Albemarle CPMT Charlottesville CPMT Joint Committee Meeting Minutes Thursday October 6, 2022 Present: Katie Ralston, Tammy Johnston, Christa Galleo, Erin Callas, Misty Graves, Ryan Davidson, Ashley Marshall, Kaki Dimock, Ellen Krag, Kevin Kirst, Sue Moffett, Angela Bracey, Lisa Jordan Guest(s): Matthew Murphey and Dave Norris – Piedmont Housing Alliance Absent: Jennifer Wells, Mary Stebbins, Martha Carroll, Neta Davis, Andre Key Quorum for Albemarle: Yes Quorum for Charlottesville: Yes Call to Order: Misty Graves, Charlottesville Chair called the meeting to order at 9:11 A.M. Introductions: CPMT introduced themselves to Matthew and Dave. Matthew and Dave introduced themselves to CPMT. Agenda Item: Review & Approval of the Agenda/ Acceptance of Consent Agenda including Minutes, Financial Reports including Foster Care Expense Reports & FAPT approved expenses Presenter: Chair Discussion/Summary: Misty asked for motions to approve the consent agenda for Albemarle and Charlottesville. Next Steps/Action(s): Ashley Marshall made a motion to approve the consent agenda for Charlottesville. Erin Callas Seconded. Tammy Johnston made a motion to approve the consent agenda for Albemarle. Ryan Davidson Seconded. Both motions passed. Agenda Item: Presentation Presenter: Matthew Murphey and Dave Norris Discussion/Summary: Dave Norris passed around flyer for Piedmont Housing Alliance. Discussed core services of the Financial Opportunity Center and Housing Hub. Discussed eviction prevention and their goal to step in with case management, landlord communication, and financial assistance to prevent eviction. Dave Norris introduced Matthew Murphey. Matthew says the primary role of Piedmont Housing Alliance is to help individuals find affordable local housing – there’s a lot that goes into that. Big question is why people aren’t getting housing. Matthew asks members of CPMT why people aren’t finding housing. Answers from several CPMT members - lack of housing, rent is high, competitive market, background check issues, security deposits, income, number of people living in household, previous rental/eviction history, transportation, health challenges… etc. Matthew pulled stats from last 100 calls received and said 9/10 people are 60% AMI. Most landlords want to see 3x the rent and rent is high. He continues by saying that only 7% of our rental market is under $1000 and most people want/need that. They can’t afford anything else, so options are limited. Fixed income folks are struggling the most. In the last month, Matthew said he had 5 people that had housing vouchers and lost them because they couldn’t find anything within the parameters of their voucher. He mentions that localities are sometimes given a bit more for vouchers depending on the market. So, folks with city vouchers can’t get housing in county and vice versa. Matthew’s stats showed that 32% of people that called are homeless; 28% on SSI; 15% prior eviction; 12% unemployed. He continued to discuss the way in which he goes about helping people and suggested that there are sometimes things to resolve before being ready to apply for housing. He says the difference in people who are looking vs finding housing is the people who are looking for housing only make $2000 a month, while the people who are finding housing make $3200 a month. We need to build housing, but that takes time and people need housing now. People ask about private landlord lists, but that isn’t practical. Landlords started calling asking to be taken off the list. Since COVID, people are struggling to get in contact with people that can help them/answer questions. Dave Norris asks - what does the conversation look like if someone calls looking for housing, but they have low income, poor credit, etc. Matthew Murphey said his best advice is to get on any waiting list you can. Try to get any assistance wherever you can. Try to increase income if possible. It’s very specific to the person. Katie asks for those who can’t afford to live in city, does he help to find housing in other counties if they’re willing to live elsewhere. Matthew says he tries the best to find and suggest housing in other counties, such as Greene, Louisa, Waynesboro, etc. but is unable to assist those who are asking about Richmond and surrounding counties because he is unfamiliar with those markets. Erin Callas asks how soon do people reach out for help? Matthew says he doesn’t hear from too many that are in the process of or in immediate danger of being evicted – those would go to eviction prevention. But he talks to a lot of people that have just been through an eviction. Matthew also mentions that people are typically not finding places through online sources but are more so finding housing by word of mouth. Katie mentions a conversation with program sub-committee about church programs or other programs that provide rental assistance. Dave Norris says they are always trying to find those pots of money to help people. Deposits for first month’s rent is a huge topic – a lot of people don’t have that saved up. Misty mentions that word on the street is that Charlottesville is “resource rich” and people will often refer them to move here because we have resources and money to help them. Which is unfortunate for us because then we have a bunch of people showing up from other counties or even states looking for housing and do not find it. Dave Norris asks - how do we incentivize landlords to take a chance on these renters? Considering making promises/providing funds to landlords that they will have/be given the money to fix up property if it becomes trashed. Also looking at renter education programs. Erin Callas asks about 2 bedroom fair market rate which Kaki said is much lower than what actual rental prices are. Ashley and Sue mention how fast rental properties go –they are typically on the market for 2 hours – which only makes it that much harder. Misty thanks Dave and Matthew for coming. Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Informational Agenda Item: Local policy revision (city/county) – virtual FAPT Presenter: Katie Ralston Discussion/Summary: Local policy revision to allow for FAPT to continue to meet virtually. FAPT had a conversation about what’s going well with virtual meetings and what might not be. Both city and county FAPT concluded that it’s all going well, so they wanted to keep doing it virtually. Local policy update is needed to allow FAPT to continue to meeting virtually. Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Ashley Marshall made a motion to approve the local policy revision for the City. Sue Moffett seconded. Erin Callas made a motion to approve the local policy revision for the County. Ryan Davidson seconded. Both motions passed. Agenda Item: Provider Agreement Revisions (city) Presenter: Katie Ralston Discussion/Summary: Provider agreement revisions for the city – changes were sent in addendums. Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Sue Moffett made a motion to approve the provider agreement revisions. Erin Callas seconded. Motion passed. Agenda Item- FAPT Update Presenter: CSA Coordinators Discussion/Summary: Katie says that FAPT is approving a lot of hotel stays for clients. Requests come for several months at a time, but FAPT does not feel comfortable approving funding for a 6-month hotel stay– they want to make sure they are being fiscally responsible. FAPT wants CPMT feedback. Tammy says that asking for an update is appropriate. For example, approving 2 months at a time and then checking in. Sue says that hotel stays are better than homelessness but the challenge for service providers is to make sure that the case is moving forward in some way – which isn’t always easy. Kevin asks why people wouldn’t come to CSA for funding if they can’t find housing. Katie mentions CSA regulations and whether hotel funding is consistent with those regulations. Kaki mentions if it’s a bridge to permanent housing than yes, but the question is whether CPMT is willing to defend the practice. FAPT feels like there needs to be awareness surrounding the issue, especially since we are seeing it more. Kaki agrees with Sue and says when it comes down to family wellbeing, a hotel stay is much better, but they should have access to more guidance. Misty says if we approve it for 2-3 months, we aren’t going to say no to approve it for more time, but we need to be held responsible for helping to check in and move the case forward. Katie agrees and mentions that she doesn’t think other localities are as forgiving as we are. Erin asks if there are certain hotels they use and Katie says we are starting to run into a problem where hotels are saying they aren’t going to take our clients anymore because they are causing damage, or they won’t hold rooms for clients if UVA events are coming up, etc. Misty says hotel stays are not sustainable – we would hate to put more work on case workers, but we must find a way to move toward a more permanent solution. Sue says case workers need education on housing and what’s available, so they can be of more help to their clients. Kaki mentions progress vs perfection, which means taking one step at a time to move towards a more permanent solution. For example, starting with building credit. Ashley says that education is helpful because Matthew from PHA had mentioned that he’s getting referrals for people who don’t yet have the qualifications to be helped by him specifically. So, making sure you’re referring your clients to the right place for help is important. Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: N/A – Katie and Jennifer continue to work on gathering data on hotel stays and housing. Agenda Item- CSA Coordinator Update Presenter: CSA Coordinators Discussion/Summary: Katie continues conversation about parental copays. She reached out to other localities and got mixed responses as to how they all go about it. One locality has a collection procedure that establishes a copay for parents – if they didn’t agree to pay then they didn’t do anything. If they agreed to pay and did then great. If they agreed to pay but didn’t pay, they still didn’t do anything – that was the simplest process. Some localities provide a financial sheet to fill out. Some have a waiver form. There are a lot of different options. Kevin mentions we’ve tried scales before – it came down to philosophy and what if they don’t pay? Then what do we do? We aren’t going to say no to providing services. We aren’t doing to go to court to deal with that. There became a struggle to strike that balance of asking for copays but still providing services for those that aren’t paying. They ultimately decided to do away with it. Misty asks, are we being good stewards of taxpayer dollars? Katie says, before we were using DCSE and Jennifer talked to the attorney, and they said it needs to be a sliding fee scale, so we are trying to make sure we are following the Code regulation. To have staff to go and do all this – is the cost worth it? We will do the compliance piece but not hold people accountable for not doing it. We would need some sort of internal form to be able to document. Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Katie and Jennifer will working on drafting a policy for CPMT to review. Agenda Item- Program Sub Committee Update Presenter: CSA Coordinators Discussion/Summary: No discussion Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Tabled for November meeting Agenda Item: OCS Communications Presenter: All Discussion/Summary: No discussion Next Steps/Action(s) Taken: Tabled for November meeting Agenda Item: Discussion and Engagement- Chair Rotation/Succession Discussion Presenter: All Discussion/Summary: No discussion Next Steps/Action(s): Tabled for November meeting Agenda Item: Discussion and Engagement- How has recent community violence impacted your agency? Any recommendations for supporting staff? Presenter: All Discussion/Summary: No discussion Next Steps/Action(s): Tabled for November meeting Misty Graves, Chair for Charlottesville CPMT, adjourned the meeting at: 10:32 A.M. Next scheduled meeting: November 3, 2022, at 9:00-10:30 A.M. in person meeting will be located at 5th Street County Office Building in Room 231 within Social Services area. Respectfully Submitted: Tayler Ellis