Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee.

I think we have a meeting next week, I believe, if not the week after, to kind of put the finishing touches on that. So that program is moving forward. I'm also happy to say I know Monique is here and others who have been, really everybody's been ardent advocates around the Right to Council program. This is a program that, again, many folks in the room have advocated for, worked closely with city council several years ago to actually have this program be enshrined in the city code. Given the city's budget constraints, the 1.3 million dollars that was originally in the city's general fund in the office of community development budget this year, we learned around May that we were not going to be able to fund that full commitment out of the city's general fund, really any of it, given how dire some of the circumstances are around the city's financial position. And so Laura and Alexis and the SLS team have been just incredible partners working through what I know is a challenging situation. And I'm very happy to say that in partnership with the city council, we've been able to identify the full funding for this year. We still have some work to do. I think, you know, there's a budget process obviously ramping up right now and we need to make sure that in 2027 we can do everything we can to support that program, given the incredible work it does around eviction prevention and supporting families before they become housing insecure or homeless or create so many other downstream challenges for the families most of all, the individuals most of all, but also for our communities. And so I'll just say the way that we solved the problem this year, the budget problem, was the OCD team was able to identify about $575,000 in expiring community development block grant COVID-CV money. And so I want to thank Madeline and Corseri and the team at OCD who worked really, really quickly, got a contract executed in record time to be able to at least secure those funds for SLS. And then I want to celebrate city council members, council member Morrell, Harris, Willard, McCarran, really, really everybody stepped up. I think SLS had meetings with every single council member, council member Hughes, council member Green, everybody expressed their support for the program and I believe it was out of some settlement money that council identified the remaining $750,000 or so. So that gets us through this year, which is a win. And we're excited for building on that and making sure that that program gets funded to the greatest extent that it can be. But again, just excited to be able to see that program continue making the impact that it does every day. I actually got to attend an eviction court day with the SLS team and it's just incredible work that they do. It's truly, truly incredible. In terms of other updates, I think we've all heard the news on the multifamily front that the Prime 4 opportunity at LHC was actually canceled last week. And there were at least two projects that our office was tracking that were, I think, very good fits for that program. And so it's really unfortunate that that program has been either paused or put on indefinite hold. We are working to figure out ways to support the projects that we're applying for those funds. But as we know, gap dollars for multifamily projects, and frankly, one of the projects was a great scattered site project in the Lower Ninth Ward that Mr. Neville was working on, Blueberry Hill 2. These projects were relying on those gap dollars. And so I think it just adds even more urgency and underscores the really tough challenges that we're faced when we're in a resource-scarce environment. And so we're hopeful that that opportunity will be restarted, but we don't have any line of sight on that. This does not impact other projects that I know we've talked about extensively here. This doesn't impact Royal Maisant or Barone Lofts. They were not awarded or in the running for Prime 4. They had different capital stacks, to my knowledge. And so those projects continue apace. We've given those projects a deadline of closing by the end of the year. There are some other interim milestones that I know those projects are working towards and are trying to close even sooner than that. But we're working on supporting those, but they were not impacted by the Prime 4 fallback or cancellation. I think those were all the report outs that I wanted to note here. If y'all have any questions or thoughts, happy to discuss those, but I think those were OCD's updates. Any questions for Mr. Schwartz? Just one, Jeff. On the project, the Maisant Royal and the others, where the funding has been approved, has that started moving to those projects also? So not yet. So all of those projects, we've issued award letters. They all need to go back to get to the closing table, get to their financial closing. And so we are working closely with them on when those draws would need to happen. But for both of them, they wouldn't need their initial payments until later this year or in 2027. Some funding may leave before the end of the year, but some will remain, carry over another about two years. That's exactly right. Into 2027. That's exactly right. And how many projects did you... Go ahead. How many projects didn't make it with Prime 4? Like how many were canceled out? That's a good question. I haven't seen yet. Usually, typically, LHC will publish the award rankings. They'll publish the list after they've done the scoring. What happened in this situation, they haven't done that yet, or they, I don't think, plan to. And so it's difficult to tell how many applicants they actually had. And this was all post-IDA impacted, or excuse me, IDA impacted parishes were eligible to have projects apply. And so we don't know how many projects in total were in the running. We are aware of two projects in Orleans Parish that we were tracking and supporting, and those will be impacted by this decision. Okay. Thank you. Of course.

As soon as that information is public, if they ever do publish at least which projects did apply, we will gladly share that information with the public and with the advisory committee. That would be helpful just so we know the extent of the number of units that were potentially made available. And pipeline. Exactly. Do we know what's going to happen to those two sites that we are aware of? It's a good question. So I know the Blueberry Hill 2 proposal was in cooperation, collaboration with NORA, I believe, all the lots that were there. So those are under public control, under an option to the developer to apply. So I think we have some more line of sight on what will happen there. There are, good morning Ms. Sabrita, there are, with the other site that we were aware of, it was a project that Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corporation and Zach Kupferman, Kupferman companies were applying for, and that was a multi-family project in District B. And I know they own that site, so I don't think it's like, you know, that site will immediately be sold to someone doing luxury condos or anything like that. But, you know, I think if Prime 4 is not going to be made available, I think for both of those projects, at a minimum, they'll have to, you know, figure out what an alternative path will be. Thank you. Of course. Anything else down there? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you all again. We welcome committee members. Mays. All righty. Thank you so much. Next we have updates from Finance New Orleans. Mr. Burns, Ms. Shivers. Good morning, committee members. Good morning. My name is Damon Burns. I'm CEO of Finance New Orleans, and this is Sidney Shivers. While we're pulling up the presentation that Sidney has prepared, and that Sidney and the staff has prepared, I'll just give you a few remarks on some of the things we're doing at Finance New Orleans as it relates to managing housing trust fund dollars. Firstly, we are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the strategic team to manage these funds. We've been working with Nora and many other of the key participants in order to make sure that this is a successful initiative and that it can be successful into the future as well. So a couple of things that we've done. We've taken some of our existing programming and adjusted it so that it could accommodate housing trust fund dollars, and that has allowed us to move fairly quickly, and we are certainly prepared to start deploying dollars. We've already put one program out to the public, the Smart Multifamily Program, with the Legacy and RE-UP programs to follow, which will help address fortified roofing on the single-family side. So all in all, we're moving forward with the programming. Other things that we're doing to complement the work and just going... Back to some of the instructions that were provided to us in the beginning of the process. We were brought on to manage capital, deploy the capital, but also recycle and leverage capital to the greatest extent possible. So we're trying to find the right balance between, just to put it short, getting free money out of the door and getting money out of the door that can recycle back so that it can be used for future homeowners or developers in the process. So we're finding the right balance with it, but at the same time, that's the recycling point, but also there's the leveraging aspect of it too. We're talking to some of our financial partners, philanthropic, public and private, to further leverage the housing trust fund dollars, and that can look several different ways. We don't have a lot of detail on how it will look just yet, but we have started having conversations around how can financial institutions, foundations, other interested parties, put more money into or leverage dollars on top of the housing trust fund dollars. Because while it is a substantial investment for us as a city, it's simply not enough to address all of the needs, and I think we all know that. So again, one of our charges was to figure out how to leverage and expand the capital. So those are some of the activities that are happening in the background while the team is working on deploying the capital on the ground, working with key stakeholders, working with the community to understand exactly what is needed, and making sure that our programs are usable and impactful for the program. So with that, I'll turn it over to Sydney, and she can talk about some of the more detailed aspects of what we're doing at Finance New Orleans to implement the programs. Thank you. Thank you, Damon, and thank you again, Trust Fund Committee, for hosting us this morning, and we're excited for what's to come. So we're just going to go over a couple of brief updates on where we are with the programs and receiving the funds. As Jeff mentioned, we believe very close this time to receiving funds. I think tomorrow. Tomorrow. You heard here first. Thanks, Liz. And so, yeah, thank you to Liz and the City of New Orleans team for coordinating and getting these funds out the door. It's been a learning process. But we, as Damon mentioned, are very excited to launch our programs that were allocated in 2025, the first time Homebuyer, the flexible roof programs, Legacy and Reup, which will receive an allocation of $500,000 initially, and the small multifamily construction subsidy program, which we've named SMART, which received a little over $3.3 million. So to date, as mentioned, we're in a really great place to really launch these programs and start making awards and closing loans. So as mentioned, here are the programs. We have Reup, which is a 0% or no interest loan for fortified roofs on properties with one to four units. We have been in conversation with the city about whether it would be necessary to provide funds to landlords at this time, considering the other rehab programs. This is really focused on owner-occupied and small owner-occupied rentals right now.

And then we have the Fortified Legacy Renovation Loan, which is a first and second mortgage product that we've been working towards launching with Eustis Mortgage. And with the Trust Fund fortified dollars, we will be able to offer up to $25,000 as a forgivable grant, along with some down payment assistance to qualified buyers to purchase and renovate a home while making sure that it is resilient and hopefully renders some savings for homeowners as well through insurance. And then finally, the Small Multifamily Loan, which is a forgivable loan for long-term, deeply affordable rental housing and owner-occupied small rental housing as well. And so here's the timeline for the Smart Loan thus far, just a recap of where we've been and where we're headed. So throughout the spring and summer, we did a lot of research and engagement around this and similar programs so that we were ready to start to put something together to share with partners, which is what we did in June and July. We attended several stakeholder meetings. We had a listening session with potential development partners that was open. And we also engaged potential lending partners to make sure we got feedback on those criteria. In July, we really put pen to paper using the feedback that we received and released the application on August 6. So just a few weeks ago, the application is now live. We did have an information session on the 14th that was very well attended. We have almost 20 attendees that morning of potential applicants. If anyone wasn't able to attend, we do have the materials from that meeting on our website and updated frequently asked questions and submitted questions on our website. The application will be due on September 11 at 4 p.m. And we're really excited to have a strong expression of interest pool already and to continue to see these applications roll in. And just a note up at the top, those applicants who are successful will have about 18 months to close on financing, complete construction, and demonstrate compliance with program requirements, including affordability, the resilience and energy efficiency features, et cetera, the rental, renter protections. So this is an ambitious timeline. We have 24 months to spend these funds, starting tomorrow apparently. So we are going to be working hand-in-hand with successful applicants to make sure that they're on target to meet those goals. And then finally, we have REUP and Legacy, our flexible, fortified programs. Similar process. We, like Damon mentioned, we secured leverage financing towards the end of last year for both of these programs. We've been doing a lot of market research in coordination with other fortified financing providers, including our partners at the Redevelopment Authority. We hosted a listening session that was open to the public in late May and have really been working diligently to cross T's and dot I's since then. We expect to begin officially doing intake, reviewing loan applications, and closing loans to get dollars on the street in September or October at the latest, and continue to deploy these funds throughout the implementation period. And so just to leave off, I think both administrators are taking this approach. We will be diligently updating our respective organizations' websites. So for folks that want to get updates on the programs, if there are any changes, we don't expect any, but some things happen, this will all be documented on the website for those respective programs. Any questions from the members? I have one question, of course I do. Can you tell me, Mr. Burns, for the Rainy Day Fund, how is that being invested? Is it in a portfolio in market or is it in a safer sort of investment? Or is it just, here it is, under our pillow waiting to be paid? Well, we have a couple of things going on. We have our funds in temporary accounts for now. Part of the leveraging strategy is to make sure that those funds are placed in the appropriate institution. We can also reinvest back into the Housing Trust Fund, so that's the long-term strategy. But in the meantime, it's in a temporary account, but we keep the money in short-term reserves. We have an investment policy, and it simply follows our investment policy, which is pretty standard for governmental agencies. But the short of it is we keep the money in short-term treasuries or comparable products or investments for the ultimate safety. We don't do anything too complicated with it. We're limited to investing the funds into pretty much treasuries and agency securities. We can't do stock market. We can't do alternative investments or anything like that. No crypto. No. Set it and forget it almost. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Alrighty. Well, thank you all so much for being here. We are excited about your program starting and looking to see the results. Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to serve. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. Last but certainly not least, our friends at the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, Ms. Breaux, Ms. Celestine. Ms. Celestine. Sit, Liz. We need you. Let me try. Oh, yeah. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning to the committee. Good morning to everyone that's in this room and those that are watching and will be watching. Thank you for the opportunity for allowing us to be here and more importantly for allowing us to be one of the two implementing organizations responsible to bring these dollars to the communities. So, as an update since we last met, good news. Thank you to EFNO staff, NORA staff, and Liz. The Office of Community Development, the Housing Trust Fund web page is up. You can go there, check it out, it provides for an overview, quick links to each of the respective organizations and the program pages for each. There is a note on there for upcoming events, news and contact information.

While this is our first launch of it officially, we'll be fine tuning it and updating it as needed to make certain that it's as responsive as needed, but it is up on the site, so please feel free to check it out. Again, thanks for the contribution for everyone who helped to bring that fruition. Just a note, I know it might be a little clunky as we call it when we're hitting the icons and bringing it to, but when you hit each of the respective organization's page and that program information, it will liven up a little bit, we'll put it that way. So just the status, Fortified NOLA gap funding updates, did all the agreements, been working with the Louisiana Department of Insurance, did our outreach, getting applications in. To date, we've got 36 applications received. I just want to note is that while individuals are getting, have been notified, yes, I want to participate, there's still a process that has to go through with the Louisiana Department of Insurance for them reviewing their application, making certain they are, but these are the ones who have applied to us. We've had some 36 in total, five that we've determined that are income eligible. The other 31 are progressing through either the LDI system or providing their supplemental documents to us to provide for income verification. The other piece that we still have is that we've had about nine to 10 people come to our office so that staff can assist them with uploading the documentation and the information. Those individuals who had issues, while we all love utilizing our iPhones, our handy gadgets, sometimes they don't necessarily interface with other programs. So with that, we've walked people through that, but we've had staff available, have the line already established, responding to calls, inquiries, any of those that we might get to address that. One new item that I'd like to highlight that is as a result of the Redevelopment Authority implementing the funds through these programs through the Housing Trust Fund is that we're going to have an industry day. Our industry day really is, the purpose is to bring our NORA ecosystems of developers, contractors, lenders, housing specialists, and community development partners in one room so that they can meet each other while we have this opportunity to put out all of these dollars here to the city, to our citizens. What we want to make certain is that there's a connection. Many of them have come to us and said, I'm a developer. I've been doing work. I've been doing this. I may not have all the members of my team who you all can connect me with. We want to set a platform in an afternoon on October 1st, time to be determined either between 3 and 6 or 2 to 5. We will blast that out through all of our networks, make certain that you all get it as well. Again, we want to connect stakeholders with others that have been doing this business, develop some levels of partnership, educate folks about the NORA programs as well, processes, funding, resources, all of that. Have a couple of rooms designated for panel discussion and presentation just so you can hear what the programs are, talk about them, answer any additional questions or other things that might come back. Also identify these programs that we're rolling out, facilitate connection. We hope to have lenders there as well and other professionals. Just create a space where they can all collaborate and connect together to really talk about how we implement all of these programs. That's something new that was not discussed at our last meeting. More to come on that, but the date is set for October 1st at Gallia Hall. Just want to update you all, our dates on our other programs have not changed. Our homeownership program, we refer to as HERO, still is set to launch September 30th. Again, the program highlights are there for expanding opportunities for developers featuring IBHS fortified roofing, increasing affordable homeownership opportunities for low-income homebuyers and programming. The timing of this really marries with the industry day as well. It's before we roll out any of our major programs. That's really important to us. We also are going to have, as the advisory committee recommended, that individuals could come to participate in that program with their own land. However, we will still provide NORA land and make it available. We know everybody don't have their land out there and sitting there holding land, but with that, we're still going to make that available for individuals if they want to do that. The owner-occupied roofing, fortified roofing program is still set to launch, again, November 26th. Again, that's to provide for increased homeowner resilience. That's for up to $25,000 per roof. We're excited about that and that being a complement to the fortified NOLA program, so it'll be able to address those others that are out there, and a small rental rehab program, rental investment and improvement program, RIP. We plan to launch that in January of 2027. We will still have a listening session in advance of issuing the RIP program and the owner-occupied roof program, although we did one listening session previously, as our partners with EFNO mentioned, we'll still hold one more before we release that solicitation. That's the update for what we have since the last time we met. Any questions for Ms. Rose? I have a few, not too many. For the first slide when we talked about the 36 applicants and the additional one, is there a deadline for people to apply? No, no. It remains open as long as they're on the LDI list. We know LDI is working through all of the applications for those who said that they want to participate in that program. Go ahead, Adrienne would like to add something. I want to add that they have 90 days to get through the LDI process, so we are encouraging them to apply as soon as possible so they don't miss the LDI deadline. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for that.

And you said that it's okay, there were nine people who walked in, so is this appointments or it's okay for people to be invenue, they could walk in? We'll take walk-ins. We've had typically people call us, they've walked through what their issues are, say they don't have access to a computer, we schedule a time with them, and if not, then clearly they can walk in. We have staff there every day to address that. Two people on staff who are assigned to do nothing but that. Okay. And my last question, this is, well, it's technically two questions, but the first one is a little more funny. So for the industry day, are we dressing up? Is this, you know, I'm just curious about the attire, but I'll let that one come back to that. And my other question is, going into next year, and this is just a suggestion question, I know that for the way we have things lined up, it makes sense, but for next year, could we maybe, just questions, this is just a question, could we, for the November deadline, could we have the occupied roofs maybe, and I know we'll have that listening session before too, but I think the hurricane season will be over, so I'm just bringing that up as like throwing that out there. Yeah. Absolutely. That's all I got. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Oh. You come as you are or as you like. Okay. That's the attire. Okay. Thank you. Come as you are. So it's not a workforce day. It's not like for workforce. It's strictly for the folks involved in development. Yes. Do you make connections to DBEs or others? Oh, absolutely. This is the one time that we want to make certain we get the word out, but more importantly, to encourage individuals who need to make that connection, who don't know, I don't have an architect. I've got this idea. I've got this land. I don't even have the money. I just need somebody to put together some drawings. That kind of thing. Okay. Are you working with the Office of Supplier Diversity to identify? Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Thank you. All right. I did receive a comment card, but it doesn't have an item number to address. So it's from Aquanet Bourne. So I don't know which particular agenda item you would like to speak to. Did you want to talk about a specific agenda item? Yeah. Can you go to the mic, please? Okay. Okay. What I want to ask, okay, like, you have these, my understanding that up to 150 units can qualify for this 2%. So now we have apartments in New Orleans East. We have Fontana Apartments and all that. So they get to be subsidized up to 150 units. So I'm trying to figure out, and I hope it's not a lottery system, we're not an individual who have homes, a small rental, when are we going to get funded to repair our home and how much each unit? Because there is a real estate company that's gone around and people are selling their units. I guess one thing is because tax, because they say if you don't live in your property, and even though you have freezes and age freezes, property value goes up. They send me a $2,500 tax thing for this year. So I'm like, this is ridiculous because you don't live in the unit. But the age, I still have the age. So there's a lot of things that are causing people to sell their property to this company here. And what they want to do is they want to buy it as is, try to force you to sell it, buy it as is. the benefits and rewards of repairing it. But I also feel that a lot of us didn't get our property done since Katrina. So I think really what y'all should start with is people who have not had any property or any money done, especially from Roeholm, to repair their units or their homes, because they've got people with homes that their units have not been repaired since Katrina. And this lottery thing is a trip, because the same people get funded over and over again. And the people who really need it, especially the people who did not get any money, hardly any money for Katrina or either, is being left. Well, thank you. Thank you for your comment. I would encourage you to speak with our program administrators, Nora and Finance New Orleans, because we've got a variety of programs for homeowners, for small rental property, and the larger multifamily. So they can give you more details on exactly the requirements for those programs, who's eligible, how you apply, et cetera, et cetera. We have to announce it on the news. We have to announce it on the news. I understand. I'll tell you that the folks, they are right here in the room for you to speak to. We can do two things. So the people who were just up here with Nora, before I leave, I'll make sure you have a phone number, an email, and a website. But what you're saying, and you're making a good point, that these things, people need access to maybe on the news and other ways. That's understandable. So I wrote that down, that there are other parts of this that you're explaining. Residents are feeling pushed out. And whoever this company is that you're talking about, they're not helping make this feel any better. So if there's another part to this that we missed, let us know, and we'll make sure you have that. I understand. But what I'm saying is that now that we have the information that we've come from, we've come from, we've come from, that if it ain't going to bring us to a good place, that we should be the ones that felt that we should be the ones that should know. Because they're in the know. You're saying that it's like a cycle. So people who know, they keep getting in. People who don't know. So we have to be just as aggressive to make sure that everybody has the information before, you know. And there's no deadlines to some of this. That's what I asked earlier. So it's good. And the same people not being funded. Because I think it's just like, I think what it is, when you do a library, I think these people are already selected who they're going to sit up there. This is my personal opinion.

Because it looks like it passes us by all the time. I don't think the library itself is fair. But I think they should start off, like I said, still waiting since Katrina to get their home. And a lot of programs they had for, a lot of people don't know, real home is for singles and doubles. Full plexes are a different program and investment property. So if people send money down here to help people in small unit, and it's into real home, the people in small rental unit is not going to get it because they didn't know that program was divided into three sections. So we have been, and our section closed real early. So we've been neglected all kind of, I feel, I feel violated. I feel discriminated against. And then by you, and you being a single woman and a black woman, this has been overbearing, especially people trying to push you to sell your property as is. Because my property is right there on First and Danielle Central City, OK? So especially certain areas, they're pushing you to sell your property so they can buy it as is. And think you're going to take a cheap amount for it. And then they're going to develop and do everything you could do to your own property if you get this affordable, the affordable money to renovate your property. We understand where you're coming from. Part of it is that there are programs that can help. So speak to the folks who are here, specifically, about what's available to you. I understand your concerns about what happened after Hurricane Katrina. I think Tasia spoke a lot about how we make sure that we can do whatever we can to get information to people who need the information quickly and more timely so they can get in the game before all the money is gone, if you will. And so we are here to help. And this is part of the Housing Trust Fund resources, are to fill gaps and to help people who may not have been able to get help in any other kind of way. Because these funds are a little more flexible than some of the other funding that's out there. So we appreciate your comments. But you're saying, y'all say go to the web. Because I have my hearing aids on and everything. So y'all say go to the website. And the thing is, everybody don't know. In fact, I just have a phone. And then the phone I had, they say they don't make them no more. And then they say they don't even make the parts. So I'm running around here with this 15 and 17. And I don't know what I'm doing. So why y'all not announcing things on the news or whatever to let everybody, not just select people, know? You understand? Yes, ma'am. No, we understand. We'll do better on communications. We have to do better on getting the word out about the programs, about our meetings. Phones, electronic means are the way that we can reach right now the most people. But we need to really continue with our agenda. Also, Ms. Lay, we need to find out about flat roof, about is there a fortified? Because somebody said they do fortify roofs. Ms. Aquanetta, so if you get one of these papers from up there, they have a list of everyone who spoke today. I know that. But I'm just saying, it needs to be heard. But this is how you connect, Ms. Aquanetta. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. A lot of things need to be said that is not said. And a lot of things that's said, you all don't want to answer. Because sometimes you don't know the answer. But it needs to be said and directed to whoever to answer. Well, I think that's some of what we're saying, ma'am. Respectfully, we're saying that we hear what you're saying. And they're here today. So the website now. And there are men here. Because the city council will be sitting up there. Because y'all can't do nothing until the city council prove it. And who is over? Ms. Harris. They're playing games with Ms. Harris. Well, you are correct about that. And we are here to hear comments and to make recommendations to the city council. At which point, you will also have an opportunity to speak at city council meetings to inform and see what you want to do about the way that this is. They meet every two weeks, ma'am. Every two weeks, ma'am. Green was sitting in here last time. That they had to come to the meeting. Green was sitting here last meeting we had. So why he had to sit here in the meeting last time instead of us having to go to the city council about a 2% trust that they're not even acknowledging because they're doing what they want. So in other words, you talk to the city council and tell the city council, since they have to prove it, that they need to have a 2% housing trust fund. So we can announce it on TV. That's because they don't want to answer all these people have. We thank you. So you make that recommendation. We appreciate that. And we work closely with, we meet with council members. So they're aware. And they do have to approve it. And they have meetings where those are specific items on their agenda. But we thank you for your comments. Because they're playing games behind your back. Ma'am, I have to keep moving. OK. They're playing games behind y'all back. OK. I appreciate that. We'll be on the lookout for that. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have another card. We have another card. This is also for item number two, Ms. Morgan Clevenger. Good afternoon, committee. Good to see y'all. To Ms. Acquanetta's points, this is not new. We have been advocates for a very long time before this committee was created. I think at this point, with the rollouts of the NORA and the FNO Housing Trust Fund funds for this round, we have very much need to prioritize a needs-based approach. And one of the problems is that, as Ms. Acquanetta spoke of, in previous city and state programs, people that need it the most do not find out about it until the money's gone. And it's a very frustrating, difficult. You're constantly having the rug pulled out from under you. You're diminishing hope. And people are living in very dire situations.

They're trying to hold onto that home for their children, their grandchildren. And so we're advocating that, as some of the eligibility is still being built out for some of these current programs, that we prioritize the needs-based approach. We do not make it so onerous that people can't access it. And that, as a communication piece, we really do the community outreach. I mean, recently, I tried to get up to 10 homeowners in the Seventh Ward into various nonprofit programs. And there were 70 in that whole round. And we found out, after weeks and weeks, none of it was funded, none of it. And our people are tired. They're tired of submitting their personal information. You know, oh, you've got to submit every detail about your finances and everything before we can even accept your application. So we need to do more community outreach, because we know that our people do not have internet. They do not have computers. They do not have access. So youth organizations like Native Women's Association, Proceeding Homeowners, the Great New Mothers, Parasol in Asia, there's many community organizations that can help with this process. But we need to stand up right now. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think you make a valid point. You both do. It's about having people have awareness about the programs. I know Nora and FNO do community meetings that are open to the public. Nora talked about one that's happening in a few weeks. And I think it's important that everybody understand that we all play a part in this. So right now, I'm live on Instagram. This is my personal page. I know other people who post about things, or they email each other. I agree about the Neighborhood Association. I emailed my, and I'm on my Neighborhood Association. So I let them know we have this meeting today. But I also understand that people are working. People, to your point, don't have certain phones and access. And a lot of these websites, thank goodness, are just getting up recently, this week, today. So I would charge everyone in the room to share with the people you know, with the community members you know. And if we could have a coalition, if we could have a Power Day, Night Out Against Crime is coming up. Like, all of. These are great conversations and flyers and things that we can continue to address together, but your voice has to be heard. So you have to have the conversations, but you also have to apply. Like, don't miss the part where you have to apply and call or do a walk-in. So this is not just saying that people should put this online and it's the only place. I'm agreeing that this could be flyers, this could be text messages, and if you have any other ideas outside of online presence, talk to people. Let them know. Get in contact with one of us. Tell us to come. We'll come and show up. That's all I got. All right. Thank you. And I do like the idea of spreading the word out to, like, the Council on Aging and other groups that can distribute that also among their constituents. And city council members, too. They all do newsletters. They all send out newsletters for their districts that are putting information there as well. That's electronic. I get that. It's another electronic. Mr. Ben? Eugene Ben? Good morning. Good morning. Based on the questions that have been thrown at the audience this morning, my question basically is shoehorned on this. How can the city incentivize owners of the 10,000 units currently listed for rent to convert this to project-based supportive housing units to meet our 10-year affordability goal? And part of that question also is on infrastructure synergy. How does the city's current infrastructure investment plan align with the 10-year development timeline for stabilizing this 40,000 total vacant units? And then part of that question also, the last one is, what regulatory or zoning variances are being fast-tracked for non-profit developers working to return this 20,000 distressed or vacant units back to the active housing stock? And is there a centralized real-time dashboard for non-profit developers to identify properties currently in a peer-needed category for potential redevelopment? I'm speaking for myself here, and I'm speaking also for the communities of hope which I represent here today. Because what the former lady said basically really speaks to a lot of the stuff that's happening in the city that needs to be addressed. And I've been here for 21 years. I came here to help rebuild the city with the Office of Recovery Management, and I'm still interested in making sure that we get this thing right in New Orleans. 21 years is a long time. I came here when I was on my 50th birthday. I'm going to be 72 very soon. So I would appreciate if somebody on the D.S. Well, thank you for your questions, Mr. Bennett. I don't have the answer to you right now on what zoning or other incentives are being done on the city. We can try to track that down for you and provide that information to you at our next meeting or in some other way. I have one of your questions here. If you can send me, write down something, your other questions, then we can get it to the officials to be able to get an answer for you. Thank you so much. I'll do so. All right. All righty. Our next agenda item is the presentation, discussion, and vote on our annual report that is a requirement due to the City Council and our progress. And then we also have a discussion on our recommendations for the 2027 Housing Trust Fund funding. Turn this over to Maxwell Giardullo, who has done a great job. We thank him for the work in compiling the report and doing the presentation for us. Thank you, Ellen. I actually just want to start by thanking everyone else. You know, we spent most of the last meeting sort of walking through our options and talking about sort of the existing programs and what our choices were. And we got really great feedback from folks at that meeting.

And I just want you to know we really valued that input and tried to implement that as best as possible here. So, you know, none of this is sort of possible without us all doing it together. And so I just wanted to start by thanking you all for that. I'm going to start with, here we go. These are the, just as a reminder, these are the requirements from the ordinance that we put in the annual report. The city's financial crisis meant that we got started late this year, so there's not much to report on numbers one and two as we expected. So our report is more focused on number three, which is the budget, and then number four, the implementation plan. That said, forgive me, I don't know why this is not, there we go. That said, our report does track the payments the city has made to the administrators for 2026 programs, and you can find the details on that in the report. This is the summary. So the city, as Jeff mentioned, has sent funds to both administrators for all the programs that we outlined in the 2026 budget. Nora has received those funds, and we hope that FNO will receive their funds tomorrow or shortly thereafter. And so that totals 8.8 million to Nora and 5.7 million to FNO. That's the first two rows there. The amendment that we made to the 2026 budget, which recognized an additional $1.5 million in funding for this year, the council should be introducing and passing a budget ordinance soon to allocate that additional money. And of that additional 1.5 million, 1.4 of it will go to Nora, primarily for the fortified NOLA gap program and the home ownership construction subsidy, both of which we added some money to. That's the hero program, sorry. And about $100,000 will go to FNO, and that's primarily for the additional part of the rainy day fund, because FNO is the keeper of that fund, as we mentioned earlier. And then these are your required allocations for 2027. The most important thing to note here is that we don't have a revenue estimating conference estimate for the 2027 general fund yet. So we don't know what the total amount of money the city is going to have in 2027 looks like, and the housing trust fund amount is based on that number. And the other piece is that even if we did have an estimate, it would probably be different from what the city council adopts when they pass the budget on December 1st of this year. So our report, rather than speculating, we are just using the 2026 revenue number as our best guess for 2027. It's probably going to be different, but we don't have anything else to go by. So whatever that number ends up being, 2% of it will be our housing, our 2027 housing trust fund total. So again, we're using 2026 numbers here. The 2026 number was about 800 million, which meant that the housing trust fund total in 2026 was about 16 million. So that's the estimate we're using. But for that reason, the report uses percentages for all of our recommended allocations this year. So that means, unless it says otherwise, if you see a number in this report, it's just an estimate. The actual dollar amount will end up being a percentage of whatever the final housing trust fund total is. And then the rest of these percentages here are governed by the housing trust fund ordinance. And so they're the same as last year. So it's 2% of the total general fund becomes the housing trust fund. 5% of the housing trust fund becomes the rainy day. 10% of the housing trust fund total goes to admin. That leaves 85% of the housing trust fund for program funds. So this year, that was about 13.6 million. If everything stays the same, it will be that much next year. And then for each of the three required program purposes, we have 15% each. And that leaves 55% as discretionary. So we'll walk through our priorities and top line allocations. As we talked about in most of our meetings, our top priority in 2027 is to ensure the city makes good on its commitment to the six multi-family affordable housing developments and avoids the loss of 372 units that could come on. And these are units that could come online quickly with that necessary funding. So that's what we outlined in our May resolution. And it's ultimately up to the mayor and the city council. Our best understanding is that that's the plan we're all following. So that's the plan that our budget follows. And we voted unanimously for that resolution back in May because it would be impossible for the housing trust fund to produce a similar number of units through small scale developments, especially on the timeline that those are moving. And because the alternative would mean the failure of those six developments, the loss of 372 units, and just a tremendous amount of wasted time and resources that have already been dedicated to their development. So part of supporting those developments also aligns with our goal of affirmatively furthering fair housing and resolving civil rights complaints. In particular, five of the six multi-family developments are located in high opportunity of gentrifying neighborhoods near existing resources and amenities. And the city, like most cities, has been pretty terrible at funding affordable housing in those kinds of neighborhoods in the past. So that's a big deal. Completing two of the multi-family developments, the Royal Mazant and Barone Loss, which you heard about earlier, would also resolve a 26-year-old fair housing complaint. So that's important to us. And then the next priority here is serving renters at lower AMIs, that's area median incomes. So essentially renters at lower incomes. And I shared some information in our last meeting about how most renters in New Orleans can only afford 40% AMI units, and renters in black neighborhoods can typically only afford 30% AMI units. So our goal is to ensure that more of the units that the housing trust fund creates can start to hit those targets.

And that looks like rents at like $800 a month, just to give folks an understanding of what that actually looks like. And again, the multi-family developments will do quite a lot to reach that goal, because many of them have project-based vouchers, and those cap how much a tenant's rent is at 30% of their total income. So that really helps. The last priority we have here is just topping up existing programs that meet significant needs, because everything got pushed back this year. We have virtually no data on the 2026 programs because they haven't started yet. And again, that's not anyone in the room's fault. That is the result of our budget crisis. So without any data, we're prioritizing existing programs that the administrators are familiar with, that developers are ready to apply for and that meet significant needs in the community. And so this is what the top line allocations look like. And again, these are for the three required program purposes as required by the ordinance. And so like we talked about at the last meeting, the current plan requires dedicating the maximum amount of housing trust fund funds to the rental supply expansion purpose in 2027. And that goes to those multifamily affordable developments we talked about. So the maximum amount is 70% of the program funds or roughly 9.5 million, again assuming we get the same amount next year as we had this year. And that leaves 15% or about 2 million each for the home ownership purpose and the rental preservation purpose. So that's what you're looking at here on the table. Now I'm going to go through each of those different purposes starting with home ownership. So we are trying to split things up between four programs here. The first three programs that you see, received housing trust fund funding for 2026. So they're all familiar and ones that we are excited about and want to keep funding. The fourth one, which is the owner occupied rehab, is not something that housing trust fund has funded previously, but it is something that Jeff talked about. OCD is funding. And we know that the existing program is likely to exhaust its current funding by the middle of next year. And it serves a really high priority population, which is very low income homeowners, who are often elders or people with disabilities and are at risk of losing their homes because they can't keep up with repairs. And so funding the program through the housing trust fund versus HUD money is also expected to cut red tape and make that significantly more efficient. I also want to note that the SMART program that we're recommending here for 2027 is a little different than the one we funded in 2026. You'll remember the SMART uses a zoning change that allows a developer to build two doubles on the same lot. And so the 2027 SMART mixed tenure program is only for developments where both doubles are sold to income qualified homeowners and then each homeowner will have a rental unit as well. And so we think this design helps homeowners build wealth. It provides assistance with property management and then has the added benefit of producing affordable rental units as well. And then I'm going to walk through each of these programs quickly. So starting with SMART mixed tenure, FNO currently manages this program and we're recommending they continue managing it with similar guidelines that includes requiring developers to have a robust stewardship program to help new homeowners have the support to be responsible landlords. We expect it to offer about $75,000 subsidy per unit which works out again to two developments with eight units assuming we get the money we expect. Fortified roofs will be required. 100% AMI is the income limit for the homeowners. And then the rental units are capped at 80% AMI. But we expect that they will serve renters with much lower incomes because the homeowners won't be able to discriminate against voucher holders. And accepting vouchers will also ensure the highest rents for a homeowner. So that's really a win-win especially because we know we have a lot of people who are really struggling to find places to use their vouchers. And so those vouchers are sitting on the sidelines right now. The next one is the Fortified NOLA Roof Rehab Program that Nora spoke about. So Nora will continue to administer this program. This provides the supplemental grants to the state's lottery winners with incomes below 120% AMI. And so if they receive that grant from the Louisiana Department of Insurance, they become eligible for this if they have a gap that they can't fill on their own. Households between 80 and 120% AMI are going to be offered $5,000 to make up the gap. Households below 80% AMI are going to be offered more if their gap requires it. And based on a roughly 5K subsidy per unit, this could serve up to 72 families. So that really stretches quite a long way. The next is the more substantial Owner Occupied Roof Rehab Program that Nora also administers and will continue to administer. We expect this to offer up to again, continue offering up to $25,000 per unit. It requires fortified roofs. And the difference here is that this is available for folks who maybe weren't lottery winners and may also need minor related repairs that sort of fit under that cap to help them put a fortified roof on. Folks who, and then you can see the income limits here as well. Fully forgivable 80%, some repayment may be required up to 120%. For folks who need more substantial rehab to their home, not just a roof, but other issues, that's why we're funding the Owner Occupied Rehab Program. And I mentioned that OCD has administered this in the past. We're recommending that Nora administer it in a similar way that OCD has. So that means a $35,000 cap for eligible homeowners for health and safety repairs. So not just a roof, it can be for a lot of different things. It's a forgivable loan after 10 years.

And it would serve homeowners at 80% AMI or below with a priority for low income homeowners. And as we mentioned, the program as it currently exists, it's folks at much lower AMIs. And it will continue to prioritize households that are 55 plus military veterans, households with, head of household with a disability, or households that have been in their home for 15 plus years. So really interested in targeting sort of long time, lower income homeowners, people with disabilities, and elders. And then I'm going to move on to the rental supply expansion allocations. So this is the multifamily gap program. So again, as I mentioned, we're recommending all of it or roughly 9.5 million go to those multifamily developments that the city has outstanding obligations to. You may notice here that the estimated number of units is 257. And that's different than the full 372 we mentioned earlier. I'll just explain that. That's because the full plan to use affordable housing bonds to fund these multifamily developments will produce a full 372 units. But the roughly 9.5 million that's being funneled through the housing trust fund in 2027 is likely to touch four of the six developments. And that totals 257 units. So a little more detail. We're recommending that OCD administer this program because it's the department that has already issued award letters to these developments and it's under obligation to make good on them. We're also urging the city to, and we continue to do this, we're going to continue doing this, urge the city to utilize infrastructure bond funds whenever possible to meet the city's obligations to some of these eligible developments, especially those named on project lists already like Esplanade DeLisle. And that would help reserve more affordable housing bond dollars for housing trust fund priorities. So if that happens, we can hopefully come back and reallocate some money to other housing trust fund priorities. And then lastly, I'll move on to the rental preservation allocations. So we're recommending dedicating 100% of this money or $2 million to multifamily rental preservation program that will be available to low income housing tax credit developers to make repairs and upgrades to existing developments as well as extend the affordability of those developments. And we chose not to dedicate more funds to the current small rental repair program. That's the one that Nora is running that we funded in 2026. Because we'd like to see some results from that program before adding more to it right now. Nora has about $3 million, $2.87 from the housing trust fund to put into that program. And Jeff mentioned the city has $5 million. So that's a total of almost $8 million to that program. And it hasn't started yet. So we just want to see some results before we add more to it. And so we explored other new pilot programs for this funding. Some of those things look like grants for life safety upgrades at existing senior affordable developments or an acquisition fund for small multifamily properties like 4 to 9 unit buildings that are in gentrifying neighborhoods that have deferred maintenance. And we were really excited about both of those options. But ultimately decided that both require some more research and development. And so this year's timeline just didn't allow for that. But we're excited to talk about those for 2028. So what this program looks like, just to give you some details, again, $2 million roughly depending on what the total is. We're recommending the FNO administer this program. And we would expect it to issue a competitive notice of funding availability similar to what the office community development has done in the past. And then we want to see a priority for applicants with a higher share of units at 40% AMI or below. That's based on the priority I mentioned earlier that we want units that actually serve the typical renter household. We're also going to require the developers to sign a lease addendum with their tenants that ensures that they follow standard HUD program renter protections like allowing for tenant organizing, 30 days notice before eviction and a right to prompt repairs. And I want to really thank Elizabeth Harvey, who's not here today, but who was a big help on this. And this is something that we want to do in the future is that when we're granting out money, recommending money be granted out to especially larger landlords and developers, that we just make sure that these protections are standard. It's the sort of thing that if we were to try and do it in legislation, we would have to do it at the state level. And that's incredibly hard to do. But making sure at least that any money the city is putting out there has these requirements seems like a baseline obvious thing that we can get done. So and then the last piece I'll talk about, oh, that's it. Is, sorry. Is that our, we're recommending that there be some flexibility for 2026 allocations. This feels especially important for our first year because we're trying out some new things and some may go great and some others might not attract as many applicants. And so if that's the case, we want to create an outlet so that money doesn't sit and do nothing for two years, which is the deadline for our administrators to spend funding. So we're recommending that the housing trust fund administrators should be authorized to shift 2026 money from an undersubscribed program to an oversubscribed program after 12 months. And that's if they provide notice and documentation. to OCD and the advisory committee co-chairs and they receive approval from OCD. So just trying to create a little process there to make sure that nothing sits on the sidelines for too long and we can move, have a little flexibility.

And then lastly, this has hopefully addresses some of the issues that folks have brought up about transparency and notice we've added that our public facing dashboard should exist on a city-owned housing trust fund web page, that's the one that Ms. Brenda announced was up and running. And that's separate from the city council web page that currently hosts the advisory committee page. But both pages will link to each other and this will make it easier for the city and administrators to update the dashboard on a quarterly basis with all the quarterly reporting data points that are required by the housing trust fund ordinance, it also has a place for news and it lists all the programs that we're administering and how people can find out more about them and access them. That's something that's happening already but we're just including it as a recommendation to make sure it continues forward. So I'll stop there. Thank you again so much Maxwell, we have questions or comments from our committee members. The only thing that I want to bring up that's a little different, most of the stuff I've seen, I've seen it. For the renter protections, when we discussed it before on there, it says that it's the same as HUD, which is acceptable, but I think when we talked about it, it was the idea of it being better than HUD. Like for locals and residents that it's like kind of feeling like a preservation conversation so we don't feel violated. So I do want to like put that out there and that's all I really have for right now. I have a few other questions that I think I could like wait to talk about, but that's the only one that I think is like a big deal, the renter protections. And if the other one, okay, so for the owner occupied for the years, this is since we're talking about suggestions for 2027, that maybe instead of it being 10 years, it could be six or seven. I don't know. And that's, that's what I have. Okay. Any other questions for comments about our report? All right, well as thank you, Maxwell so much, as, as was mentioned, you know, for 2027 we're a bit constrained. We're rather constrained because of the commitment we made to fulfill the, the funding of a good portion of the housing trust fund resources of 2027 are going to be used to help get those multifamily, those large multifamily projects across the line. And so that left us with about a little over $4 million and you saw the allocation and the split between new present rental preservation and homeownership programs and so you saw that split, and that then is going to be what we are presenting what we will be presenting to the city council as our recommendation for the use of 2027 housing trust fund dollars. So for our committee members, then I will ask for a motion. Wait, we have a motion. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, we have a public comment on number three, yes, ma'am. Ms. Clevenger. Thank you all for what you're doing. Today I'm here because I'm always going to be here. Because one of our greatest giants, leaders, who is dedicated to this city, to its youth, to its people, and keeping New Orleans, New Orleans, Jerome Big Duck Smith has passed. As a mentor and a friend, for the last 50 years he has told me, hold the line, hold the line, keep New Orleans people in their homes. He taught generations of children that economic wealth in the community is based on homeownership. We have seen moment after moment where that is threatened, from redlining to the post-Katrina displacement of tens of thousands of New Orleanians who have never been able to come back. We take hit after hit, and we are at another crossroads where we see millions of dollars given away to private corporations and 40-year tax breaks and hotels, but we are the investors. We've been here all our lives. We are the people that deserve to be prioritized. We are the tax base, and we are the voters. I will say this, I'm very disappointed to see these numbers. When I see the rental expansion is at 70%, but homeownership, owner-occupied rentals, which is a big deal, because when they are offline, you are losing rental opportunities. I'm telling you, when I look at numbers like, oh, this will fund 14 units, eight units, that's not enough. We have to do better. I implore you all to do better for the community. We are at that crossroads. Honor this. And they show you the right thing all the time. Okay, so when you guys come up here, I appreciate all of you and everyone who's here today, but I want you to be mindful of your time. So come, no, what I'm saying is come, I appreciate and rest in peace Big Duck, but I need you guys to come up here with the specific problems, so that way we have them. So you said, for example, there's not enough numbers for homeownership. Please, what I'm asking is that you guys start there. Start there. Start with the problem. That way we know what we're looking at when we're talking and discussing, and that it's on record. That part is highlighted on record, because that's what you came to say. Thank you. All right. We have a comment, another comment card from Mr. Taj Xavier, and he says, would you like, you can bring it up. Come on up, Mr. Xavier. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I was waiting for the timer. I'm Taj Xavier. With Xavier Estates. We're an affordable housing development firm in the New Orleans metro area. I just had to ask for the advisory council, that when you all report to the city council about the housing trust fund statistics for development for 2026, that is specifically highlighted that there was the financial crisis that kind of delayed the programs being available and open until the third quarter of the year. So I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. I mean, you know, it's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. It's been a long time.

It's been a long time. It's been a long time. So we're in the application period so that development wouldn't actually start until the end of the year and we get into 2027. That specifically, I don't want there to be negative statistics associated with the development, specifically because I am a small development firm. Organizations like Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance has advocated for smaller development firms to be included in programs for the development of housing in the city, and we don't want negative statistics associated with the push that we have been to include firms like myself. Also, I would like to advocate for 2027 to make sure that smaller development firms are included in the funding that is available for development, specifically the small multifamily, as opposed to just funding the larger developments that need to have that gap funding to come online. Thank you guys. I can assure you that the report does make that clear, that the delay is the result of the city's financial issues and it's not something that should ever reflect on the developers or the administrators or anyone else. Thank you, Maxwell. Also, I want to add just one other piece, too, just because the multifamily developments have come up before. I know we talk about this at every meeting, but I think it is worth just stressing again, which is that the committee has made it clear that this is not the kind of thing that we're going to do over and over again, right? This is a very unique situation in that a previous administration made commitments to developments and then bailed on them, and so these are developments that are ready to go for all other purposes and are going to create hundreds of units for people at the highest need, and so in that way, this absolutely lines up and tracks with the needs assessments that we've been doing, right? Low-income renters are folks with the highest rent burden in the city. There are more of them than there are low-income homeowners, which is not to say that we're trying to help low-income homeowners, but if you want us to reflect the data and the need, that's what we're trying to do, and we've said before, and I think Jeff and OCD knows this, we're not bailing the city out again, and I expect that the city is not going to make commitments it can't back up in the future. So we see this as a one-time thing. Our focus is definitely not on large multifamily. It's on smaller developments, but this was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up because otherwise we lose 372 units that are going to serve some of the folks at the highest need. Thank you, Maxwell. All right. Any other questions, comments? Oh, yes. Mr. Colin Felsman. Colin Felsman Plus. Just really quickly, I appreciate all your work. I also appreciate the situation that we're in with some of these larger projects, and would ask that you all continue to push the administration, including the administrators of the Housing Trust Fund, continue to push the administration to find bond dollars so we can get more dollars into affordable housing of all types, because really what we're dealing with here is a scarcity mindset. There's so many great programs and people doing the work, and we need more dollars pushed into that. I agree with Taj. There's going to be a lot of applications, hopefully, for this SMART program, and it would be great if we get more dollars into small multifamily rental. I'm excited to see those come on. We're also very excited to apply for the HEROES program for single-family homes and for permanently affordable single-family homes. We've got some exciting projects we're going to toss in there. We're really excited to see some dollars allocated to the mixed tenure projects in 2027, and that's a creative way to generate some additional housing units for homeownership and for renters, and People's Housing Plus is excited to participate in that. Thanks, everybody, for the work you're doing, and yeah, I'm excited to get to work. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Committee members, I need a motion for us to accept ... Wait, we might have one more comment. All right. Now, Ms. Borness? Are you are you commenting on this on the report or something else? And let me just you have two minutes, Mr. Look, let me tell you why you're doing all this here. And you understand the multifamily homes, the corporation development, all that because people need to have this home to live in. I'm small rental and my property has been vandalized so many times. They have while we waiting for you all to give us a trust. They have taken all the meat off the off the house. They have robbed me when I went to Africa with my son. They even took the front door and that's how bad they were. Because they didn't think I could turn to kick the front door and it took everything at my home because I was standing at the tree. They took the color of bail off the property. They even stole some of the gate. I've had contractors to use my property to build their home and no respect for me at all to come to me and say, can we use your yard for this or that? And I believe that's why the gate is gone, because they don't want to put things across the across the gate because they need my property to put their ladders and stuff on. So when why are you doing all that? Our home is being vandalized. So what you offering us is not enough. That's a rainy day for is not enough because now we need more money to help us to develop our home. And you come with 10 years now. Oh, would you come roll home over the office? A hundred thousand dollars for 10 years for each apartment. Now, this program here is often that's much less, but I hope they can reach to that point. But like I said, my property is I've had to run vagrants. I'll call the police. Police say don't do no good. I had a man, a man who has his skin up in my yard. I had to call the police, told me to stay down there. I was around the corner by my mother, told me, stay down there.

He's going to handle it. I'm like, it's still a step off your property. And I think some of them developers are doing it to them there. So why are we waiting on y'all to help us to get in? I had to wait. I hope y'all can see so we can renovate our property so our property could stop being vandalized because that's more money. Y'all need to get off to get us because we need much more. And thank God the property is brick. I've been having since 1998. Thank God is because it was wooden. Lord, when you probably stole the wood off the property. Thank you so much, Miss Mornis. All right. Yes, thank you. And I'll second it. We have a motion to approve our annual report and budget recommendation. Monique Glassman and Elizabeth Holman. Any other questions about. Our report and and budget. All right, hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, the motion carries, this will be the report that will be presented to the city council as our official recommendation for the 2027 housing trust fund funding allocations. Thank you, Maxwell, for all of your work in putting the report together. And I know we've all been meeting and talking and trying to find a way. I think that, you know, we're doing our best here to try to meet the needs of of the community. You've heard some things about rental property that will reach very low income families. That is a great need, as along with home ownership and other programming. So this is where we are for 2027. This is a great segue into our next item, which is our planning for our 2028 funding. We know that that seems like it's a long way off, but, you know, time flies when you're having fun. And so 2028 will be here before we know it. And about this time next year, we're going to be talking about how we use funding for 2028. And we've heard a lot of comments from you all, as as Maxwell said, and as our report reflects, we certainly do not expect that we will be spending, you know, $9 million of whatever we have on rental preservation programs. There will be a more even potentially, you know, distribution of housing trust fund resources to meet a variety of needs. We've heard, you know, a lot of talk about reaching very low income families. We've heard a lot of talk about more funding for rental rehab programs and particularly those that may be owner occupied so that their unit can be repaired along with a unit for a renter. We're excited to have that. And we've talked about among amongst ourselves some other populations that we may want to reach. We spoke about culture bearers and how can we make sure that those who create the culture can afford to continue to live in in New Orleans? And are there particular populations that we want to serve that are not being served currently? What are, you know, other other groups that we are missing in demographics? So I will ask our committee members to just briefly state anything that they want to see us and whether it's more data on X, Y or Z, whether it's, you know, how are other of our partners using the resources that we have? What are you hearing on the street that we need to address? We're going to take those notes down. And as we start planning for twenty, twenty eight, we're going to look at doing some research, gathering some additional data, whether it's from our partners at the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, or whether it's the New Orleans Data Center. You know, how can we get more information so we can make better decisions on the maybe 13 million or 15 million dollars or so that we certainly anticipate having for twenty, twenty eight? So it's a longer runway for us to make these decisions. So I'll start with Maxwell on any thoughts you have on data that we might or your thoughts on twenty, twenty eight. Yeah, I think what I would say is that the way I'm thinking about this twenty, twenty seven budget is that it's really like year one point five rather than year two, because we're kind of just cleaning up messes and topping up what we did in twenty, twenty six and we don't yet have any data to look at. To see sort of like how programs are working. And then twenty, twenty eight feels like the real year two where like we're going to be able to see money hitting the ground. We're going to see shovels in the ground. We're going to see things getting built. We're going to have data on which programs have a lot of people who are saying we want to apply for this. And that's both developers and actual end users like renters and homeowners who are saying we want to apply for this. And that is really what I'm looking forward to in twenty, twenty eight is by next summer having that data in hand and being able to make decisions for twenty, twenty eight based on it. I mean, that's what we've always said is that we want to be able to make sort of informed decisions based on data. And we were hoping we were going to be able to make twenty, twenty seven decisions that way. But like I said, due to some sort of things that were out of our hands, we don't have that data yet. But that's what I'm really looking forward to in twenty, twenty eight. And the one the one the only other program that I'm excited about that I'll just talk a little bit more about because we talked. I'm hoping we'll have time to flesh out by then is a rental preservation program, a potential acquisition program where we could, you know, provide a there's a lot of small rental buildings in neighborhoods like Central City in the St. Claude neighborhood. Yeah. Areas that are sort of on the edge of gentrification and landlords haven't put a lot of money into them and they're deteriorating. And they might not have the money to fix them up. But if a speculator comes along and says, hey, I'll give you, you know, two hundred fifty thousand dollars for that fourplex or sixplex, they might be willing to take that money and run.

And and then who knows sort of what comes of that building? Whereas if we were able to lend out some money, two hundred thousand dollar loan again, we got to figure out the numbers and what this looks like to a developer to purchase that kind of a property and rehab it and turn it into affordable housing. That could be a really huge win for the neighborhood, for the renters who are going to be able to stay and and for the city. So that's something I'm really excited about. Again, we have a lot more work to do before we can sort of like put that together. But that's just one thing I'll mention. Any thoughts, Elizabeth, on for twenty twenty eight? Largely just echoing Maxwell, I think I'm interested to see how these programs go. I'm super interested to see how particularly the smart program and the LDI gap funding programs go. But yeah, driving driving our money into data driven programs sounds great. And then, you know, whatever we can look into to support in particular culture bearers and longtime residents. Sabrina. I keep going back to what I want to put your mic on. I keep listening, I keep hearing what. What is your name, Miss? Miss Equinetta is talking about, and it's those residents who born and raised here. Whose properties are still not or have not been made whole since Hurricane Katrina. So. And because this is not my area and I'm just being in full transparency. I would like for us to for twenty twenty eight to have open conversations with folk. About the repairs that are needed in their homes and how we can realistically address their concerns. If you're in a situation for 20 something years and it has not gotten any better, and I understand the financial fix that we're in right now, and we still don't really know what's happening with twenty twenty eight. But there has to be it has to be a conversation that changes how we even address that whole issue. And so I'm hoping that we allow we allow this process to to happen. The other thing is, and again, it goes back to the owner Fortified Roofing. Out of out of all the money, it only supports 14 families or 14 units. And so how can we look at this? How can we look at this in such a way that the impact. It's greater for those who are needing the services. So that's where I'm at. I'm just trying to figure this out. As are we all. Yes. So that leaves me. Tasia, hi everybody, my name is Tasia Gaspard. For 2028, there's a slew of things I'm sure we all can look forward to. Some of the things that I think are really important to me, or at least is that I want to discuss that we'll reiterate and further talk about throughout these years, is of course culture barriers. So as a longstanding resident, and to piggyback off underserved communities, that looks like rental preservation for homeowners, to me maybe, instead of 15 years, we talk about five years. Again, I asked earlier, what would that look like instead of having these 10-year programs, not only for addressing age, like I'm younger, seniors are older, 10 years is a long time. Maybe we could do five, six, seven. So that's something I look forward to. And as far as what preservation and who a culture bearer is, I'd like that to be further defined to some extent, kind of like when we had our city card for residents, so we didn't pay tax, but you also had your library card attached to it and things of that nature. I think there are maybe zoning conversations that go into where these houses are located, and not only as single family or multi-family, but for renters. So that means that as a senior, you don't have to be there for 10 years, maybe you could be there for five, and then a young person could come in or something like that. Additionally, I want to add that I'm very grateful for the data-driven conversations that we're having, because they're important. They're not only important for what we're talking about, but the people who are here ourselves, as far as what it looks like long-term. I know we had a conversation about the COVID money that was found through the mayor, and he talked about how grateful we are for that. And I agree, because maybe with the zoning conversations, we can find other places that this data that we have, whether through the different city programs, that would be helpful. And piggybacking off the listening sessions, I look forward to, if not Nora hosting them, we'll have some, or other individuals can have some. Maybe city council will have them, I don't know. That's something we can discuss and look forward to having, even if it's emailed in. Like, we can record them and have them posted somewhere. Not that they have to be for public conversation, necessarily, that the people have to talk to the public. More so, this is my experience in what's happening, like audio, and to have outreach. So does that look like text messages, Instagram, are we talking about Fox, but not necessarily CNN? Are we talking about WDSU, what are the local stations, radio stations? These are things that can happen. These are things that we do often. But what does that look like for the individuals on the ground right now? Okay. Okay. Lastly, and in conclusion, celebrating milestones. I heard how we have this, like, idea of an award for what we've done so far for developers and the housing trust fund. I think it's important at some point we give the hand claps to the residents. God bless you. To the 31, there were five people who walked through the door and they got their applications. Maybe we have, like, a preemptive type award for saying congratulations on making it this far. Again, we don't have to put their names and faces to the public, but just something that they can have for themselves and we can keep count. And that's for developers, renters, and homeowners. The further that we're building a network. So this is for residents. This is for us. This is for all of us as the housing trust fund board who's working hand in hand in Tatum with everybody.

I think there's this part of networking that's talked about in my mind. That's a gala we'll have in the future. Because we love to have galas and get dressed up and raise money and get funders. But I understand we're just coming as we are right now. So this part of the networking and having business cards or, like, at the Zulu ball, people are conversating and exchanging information. I want us to be able to exchange our grievances and our solutions on both ends so we know what we're dealing with. Maybe that'll look like not necessarily a garden, but having a little more room. So we have these tax incentives where people are advising in these communities, whether renters or homeowners, that they can get extra points for creating land that has community spaces for people, whether they're gardening or having parks or stuff for the children. Because they can get more points. That's something I found out. And lastly, oh, yeah, that's it. That's my last. That was last last. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Ms. Gaspard. Monique? A ditto to my fellow committee members. I think looking into 2028 allocations, we're going to ask for a lot of reporting from our administrators. We're also required by ordinance to do a lot more reporting now that money is in your accounts or hopefully in the inbox tomorrow morning. And so thank you in advance for working together on that reporting, as well as building something troubleshooting, building something as we're going. I think we're all collectively kind of building the what do you say building the ship while we're sailing something like that. And I'm just looking forward to data informed decisions for 2028 to help the people of New Orleans. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone for all of your comments. We do have a comment card. We will take this all of this feedback and more again. We have a little runway until 2028, but we wanted to start the conversation so that we also know what questions to ask of our administrators of the community data providers as we do this longer process. We have one comment card, Ms. Clevenger. Ms. Clevenger. Good afternoon. Thank you all so much for the work that you're doing. It really is appreciated. And Ms. Tasia, thank you for those visionary ideas. And Ms. Sabrina, thank you for always thinking of the community. Really appreciate that. When we talk about data, you have data right now. As we know, as bringing some of our community members, trying to bring them through and access housing nonprofit for homeowner repairs and other type of repair programs and the state lottery and all these programs, what we find is that we're hearing from those nonprofits like Rebuilding Together, Habitat for Humanity, all these groups are saying to us, we have a two and three-year wait list now. So that really needs to be taken into consideration that maybe they have some very useful data in terms that would help inform how this money is allocated and what the need is. It's a tremendous need. And so if data is needed to drive these decisions and back up these allocations, I think a great place to start would be some of those nonprofits that are already doing the work, that already have that data, because it's very daunting to know that they have two and three-year wait lists for repairs. So thank you for all the work you're doing. I'll continue to advocate for a needs-based approach on all these programs, because we know people are intake weary. They're weary of putting all their personal information to a group that they may or may not know what they're going to do with it, and then being told, oh, you didn't get funded or you're not eligible. So a needs-based approach would include making sure that, just like the assessor does, he says send us your pictures. Show us that newspaper, the data newspaper. Send us your pictures. Let's start there. Let's start there, instead of asking for your Social Security, your tax returns, and all of that. We know that income piece will have to come, but let's start with the needs first. Thank you. Thank you so much. We know that the need is great and the resources are relatively few, but we're trying to do the best we can to make sure we're braiding all of the funding that's available together to reach the most people that we can. Our last agenda item is the meeting schedule for the remainder of the year. We are proposing to have one final meeting. We have a report due to the city council in December, the first week of December. So we are proposing to have our next meeting on Wednesday, November 4th. We do not yet know whether it will be at 9 o'clock or at noon. I'll just take a quick poll of the chambers. Chambers are available at noon. At noon. Okay. Does noon work for folks in the audience? A quick show of hands. Noon works for folks? Wednesday, November 4th. Does noon or 9 o'clock matter for people in terms of coming to a meeting is my question. Doesn't matter. All right. So we'll propose noon on Wednesday, November 4th as our next meeting. Also you can, I know not everybody has web or phones or things, but the website will post that. I saw a lot of folks taking pictures of the presentations. Our report is also posted on the website. So you can click it there and see everything that was discussed today. I'm sure Nora and Finance Noras would be happy to provide their updates so that we can post those as well to the website and try to get as much information out as possible. With that, any other questions, comments for this committee? I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Ms. Mayes. Oh, I'm sorry. You have one more. To adjourn. I get a second to adjourn. Ms. Blossom. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you all so much to the community for always showing up, giving us your comments. Mr. Ben, I look forward to receiving your comments so that we can direct that to the right person. You all enjoy the rest of your day. Stay safe, stay cool, and we'll see you next time. The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.