yours. I know y'all have a presentation from the city side. We'll defer our presentation to a later date in the interest of time, but just kind of want to meet everyone that you have on and hear from you, and then we'll have questions and discussion. Absolutely. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Cheryl English, and I am the chair of the board of commissioners for the Denton Housing Authority. I will introduce our board to you. Beverly Bryant is on the call. She is our resident commissioner. Joe Mulroy is our next commissioner. And Kat Jones is our other commissioner, as well as Diane Baker. Also, I'll be introducing our chief executive officer, and that's Sherry McDade. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to present information and programs about the Denton Housing Authority has. We have a -- I'm going to ask everybody else to mute. We're sharing a room. I'm sorry. I apologize. The presentation on the screen, I will present information about our DHA board of commissioners, also about the housing authority and our operations and programs, a little bit of information about our housing choice voucher program, which is our largest program, and then, finally, information about our affordable and workforce housing properties and development that we have. On the presentation, it gives you some information about a housing authority and how it's created. So the Texas Local Government Code 392 is how housing authorities are formed and created. And so the City of Denton passed a resolution to form a housing authority, and it says April 14, but we actually say it's May 1970. Again, the board of commissioners for the housing authority are all appointed by the mayor. The mayor of the City of Denton is the only one who has the authorization and authority to appoint these commissioners, and so that's how they are appointed by the mayor. The housing authority currently has an operating budget of over $3.4 million. We also administer over $18 million in housing assistance payments to landlords all over Denton County. We have 24 full-time staff persons. I could use 24 more. We have over 1,800 housing choice vouchers, or you'll hear me refer to them as vouchers, and we have over 800 units of affordable and workforce housing at five different sites. I'll talk to you a little bit about the housing choice voucher program. Our regular voucher program has about 1,526 vouchers. Ten of those vouchers are for families who are purchasing or buying their home. That's an option under the program. We also have 40 vouchers for veterans. It's a special program that HUD has for veterans. We have a mainstream voucher program that's for non-elderly disabled families. We have 192 of those vouchers. We also have some tenant protection vouchers, which are special vouchers that HUD assigns to a particular property because the owner of the property previously had a HUD contract and those families had rent subsidies, and because that contract is going away, they issued those families vouchers. HUD contacted the housing authority and asked us to administer those vouchers and get all those families leased up, so we received 78 of those just in the past year. We recently received 40 more vouchers for an emergency housing voucher program, and I'll get into a little more details about that program a little bit later, but it is a special program and a very unique program for a housing authority to get the opportunity to administer. That gives us over 1,876 total vouchers. Those are all funded through HUD. A little bit about the housing choice voucher program. I could talk all day, but I won't. I tried to give you a little bit of the main points of the program, but we start out with a waiting list, and currently we have over 2,700 families on our waiting list, and so once those families come up to the top of the list and we have some funding available, we'll go through an eligibility process and actually issue them a voucher. They are able to use that voucher to go out and search for housing in the open market in the community. We pretty much work within the Denton County, although legally our jurisdiction is the City of Denton, because we're a City of Denton Housing Authority. The landlords on our program, we have over 500 landlords that we work with currently throughout the county, and so the families are able to contact those landlords to find out if they will accept their voucher and enter into a housing assistance payment contract with the Housing Authority. Once that's done, we review and approve their request. We inspect the unit. We make sure the unit is within the payment standard and that the rent is reasonable, and we have to ensure that the unit does pass inspection. Once we enter a HAP contract with the landlord, we assist the family with the rent based on their income, so a family pays about 30 percent of their income toward renting utilities because there's a utility allowance that's included in that. The Housing Authority, we do not currently have a family self-sufficiency program, but that's something that we're working on currently. Just a little bit, I think I said the Housing Authority administers over $18 million a year in payments assistance to landlords on behalf of the families we serve, but we also earn an administrative fee, which is what we use to operate the program. For each voucher that's leased up each month, HUD pays us a fee for administering that voucher on behalf of that family. The Section 8 program operating budget currently is about $1.7 million. Again, I mentioned to you about the Emergency Housing Voucher Program, and it is a very unique program for the Housing Authority in that this is the first time HUD has included fees and service fees that we can use to assist the families in their housing search. We can help them with security deposits and application fees. We can help them if they had any back rent or owe any old rent to a former landlord. Pretty much anything we can do to help or assist a homeless at risk of homelessness or someone who is a victim or fleeing from domestic violence or human trafficking. So those are the priorities and the eligibility for that special program. And so we will be working with the continuum of care that's in the city or the city as part of, and they will provide references or referrals to the Housing Authority for those 40 vouchers. Sorry. Next, I'll talk to you a little bit about the properties that the Housing Authority currently has. We have Pecan Place, which is a senior property that's over on South Lopez Street. It is a renovated hotel that the Housing Authority renovated into 24 units of senior housing. And so that's one property we have. The other one in the middle, the picture in the middle is Heritage Oaks, and it is the oldest property that we have. It's located on North Bell. There are 140 units there, but over the years we've had to shut down some of those units because they become unlivable and unrentable for seniors in the population that we serve there. And so right now it says 114. I think we may have 110 actually now. The third property on the end is Renaissance Quartz. That is the property that's located here near our office building, and it's the property that we built to replace the old Phoenix Apartments, if anybody remembers that. It used to be Dreamland, then it was Phoenix Apartments. Well, this is one of our first tax-credited properties that we did, and it currently has 150 units there. Our newer properties and newer development is the Veranda that's over on McKinney Street. There's 322 units there. Those are family units. It's a tax credit and bond development. And then our newest property, which is still under construction, is 270 units over on Brinker, 1851 Brinker Road. The next slide gives you a little bit more information about how old some of these properties are that we have and the number of units and what we used and how we developed them. This next slide is giving you a little bit of information about the income of the families that we serve. Primarily, our Section 8 program is going to be -- I apologize. If you've heard of area median incomes, those are the income limits at HUD sets for different areas. And DEN is under the Dallas MSA, so we have to go -- we're pretty much lumped in with Dallas. And so the area median income for Denton County is 89,000. And so if you'll look at the chart and you'll see the first line, it talks about the family size, but it also says income at 30% of area median income. If you'll go over and look for a family of four under that 30%, you'll see 26,700. That's the income limit for someone who is on our waiting list, waiting to receive a voucher. So if a family of four makes more than that, they would not be eligible for our voucher program. But if you go down and look at the 50%, 60%, and 80% of AMI, when we do our tax credit development, that's primarily the folks that get left out of the voucher that don't get assistance, we do our development primarily focusing for that income, although we do try to include some 30% units in our development to make them even more affordable. The next slide is talking about how we finance those tax credit developments, which is through the tax credit program, which is a state program. And there is a 9% tax credit program and a 4% tax credit program. And I won't go into a whole lot of detail with you today, but that's part of how we fund and pay to build affordable housing. We usually partner with a developer to build those units. The Housing Authority also has the authority to issue tax exempt bonds for tax credit development. And so we usually partner the tax exempt bonds with the 4% deal. Also included in that could be some private financing through the developer. And we can access or try to access some local federal funds, which would probably be your Community Development Block Grant funding, but we have not done that in the past. Just a little bit about addressing the housing needs here in the city. The Dent Housing Authority waiting list is closed. The reason it's closed is it takes so long for someone to come up on our waiting list to receive a voucher. And when your wait is three to four or five years long, there's no sense in just letting the waiting list sit there and grow. So the waiting list is closed. We have over 2700 families on that waiting list currently. Some information that I have was that the city's affordable housing needs and market value analysis report indicated that the city needs between 4 and 4,400 additional units over the next five years. So in order to create more affordable or workforce housing, whichever term you want to use, or housing for seniors for the handicapped and disabled, including veterans, then we're going to have to continue to utilize the low income housing tax credit program and work together to try to make the most for people in need in our community. I'll let Commissioner English talk about the next slide. I guess it would work if I turned it off mute. Okay. So DHH future plans to address Denton's housing needs, again, to address the needs of the family that we currently serve through our self-sufficiency programs and foster economic development. What you do know is that while we do have residents who are on our programs for assistance, there are opportunities for them to go into home ownership as well. So we want to continue to foster that. But if you saw the current real estate market, affordability, again, is an issue in order to use this program. But we'll also continue our case management services and resident services that we provide on each site and develop additional affordable and workforce housing to address the growing needs in our community, because it's not just low income. Now we have a whole workforce of people who are working at our nearby schools and businesses that also cannot afford market rate. So, and it is our goal to continue to rehab or replace our older housing stock. Like Ms. McDade mentioned, Heritage Oaks, that is something that we need to replace because it's older and the condition where we can continue to house people, that housing need is decreasing. So we need to replace that. And we'll continue to apply for any new housing vouchers or any special programs that come available that would be able to help and supply the needs to our families and our citizens here in Denton. But I guess the last question is that we as a housing authority have is what's the city's plan to address the housing needs in Denton? And how can you assist DHA in meeting the needs of the families that we serve and low income families in the community? That's the end of our presentation and I will be happy as well as the commissioners to answer any questions regarding the presentation. And then if you want to have a discussion, I think the mayor will probably lead a discussion with the board of commissioners. But thank you. Great. All right. Okay. So before we get into, so questions from city council. Council member Byrd, then council member Armitage. Thank you very much. It's good to see you all from the department of housing authority. I have a question. What's the average stay on assistance? What's the average stay for individuals? I don't have that information in front of me. I can get that information for you. Or once a family has issued a voucher, as long as the housing authority is assisting them with $1, they can keep that voucher. And for the sake of simplicity, a voucher means just an amount of money that you receive on a monthly basis. Is that connected with the rise in the cost of living? How does that work? The amount, the voucher has an amount that's set by HUD and it's based on the fair market rents or payment standards. And so each year those are reviewed. And so it's going to go up and it's been going up. But again, the portion that the family pays with the voucher is based on their income. Okay. So if their income is already low and they lose their job, let's say they're a service worker industry individual and they lost their job for COVID, then the emergency vouchers, that's when all of that keeps in? No, ma'am. If a family who currently has a voucher, if their income changes at any time, they can come in and report it and the housing authority will adjust their rent again based on their income. And if it ends up that the housing authority has to pay all of their rent, that's what we would do. And also is there a, I saw where you said, I saw where it listed that there were people to assist them, counselors and people like that to assist the residents. Is there like a requirement for them to get retraining that may up their job prospects? The families on the program are not required to have any money or income. They're not required to go through any type of job training or services or anything like that. But what we find is that if we can provide some opportunities and some training to some families, even if it's helping them get their high school diploma, it's going to better them, better their community and better their family all over. And so that's something that HUD doesn't provide funding for that. But when we talk about the properties and the development that we have with the tax credit program, services are required to be included in that. So at the sites and at all of our sites, there are services and programs to help and assist those families. How are the individuals responding to that? Do you get good response from the people that are using the service? Usually we do, and not everybody that lives at an affordable housing property needs any services. Most of the families have jobs and are working. And so sometimes just having a banking class or a financial budgeting class at a moment or point in time, that is a help and a benefit to them. But it's hard to tell, especially because of COVID with any numbers, with everything being shut down. But the services always are there. And so the biggest benefit at the properties is for the children, the afterschool programs and help with homework and tutoring programs at those sites. Those are the biggest programs. So you mentioned something about Fair Oaks and Heritage Oaks and it sounded like you all were stating that it's not useful for the seniors there, but would it still be a viable place if we were, if you all, or we were to choose to do something else other than having seniors there? Is it something that other families might be able to use? That's certainly an option, Councilwoman Byrd. And that's something that the Dent Housing Authority Board of Commissioners would have to decide. And so, you know, I would certainly want to look at other possibilities. If it's not viable for seniors, what we can, what could we do to make it viable for families or, you know, build something else there, even if it's still for seniors. But there certainly are some options that the Housing Authority will have and we'll be discussing those later today. So there is a chance that the facility may stay, or are you talking about building a new facility on the site? None of that. We haven't, that's something the Board would have to decide. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all my question. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Armitage. So first of all, I want to thank everyone on DHA for all you do. I heard you mention that HUD doesn't provide funding for the additional assistance to families that you all provide. And I think that's something that a lot of the public doesn't realize, that a lot of what you do is on a shoestring budget, even though it might not look that way. So I want to ask, you know, this number of 2,700 families on the waiting list, that is stunning. What can the City of Denton do to help you reduce that? Because if the funding isn't coming from HUD and the apartments aren't there and the funding isn't there, or maybe the apartments are there but the funding's not there, surely there's something we can do. What can we do to help either in, you know, increasing the work we do with you or in removing barriers? And additionally, I'm curious how many of those are actual City of Denton families? Maybe they all are, maybe just some. Thank you very much. Probably over 80% of the families on the waiting list are residents of the City of Denton. We actually provide a preference for residents of the City of Denton above anyone else who applies. Now, just so you know, anybody anywhere in the country can apply to get on any waiting list anywhere. And that's one of the reasons why years ago we've always had a preference for the residents of the City of Denton. The only way, I don't think we'll ever eliminate our waiting list and, you know, that's just being realistic for everybody. But what we all could do to help and assist is to continue to develop and build affordable housing. Because you probably know this, a lot of people, most people do work. The majority on our program, they have income and they pay a portion of their rent. But everybody is at a different situation or a different stage and sometimes they just need a little bit of help. And so I think that our programs do that. I don't think people get on this program thinking I'm going to stay here for the rest of my life. I don't think that's anyone's hope or dream. But it certainly would help and assist the housing authority and your support as a council in a city for more affordable housing, whether they're at 50% or 80%. Now everybody seems to maybe have a definition of what affordable is. All we all can do is go by what the rules and the regulation and the state and the federal law say what affordable is. So we'll continue to try to work to provide housing for, that's affordable for folks here. Our waiting list could be double or triple if we just kept it open, because myself and my staff, we receive emails and calls and requests daily for people who need affordable housing. And I'm sure you know, because of COVID, it's just doubled and tripled. And it's very difficult. It's humiliating sometimes, but it humbles me sometimes to talk to families who, you know, they just need help. And I have to tell them that, you know, our waiting list is closed and I'm not sure what to do. This program may be there that so you're sending them all over the place. So we're hoping to bring some of those services in house and provide some help and assistance for based on what we're doing. And if there's a way we can create a program in house to help families instead of sending them all over. I apologize, I may not have answered your question. No, no, you did. And I thank you. And, you know, I want to thank and encourage, you know, council members to meet with, you know, with Sherry McDade. I learned so much from you about the way this this system works. And, you know, there are so many misunderstandings out there. And, you know, knowledge is power in this respect. But I was wondering that just one more question that the 500 the list the 500 landlords. Is that list of landlords public? Is that on the website? How can people find out? No, okay. So is that on the website is not that it's a public list. When someone gets a voucher come to our program when they get a voucher, we can provide them with a list of available landlords who have some properties, but it would be useless to give them a list of 500 landlords and only 40 of them had some units that are available. So we tend to narrow it down when we're trying to help and assist families. But usually, we have a lot of private landlords who only have maybe one or two properties. That's probably the majority of our way a landlord list. But usually if an apartment complex accepts a voucher family, if they're able to, that will probably take others. Thank you very much. That is really good to know and following up on that. Is there anything that you're aware of that other cities might do to, you know, incentivize or encourage in some way, landlords to get on that list? As a matter of fact, the new emergency housing voucher program provides some funding for landlord incentives. Because when you're talking about the homeless population, they're very sensitive group, and they probably have, you know, some issues that might not allow them to lease or rent a property. But if there's some kind of way we can give that landlord some type of incentive to get them to take a chance on our clients so they can, you know, they can come off the street, literally, and be housed. Now that program provides that, but our regular voucher program does not provide that. So that is excellent. And is that a HUD program that this HUD or a HUD grant that the city could apply for? Or is that something that we're already doing and I'm not aware of? No, the housing authority was one of the, one housing authority in the state of Texas and all over the country. There was only a few of us who received these special emergency vouchers. And so with those special vouchers, there are 40 of them, came those fees to pay those type of, as a matter of fact, we can even pay for a renter's insurance using those funds with that special program. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, CEO McDade, not just for presenting today, but for your career length dedication to working on affordable housing and debt. And I'm going to note that I took Council Member Armitage's suggestion three years ago to meet with you. You're very generous with your time then. I'm glad that you're, you know, coming and speaking with the full council today. And one of the points that you made then that really made an impression on me and encouraged me to help join others in advocating for City Council to develop an affordable housing strategy was the waiting list. And I wonder why, or if you could help us understand why the waiting list is closed, just because it's a fact that stands so persuasively and that kind of tracks the need. I mean, now we've kind of measured it a different way, you know, with this consultant, but can you help us understand why the list is closed, even though you wouldn't be able to help more than you do if it were open? It's pretty much just our industry standards. And what we find, Councilman Messer, is that it's almost hopeless for people to be on the waiting list. And it's four, five, six years. And so they, it's very frustrating to them knowing that they've been on there for so many years. They'll continue to wait. They keep checking in. We keep updating. We open the list sometime throughout the year to take on new applicants, but it just becomes so big and so many applicants that the wait is so long. It's very discouraging to our families. So that's one reason why I don't like to just keep it open forever and ever and ever. If we get any special programs or special funding, we certainly open it, publicize it, and take those applications in. Just to let you know, one of the last times we opened our list, it's been a couple of years ago, we probably took in almost 5,000 applications in two weeks. So we have quite a few that are waiting. But I understand and hear what you're saying, that if you just kept it open and you just, it will give you a truer picture, I guess, of the number of people applying and the assistance. >> Okay. Any other questions? So I have, let's go Councilmember Beck, then Councilmember Davis. >> Thank you, Mayor. Are there any drawbacks to being on the waiting list? Are you precluded from joining other programs if you're on the waiting list? >> No, sir. Anybody anywhere can apply to the waiting list. What happens is as they come to the top of the waiting list and we start going through the eligibility process, some people may not be eligible because of income. That's one of the first things. And also, if they have a certain type of criminal history, they would not be eligible for our program. >> So are you able to process any of those -- I mean, I understand the point you make about the discouraging, you know, if you can't get a property for five or six years. But do you get any efficiencies if you go ahead and process -- I guess how far do you process down the list in your normal course of events when you're trying to streamline and get people into properties more efficiently? >> The process specifically about the housing choice voucher program is that HUD says we have 1,526 vouchers. That's what's considered a baseline. But they also only give you X amount of dollars. So we juggle the amount of dollars based on how many people are -- you know, how far in the list can we go. We'll bring in, say, 50 people to determine eligibility based on the funding that we have available. And so we're trying to get as many of those people eligible and qualified. What we run into, just so you know, is that if I call in 50 people, maybe 25 people may respond. And of that 25 people, maybe 15 or 20, sometimes less than that, 10 people would be eligible for the program. So we give out those 10 vouchers and let them go. They have about 60 to 120 days to search for a unit. In the meantime, we're still trying to balance the funding. So we may call in another group. So we try to -- we look and see how much money. We figure out about how many people we can give a voucher to, what the money is going to be. And so it's a juggling act month to month. >> That's very informative. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> So we'll go Councilmember Davis and then Councilmember McGuire. >> Thank you, Mayor. Ms. McDade, I really appreciate the opportunity to hear from you and in your role. But I also wonder since we have everybody here, if there's anything the individual commissioners would like to share or, you know, especially things that they would like us to know as the Council and something we may not know about DHA or what their role is with DHA? >> That would be great. >> I'll go first. One of the other things that -- we have an echo here, so we're trying to fix our technical issues. One of the other things that most people don't know is that, you know, DHA partners with United Way and some of our other nonprofits, as well as trying to -- when we collaborate, as far as I think Councilwoman Byrd mentioned, services. There are other services that we collaborate and other boards that we work together with so that we can have those services and provide. We did a -- we had some development funds that we sent to United Way and they distribute those through other nonprofits so that we could have programs where they -- if our residents wanted to go for certain types of certifications that can bring their income up so that they could transition off the program on higher wages and those type of things. We also provided scholarships through the Denton City -- I mean, sorry, not City -- the Denton Public School Foundation for kids whose parents are on our program who graduated from high school and are off to college. So, you know, even with the housing choice vouchers and developments, there are some partnerships that go on behind the scenes that a lot of people don't know that we partner with United Way. We partner with Giving Hope. We partner with Denton County Friends of the Family. We are partnering with these people so that -- these organizations so that we can make sure that we can do our part as far as eradicating homelessness or helping getting into a place to stay. I will say as a realtor by profession, and I hear this in my marketplace, when it comes to Section 8, there is a lot of nimbyism that goes on and that's not in my backyard. So when we talk about landlords being on our program, I think one of the things that people don't know is that is probably the thing that takes the most for our clients is to find a landlord that will take their vouchers because there is a lot of discrimination when it comes to vouchers. And in the area, you know, there are some places where they want to live or a landlord and they'll be -- the HOA will specifically say we don't want Section 8 vouchers holders or you to rent to people with Section 8. And that is becoming a problem. That is another form of discrimination that, you know, we have been seeing heightened lately. So, you know, for some landlords, it is a guarantee. Make sure that they'll get their rents because it will come from HUD. And for some people, they have just heard that, you know, these people on Section 8 are deplorable. They don't work and all this other stuff. And that is not the case. These people are working-class families, sometimes two jobs or low-wage earners, big families. There are so many different scenarios. But, you know, that needs to be said and that needs to be heard. That is one of our biggest struggles as a housing authority. When we do get these vouchers out, it's finding landlords who will participate in the program. >> Okay. Do you have any other commissioners who want to speak? Councilmember McGuire, I have you. I'm just going to circle back. I'm going to cycle through for Councilmember Davis's questions. Commissioner English, any other of your members want to speak? >> Do we have any more commissioners who would like to add to this conversation? >> Okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure at any time, if you do, just let me know. So Councilmember McGuire. >> Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank you all again for coming and speaking with us today and for the incredibly important work that you do for our community. It's obviously very, very badly needed. So we appreciate you providing this service for our community. I have two questions. I want to make sure that I'm correctly understanding kind of the interplay between like the number of vouchers that you're able to administer and the dollar amount. If there were more availability, if there were greater availability of affordable units and if units were more affordable, do you feel that you would be able to stretch those dollars farther and serve more clients? >> I'll go ahead and answer you. Thank you very much for your question. And appreciate the opportunity to get to see you again. And I would like to invite you to come to the Housing Authority so I can show you some of the properties. But because the federal dollars are so restrictive and the income limit that we can serve with those dollars, the ability to build and develop additional affordable housing outside of that federal money is where we all need the help. That way we can help a better income range of families and you have a little more diverse housing stock to be able to serve low income families. >> Yeah. I think I hear where you're going with that. Well, I guess maybe I should split that into two questions. Both, I'm asking both about properties that DHA administers and also just increasing stock of affordable housing in general, including housing that's not administered by DHA. Would that also be helpful in terms of your ability to stretch those federal dollars? >> Certainly. Certainly. Because when a -- another -- any tax credit development that's built, they have to accept the Section 8 voucher, but there's not enough of those vouchers. So we don't have to be the only ones who are building and developing affordable housing, certainly. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Yeah. That does answer my question. And then my other question was about VASH vouchers. I know that Ms. English brought up the issue of sort of source of income discrimination against clients who are using Section 8 vouchers. And I know that under state law, that is sort of explicitly legal. There's not much we can do about that. But I know that there is sort of a loophole for VASH vouchers. Do you find that -- first of all, you do administer VASH vouchers as well, is that correct? >> Correct. Correct. >> Do you find that your clients who are using VASH vouchers are running into the issues that Ms. English was addressing? And would it be helpful if we passed a city ordinance opposing that type of discrimination? >> They probably have just as hard of a time as regular families because they usually come with different other issues that are going on. And so it would certainly be helpful if something like that were out there because it would certainly help all the families that we serve. But yes, our veterans, they do still have a hard time finding units. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any other -- before I circle back around, I think that's everybody. So it makes sense. So let's go. Commissioner -- pardon me, Councilmember Byrd, Councilmember Armitage. >> I almost lost my train of thought. I'm sorry. My question is, understanding that the client needs to find their own housing and you give them a list of -- and you give them a list of landlords or land managers or landlords to connect with, and they're on their own when they do this? They're the ones that make it work? Or do you all interact? >> I'm sorry. Housing authority staff can and do assist them in the housing search. We kind of just usually go through the newspaper looking for landlords or we know properties that were previously a voucher holder lived there, if they moved out, we stay in contact with that landlord to see if they'll take another family. So the staff is constantly working with families and landlords to try to keep a unit available to let another family go back in it. Some of the families that have a difficult time, if they have special needs as far as reasonable accommodations or handicap assistance, we certainly work a lot closer with those families on a regular basis to help them search. So we help them with their search. >> So the bottom line in your experience and opinion, what is really the problem here? What is the problem -- don't tell me what the problem is. What is the answer to the problem? What is -- what do we need to do, specifically? >> Denton needs more affordable housing. >> Okay. Thank you. >> More units. More buildings. >> Okay. Oh, and one other question about the Brinker -- the Brinker apartment complex over there is beautiful. I would like to live over there. >> Thank you. >> Now, you said there were 270 units there? >> Currently. And only 50% of the property is affordable. The other half is market rate. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Councilmember Armitage? >> Yeah. I just wanted to piggyback on Councilmember McGuire's question about income discrimination in housing and the veterans vouchers. I just wanted to say for those new council members and for the public who might not know, last year, maybe even the year before, I brought this forward as a proposal to council to take advantage of this loophole that we have to protect veterans against income discrimination in housing. So staff has done the kind of preparatory work for -- work for that. I kind of remain confused about exactly what the status of that is, you know, why that has not come forward. I think there was misunderstanding about whether -- including on my part about whether the then council majority had decided to go forward with that or not. But, you know, I would be happy to pick that up and put that forward again or maybe Councilmember McGuire or somebody else on council wants to do that. I want to also mention that that loophole applies not only to VASH vouchers, but to all veterans who are -- qualify for affordable housing even if they don't have a VASH voucher. So if you have veteran status, you could be protected by that loophole. But I really thank you for pointing that out because people aren't aware -- I wasn't aware that income discrimination on housing is actually legal in Texas. I don't think it should be. So I look forward to the day, you know, when everybody is protected. But for now we can protect veterans, so I think we should. >> Okay. Any other thoughts, questions from councilmembers? Councilmember Betten. >> Thank you, Mayor. So in trying to figure out the best lever to pull, which gives you the biggest lift, should we be pushing on incentives for property owners to open up their properties or is there a better -- to get to the goal that you said of getting more doors. You know, that's the goal. What's the biggest best lever that we should be pulling? >> Approving and accepting developers from across the board who are trying to build and develop affordable housing in Denton. Your processes, your zoning, your requirements, sometimes those are difficult. Maybe easing up on some of those restrictions and barriers would be a great help. As far as landlords, we have a really good relationship with our landlords. I'm not -- you know, certainly not saying pass a law and pass a rule that says everybody in town has to accept the Section 8 voucher. But I think that we as a housing authority also could do a better job of, you know, engaging landlords and asking them, you know, whatever they're -- you know, if they have a problem, why they're not accepting Section 8 vouchers. But I think that our biggest, biggest problem is there's not enough. I know there can never be enough. But a person shouldn't have to feel bad or inferior because they have a Section 8 voucher or they live in affordable housing property. And I apologize. One other thing. All the affordable housing cannot be in one part of town. It cannot all be in District 1. Look at your studies, look at your reports. That's not fair to anybody. That's not giving anybody a chance when you put all the poor people in one area of town. I'll get off that soapbox. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate that. >> All right. And so let's go Coach Baker and then we'll -- I'm sorry, I can't call on Coach Baker, but I'll call on Coach -- I'll call on Commissioner English to then recognize Commissioner Baker. Y'all are both muted. Sorry. >> All right. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> I am -- I've learned a lot in my little bit of time. And I've learned out how complex this is all. But my concern as a new Commissioner is that senior housing and we're lumping family housing in with senior housing. And I have learned that we have very low -- we need senior housing. And when we build something, so often the units are so much bigger for the housing for the families and very small for the seniors. And I think we have a large obligation to take care of our seniors in Denton, Texas. And so that is a concern that I have. Anybody want to -- I mean, I'm the rookie of this group, but that's where my concern is. >> Okay. No. So I'll defer to you, Commissioner English, if any of your other commissioners want to speak to that. >> Cat or Beverly. I'll defer back to you, Mr. Mayor. >> Okay. I see -- >> I have a follow-up question regarding that. >> Sorry. I have Councilmember Meltzer and Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer in queue. And then I see Cat Jones. So I'll defer to you, Commissioner English, to recognize Ms. Jones. >> Commissioner Jones. >> Yes. I am actually new as well. I did see that my main concern was the seniors because of, you know, what I saw visiting the different properties of -- they are hungry. You know, the conditions. I wouldn't want my grandmother, you know, to -- I want Laura in the best place possible for her health and safety. So that was my main concern. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm going to defer back to Mr. Gray. If you don't mind, just specifically about senior housing. One of the oldest sites that the housing authority has is that senior housing site, is the heritage property over on bail. The commissioners who have visited that site and some of the council members who visited, one thing you saw was the heart and grit of those seniors and them telling you about how much they love where they live. And it's because they appreciate it so much. But as a housing authority and as a city, yes, we can do better. And we will. We'll have to do better. Senior housing development is one of the priorities that we have. Now, you'll notice that two of my board members are very new. I think they may have only been to two or three board meetings. But they saw right away what the need is and was. So replacing Heritage Oaks and building additional senior housing is definitely at the top of our list and is something that we're working on as of today. >> Okay. So I'm going to go Mayor Pro Tem Melcher, then Council Member McGuire. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> CM, I did a couple of things. The name of the project is escaping me now. I imagine you know what it is. But it's about a block east of Mingo that is senior housing. It's kind of attached single story apartments. >> It doesn't ring a bell with me, the specific name, but there are some other tax credit housing development in the city. And I just can't recall the name off the top of my head. >> All right. I assume that was part of you. Actually, I just pointed out as one that when I have visited seems very stable and successful, at least as a visitor. What I wanted to ask you about was having totally heard your point about not concentrating affordable housing in just one area, I wonder what your perspective is from studying the field and being engrossed in it on the desirability of mixed income housing versus entirely affordable projects. >> My preference, I would certainly champion more of a mixed income type of development instead of all affordable. Also in certain neighborhoods and communities, you know, I understand what a homeowner or real homeowner occupied real estate does and the income that it brings into the city. But there are also people that live in those neighborhoods who can't afford to purchase or buy that house. But they still should be afforded or given the opportunity to live in those neighborhoods if possible. Certainly I know the land costs in some of those districts are going to be high. But those families and those childrens of those families can go to better schools, have better opportunities, and they'll see other people that are doing better things and home ownership and things like that. And so I always will be in support of more of a mixed income type of development. >> Thank you. I was inclined to agree that I'm not a perfectionist. Appreciate that. >> Okay. Councilmember McGuire. >> I think my question was already answered. Oh, no, no, no, it wasn't. I'm sorry. I was going to ask -- sorry. There have been so many questions. I was going to ask if someone on the DHA board could expand on the particular needs of seniors and how those might be different from the general population. >> Well, I'll do that. More importantly, the seniors need the services that we provide on those units. I know someone, I think it was another commissioner, talked about when we build a bigger unit, a family structure along with the senior structure, and they're so big, those senior structures, when we do tax credits, they're still at a particular income. So to make the deal make sense when DHA does a development and we have a multifamily as well as that, that offsets the financial aspect of it because those seniors are on fixed incomes. Okay? But we do provide services for them, and those are vital. We have those now. I would like to see, you know, I would like to see more, you know, like with Heritage Oaks, it's so spread out, and they love it there, but if we could get something that's a little bit more condensed, and we've seen some things so that, you know, they're a little closer, but they have monthly meetings and birthday parties and resident services, and we have some health providers that come in and do regular checks, and those things are vital. Those are, they're vital for them, you know, because some of them aren't as mobile as others, and so those are the particulars. Okay, excellent. Any other questions from Councilmembers? Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor. So we've talked a little bit about vouchers and landlords a little while ago, and I'm wondering if there's a publication or an easy guide or something that either y'all put out or HUD puts out for landlords. I've talked to some landlords who prefer to work, say, one-on-one with a veteran, maybe offering a lower rent for a certain amount of time or something like that, or one-on-one with someone who is exiting services, rather than take on the bureaucratic side of a voucher, you know, rather than taking on some of the additional federal requirements that go with the vouchers and administrating those. They can kind of control things better from their side. Is there something available for landlords, especially those kind of smaller-scale landlords we're talking about, that guides them through the process or shows them how they can make that process easier from their side so that they're maybe more inclined to accept vouchers? I believe, and maybe your city staff can let you know, there are some programs that are out there, I'm sorry, that some type of a barrier span for landlords that might help them, maybe if they want to work with someone who does not have a Section 8 voucher, but we do have a little handbook. We have some information that's on our website. It's not updated, but there's some information on our website, and there's certainly information on the HUD site for landlords for the program, but it's not like I could give a landlord the name of a veteran and, you know, tell them to go work with that particular veteran if they're not already on our program and have a voucher. Sure, sure, I appreciate that. I guess what I'm looking for is a lot of folks think that vouchers just spend like cash, that you can just go to your landlord and give them a voucher just like you would hand in a rent check, and from the landlord's side, it's pretty involved and can be, it can be discouraging, as I'm sure you know, for landlords to get into that bureaucratic process of accepting vouchers. I'm just wondering if there's a publication out there specifically addressing that issue, helping landlords understand how they could get into that process in a streamlined way that maybe it's not as onerous as they're worried about, because it can be very daunting for especially small-time landlords without a lot of resources to look at a involved federal process and all the inspection requirements, the slowdown and turnaround of the unit, all that kind of stuff can be very discouraging. Is there anything to help them get over that hump and become more willing to offer these units on vouchers? The best way for a landlord in that particular, I'm sorry, is to contact the housing authority and let us talk to them, but I'll let you know that the majority of our landlords are small landlords and landlords with one or two units, and so the process for that landlord is nowhere like it is for the process for the family with the voucher. A landlord just has to decide that they'll work with a voucher family, they get to screen them, they get to decide if they want that family to live in their unit, and they sign the contract with the housing authority and we pay their rent through direct deposit. So the process for the landlord is nowhere near what it is for a family, but we would be willing to work with any or talk to any new landlord themselves. Can I just say one thing Councilman Davis also, as far as the VASH vouchers, they work, those veterans work through the VA and then they're referred over. They have a wraparound service that is a requirement in order to qualify for the VASH voucher. So to, you know, if another landlord wanted to streamline that process and not go through that, then that would in some instances make that particular veteran ineligible for the voucher because they're wraparound services that go along with that. And then I thought I saw Commissioner Ellis, yeah I think I saw Commissioner Mulroy seeking to get your attention. Okay, Commissioner Mulroy. Oh, sorry, muted. I can't see him. I think he may be muted. You're muted, Jeff. Yeah, I think he's getting ready to click it. How's that? Can you hear me now? All right, there you go. All right. Thank you for recognizing me, Cheryl and Mayor Husband. So just a, I know we're getting close to winding down, so I would just like to offer a comment or observation and it's nothing we could possibly flush out in this meeting, but just a thought for the future. Without question, Denton will not overdevelop past our need for affordable housing, okay, and the future as far as we can see ahead practically will always be behind in affordable housing. The two public agencies that have the most to do about that is Denton Housing Authority and the City of Denton. And the housing authority is empowered by the government code to go on the path they're on trying to develop workforce housing, etc. And the city has a lot of data and they're part, they're not individual developer, but they have so much to contribute as far as land planning, land use, and zoning, and impact fees, and then trying to disperse developments throughout the city, which has been talked about to some degree. So my suggestion is these are irrefutable, but we should perhaps think about having a small working group that has a continuous communication between the housing authority and the city council, be it via one or two members and some of the planning staff, that we can have a look ahead, a two-year look ahead, a five-year look ahead, a 10-year look ahead, discuss possibilities, probabilities, and discuss the barriers in the impact fees and the land planning, and not to ask for any immediate waiver, but how do we get a direction that makes it more amenable for developers to come and build affordable housing. So there's, my point is there's a, there's a lot more communication to be had than what we can accomplish in this meeting, and I just hope that we can find a basis to have an ongoing discussion between both agencies, and you know, we have a shared goal. We just have to have shared information and figure out how to do our two, five, and 10-year programs together. So that's a suggestion for the future, and thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Any other council members? Okay, so my, my thoughts, and so I have some notes here, and I think, and so this would be kind of directed from me for the, for the commissioners, as I'm going to work with staff and try to do this regularly. So as a subset of that working group that, that Commissioner Mulroy mentioned, it was, I have a note that I really enjoyed this opportunity to meet. Obviously, I mean, we, I think we went about three, four deep on questions, so that kind of is an indicator that we need to do this regularly, you know, so that we can kind of share those learned experiences, etc. So for me, I think what I, what the, an overarching theme I'm hearing is awareness, right, and help, where we can help and plug in and those sort of things. You heard that, you heard Councilmember Davis talk about landlords and how to update and how to redirect those sort of things, and so my note to the commissioners would be, one, these are things I'm going to follow up with, with staff, so give you a heads up. So I would like to know the status of the website rebuild. So those, some of you are new, but it's been a couple of years in the works, and so I, so right now, the City of Denton, for the council members that don't know, posts the agenda for the Housing Authority Board, and so I think we need to transition that. So I would like to know about the website status and how, what that turnaround ETA is from the commissioners. Meeting dates. I have, I've been trying to answer questions from citizens just like Councilmember Davis and others that have, hey, how do we get people plugged in? And I looked at the current website, but I couldn't give people direction on how regularly the commission meets, so I'd like to, if that's part of that website update, or just if you could kind of regularly keep us up to speed on the dates so that I can disseminate that. The past agendas I appoint, as it was stated, and so it's tough for me when people ask, well, again, when do, when do we meet? What are the discussions? Can I get comfortable with the subject matter? And there's just no agendas, no videos, and so that's my other question for the board is agendas, videos, and minutes. Where are we with those and kind of what can we do to help? I mean, you tell us, the City, how we can help plug in. You know, we're already working with you with the agendas. Let's figure out a way to bridge that gap with the, so that people can tune into the meetings, because that's a great way, again, to raise awareness and get information out that says, hey, we have a need, landlords, we have a need, property owners, and here's how you can help, here's how you can get plugged in, and so I, we need an easier way to speak to those things. So, and then I absolutely hear today the talk about the senior mix or attention to that, or services is another thing that came up, services for seniors, but again, so my request to the board is, hey, send that down the line, send us what services are successful, and that'll dovetail into my next ask is kind of so that we can evaluate those deals that are coming, so it's great hearing this information, so if a deal comes to us and says, hey, we need to approve this, and here's the services that come in it, and so we can understand senior services as a priority based on what was said here, and this new organization is coming to build a property that offers these services, well then that then says, okay, aha, we can connect there and work together and push that project forward, or at least weight it accordingly, right, absent this conversation, we would know to weight those senior services higher in certain instances, so just kind of, if you can give us that information, and I think another note I have is, early in the presentation, you touched on Pecan Place Apartments, and obviously that you own the property all around there, so the synergies is, here's what I see, and then, but it's just a conversation, right, so Pecan Place Property, then there's the building, and then there's a property around it that you own, so Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer regularly talks about the drainage projects we fixed, and then brings that area out of the floodplain, so here's another area for us to work together to say, how can the city partner with the Housing Authority or a developer, a three-way partnership, to develop that property, or, you know, and activate that, it may be commercial at the bottom, and then use that to subsidize the housing at the top, whatever, let's get creative, let's talk parking garage, it's a revenue generator, I don't know what the rules are as far as what properties can, what the revenue generation constraints are, but let's have that conversation as a group, and it kind of meets our joint goals, and if we continue to talk, we'll be able to shake those out, and then, let's see, making sure I got it all, and I guess the other thing that I've asked my council members, no one really touched on it, I know some, we have some new members as well, but I do want to use this opportunity to briefly touch on kind of what jumps out at you, so if the Housing Authority brings forward a project, I think it's important for this body to communicate what, how do we evaluate those tax-free deals, or what warrants a waiver of tax, to say, hey, if a project has this mix or meets this constituency, then I see that validates to me the waiving of the tax rate, or that makes it worth it to bring those type deals forward, or just what general kind of components of a deal are important to you, so that we can convey that, so that as the Housing Authority are evaluating deals, they know kind of where at least this group falls, and can kind of speak to that, and say, hey, you said this was a priority of yours, it's baked in here, I don't understand why it's not going forward, so those kind of, if, you know, once, once, if there's other, give you a moment to think about that, but if there's kind of insights on what drives you to say, this is worth it to me, then I think that would be important to share in this initial meeting, and let's see, pardon me, why I had a bunch of notes that I can't read, because I wrote too fast, but, and I will pick up where one of the commissioners left off, I think that there's something to be said for city staff, here's my, here's my note, I think if there's an opportunity to meet where Councilmember Davis touched on, if there's a way for us to bridge the gap, so if there's a landlord that needs help with paperwork on the back end, and that gets someone housed, if the city can meet that need, if there's a department that has that flexibility, or maybe it's a walkthrough, because it sounds like it's back end work for the most part, or if there's anything we can offer around that, that seems like a real low barrier to get people, if they're willing to take on a voucher, and we're willing to take on kind of the reporting side of things, or at least offer that, I don't know what that entails, but I'd ask us to look at that, and then I think the fee waiver, versus, so development fees, permit fees, versus waiving of tax conversation, I think Commissioner Mulroy kind of touched on some of that, I think that is noteworthy to me, kind of to evaluate that, those differences, and weight those, and see where we can help, because maybe that gets the project going faster, you know, so for those that don't know, for example, you're getting outside of the box a little bit, the Habitat community that's being proposed has about $1 million in infrastructure, so that's a tough upfront cost, that maybe the city, if the city partners with the Housing Authority project, and assumes some of that upfront cost, maybe that gets shovels in the ground faster, so I'd be interested in seeing where there's areas to work and help along those lines, and then the other things I'll just say, that are notes, and then I'll get out of the way, there's noted a work group kind of creation continues, so staff, if we can take a look at that, and see if there's an opportunity for a kind of a working group to work along together periodically, in addition to these kind of quarterly or biannually meetings of the commissioners, and then the only other thing, average stay, so that was Councilmember Byrd that asked that, so that's a follow-up that'll come back as to the average stay of a resident that that question was asked, and that'll have to come back, so that's what I had in my notes that may be missing something, I'll follow up in an email, but just wanted to, that's kind of my takeaways, and then I'll one more time open it up to my council, turn it over to everyone else, I see you, so Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer, Councilmember Byrd, and Councilmember Back. Yeah, the sort of big obvious thing that, you know, we haven't touched on because we didn't see the staff presentation yet, is that, and this might be, you know, entirely new to new council members, is that we engaged an affordable housing consultant, who did the assessment of what the need would be, identified types of tactics, and then they've been commissioned to go off and come back with a set of prioritized recommendations to solve for the number that they project we're going to need, and I believe that presentation is due in August, kind of looking at Danny for indication, August? Yes, we have tentatively scheduled for August for that presentation of strategies that are selected from the process. Carlton Stone, August Kent, so I would suggest that would be a perfect opportunity for us to be together again, even though it's like real soon, maybe good because it's real soon, that presentation to be to the to the joined bodies, that would be my suggestion, and that way we can hear, you know, feedback from the DHA perspective, you know, as we're getting those recommendations. That's great, it goes right along with working together, you know, sharing data that was mentioned as well, so thank you for that. Council Member Burge. I am thinking about these companies that we are approving to come in, and they know to us that they are bringing in high-end jobs, and they're also, the last one I think that we spoke to noted that they have jobs where people won't have to have specialized skills to get into some of these, some of these high-end earning jobs. So, you know, the other thing that we can probably add on to that is, you know, maybe the economics part of that. I think I had, I know for sure that I touched on that a little bit earlier about, you know, the opportunities for the services. I went back into the services to see if the, if there's ways that these people can, these individuals can move up into their economic status, you know, their class. So, with that being said, I think that this is also a great opportunity for us to, whenever we are interviewing these companies, to come in to see whether or not they'll be in on providing certain jobs to certain individuals that qualify, and just to keep that in mind, that's going to be in the back of my mind the next time we have an opportunity to do that. But I also want to talk about Ditten for just a moment, if you all give me just a 30 seconds here to talk about the flavor of Ditten and what we're espousing to the entire country to come to us, and we're this and we're that, and we are finding that the median job is $81,000 because we're kind of lumped in with Dallas, but the underbelly of that is that we have a real, this is just a middle, low to middle class, you know, city here. We're living in a fantasy world that there are a lot of people out here that are making high-end jobs, and this is a place to be, and we have big houses, and we have nicest, and we have luxury, and all of that, but the reality is that we are struggling here with, you know, just the types of businesses we have here, our state, you know, state agencies that don't pay a lot of money, and, you know, I'm thinking about the supported living area. I'm thinking about Texas Women's University, just the average income of these state jobs and these county jobs and these municipal jobs. Everybody just doesn't pay a lot of money, so I agree with and I understand, and I'm very happy for the, you know, people that are working, but it's just not enough money to live in those really big, beautiful homes that we are just so proud of around here, so I'm all for this. I just believe in affordable housing. I live in a house that I can afford, and I was able to pay it off, you know, in 20 years instead of the 30 years, and I just think that, you know, included in that part of getting out of this process, those services to help people understand how to do that, so I'm just looking forward to, I'm looking forward to making it work, and so I'll be quiet with that. Thank you for the opportunity for letting me speak on that. Thank you, and that takes us to Councilmember Beck. Yes, thank you Mayor. I'm going to say that I'm really glad that I have a point of agreement with the Mayor on this. I think his idea of having more of these working group and plugging in at different levels, you know, I could see the Mayor has his amazed face on a little bit right now. I completely concur with him, and that is, I think the more that we can synergize between these different groups is great, and so I was going to recommend that kind of following along with Commissioner Mulroy's point and Ms. McDade's point, if we could follow along and have a similar working group, or at least a tutorial boot camp session with planning and zoning commissioners, I know a bunch of those are coming on board that are new, maybe the DCRC would be a similar plug-in point, because if these issues are front and center over the people that are making the rules, the people that are implementing the rules, then that makes sense that they would have that in their mind. So I completely concur on that one. Thank you Mayor. Excellent. Thank you, sir. Any other comments? Councilmember Amater? Yeah, three points that have been already touched on. I want to concur and add to that. One, Mayor Hutzpeth, your point about waivers and the program that we have that helps to mediate somewhat the expenses for affordable housing in a very limited capacity. I support what I understand at least to be your suggestion that we discuss expanding that. I very much support that. I was the one who brought forward initially a affordable housing waiver program for city fees, and that morphed into, through our democratic process and consensus, a limited fund that applies only to owner-occupied housing. I think it's really important that we expand that to, of course, include owner-occupied housing, but to also include all other forms of affordable housing, including apartments. Second, I want to just add my support to the suggestion, Mayor Portemelter's suggestion, that DHA be a part of the discussion in August with our affordable housing consultants. I would also love for somebody from planning and zoning to be there, maybe that was the plan already, because now we are getting in these conversations two discussions about how our zoning laws can both positively and negatively affect affordable housing availability. That leads me to my third point, finally, which is about desegregation. A lot of people don't realize that the creation of HUD and the creation of the Fair Housing Act, it was not just about providing people with housing they can afford, but specifically about desegregating affordable housing throughout the United States. I just want to concur with Sherry McDade's point, and this is a point that others on this council have made before, about making sure that all of the affordable housing in Denton, or even a majority of it, is not just in one district or one part of town. It's really imperative for desegregation that we remove barriers and increase incentives to get various forms of affordable housing, including that missing middle into neighborhoods that have less affordable housing right now, and in some cases, none. I think this will involve a lot of overcoming and re-educating people about what I believe Board Member English referred to as that NIMBY factor that a lot of people have, misconceptions people have. Anyway, I look forward to having that discussion about zoning, and I encourage everybody to keep the mission of desegregation close to our mission of housing affordability, because that was the purpose of HUD, the purpose of the Fair Housing Act, and that's how we can make Denton a better and more inclusive place. Okay, Council Member Davis. Thank you, Mayor. You asked a couple of particular questions that I want in your thoughts that I wanted to respond to. One of those was what makes a project more attractive to me as a council member, an affordable housing project. There's a lot of intense calculation that goes into it on the back end that we then get. This is a property that's not going to be fully on the tax rolls in some cases. Sometimes there's other city involvement with it. For me, it's really important that if we take that step, that the city is in one sense giving something up from a revenue sense, that to me, it does not look, feel, or seem like affordable housing, that it seems like from all intents and purposes, market rate housing, because I think what we talked about before, that we don't have a concentration of places all in one part of the city, that we don't have just one type of income level in a property. I think that's really important for everybody, not just for the folks that live there and their personal dignity, but also for the folks in the neighborhood around, you know, that we don't have that kind of NIMBYism, because it's just a regular place to live. It just happens to offer opportunities for a certain segment of the population. I think that really helps with our neighbors as well. I know when I'm talking to folks in District 3, some folks are against any kind of apartment expansion. Some folks have a more nuanced view of things, but those kind of things really help that conversation for them to understand what our goals are with that kind of apartment housing and that trade-off with taking it partially off the tax rolls. I also want to echo the mayor on something that's maybe a little bit less comfortable a topic, but that is transparency. When we talk to folks about affordable housing, it's an important issue, not just to the folks who have trouble affording the housing that they're in already or finding affordable housing. It's important to their neighbors as well. You could talk to any member of this council and know that it's a priority for this council to provide more affordable housing in Denton, especially as we grow. And when I get questions about it from the city side, I can point very easily to something that Danny's staff has produced or something that's been on the council agenda before, a PowerPoint presentation that's loaded up with statistics and things. And then I tell people that we have a housing authority as well. Y'all might not know, I'm a little more familiar than most council members in my seat before with the housing authority. Years ago, my mom worked for the housing authority back in the Phoenix apartment days. Those were the kids I kind of grew up playing with over there when they all went to Hodge Elementary with me before Rivera was there. And when I talk to folks in this community who are concerned about affordable housing and don't know we have a housing authority, they don't know what the housing authority does. It's kind of a black box process that they don't have information about. I think it would behoove everybody to have just a little bit more transparency into the housing authority operation so that we can tout the benefits, so we can talk about all the things that we're doing together in the partnership that's been there for many, many years now. I would like to be able to point people to those meetings, to those agendas, to the same kind of data that I know our staff produces for us, that your staff produces for y'all. I'd like to be able to share all that, and the more we can do to get that information out there, the better. Okay, anyone else from council? Okay, seeing none. Commissioner English, anything y'all have on your end? That's a long list that you gave us, but I'm sure that Sarah will send us a long email so that we can answer those questions, and we'll be happy to do so. Okay. I'm trying in my head to answer something real quick that you said, but it... I'm sorry. Yes, and we look forward to the work groups where we can collaborate and bring those ideas so we can have a more cohesive relationship and so that your council knows more about housing authorities. I will say that it is a complex subject. It is not an overnight process to learn everything, and typically what happens is once somebody's on council, you have two years to learn all this stuff, and this is just one more complexity. So it takes a while. Also, when that email comes over, I'll send back some books that might help kind of understand that we're reading as a housing authority the complexities of housing and Section 8 that are out there. It is very complex, but it is doable for us to work together, and we'll get you that information as much as we can give you as a federally-governed body. But I do know that when the agendas are sent over to Danny when we have the meeting, as they were when Barbara Ross was here, those agendas were always sent as well as the dates were set because we have to post those publicly. So we'll get that information to you, and again, Sarah will send over. We'll answer those questions and get back to you, and then look forward to reconvening at another time and picking up where we left off. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank... And so, yeah, no, enjoyed it. Very informative and lots of good discussion, and so look forward to continuing that. Thank you to everyone, not only the commissioners, but in your organization that makes everything go. I'm grateful for their time today. Don't take it lightly that they have to take a break in their Monday, so thank you very much for their accommodations. And with that, I will conclude our section of the meeting at 2.38 p.m. And the Housing Authority Board meeting is now concluded as well at 2.38 p.m. Great. Okay. Thank you all very much. And so for my council members, we're going to stay on this Zoom link. Just give us 10 minutes to reset, and then we'll come back in. We have some other stuff from our council member meeting we got to pick back up. So give us... And then for my board, you'll exit out and then you'll go into the other link provided, and we'll go into the next meeting as well. Awesome. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.