I don't think we received anything from other council members we put to ask out. And I know we have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. You can talk about that a little bit as well. That would be great. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you very much. We have three social work students from UK this semester. We were unable to secure the fourth. So we have three social work students. Professor Diane Loeffler is doing the program design and statistical analysis. and Sarah Beth Lukefeld, who is a Ph.D. candidate, is going to be working as the student liaison and meeting with them once a week. They have started. We have given them a copy of the students have started. We have given them a copy of the 2008 needs assessment. We have given them a copy of the transition team report between the two administrations. Dr. Badger has a copy of a needs assessment that was done at the Newtown Pike Extension so that the students have some familiarity with what needs assessments look like. Dr. Leffler has developed a questionnaire, and it is only a draft, and she doesn't want to get that informed to use with agencies until after she gets input from you all. We have the 21 agencies that are currently funded. We have given two students, six of those, and one student, nine of those. One of the students is only doing the needs assessment. The other two are doing the needs assessment and practicum things. So we gave her more. Craig Benz and the folks from the U.K. will be visiting with the students. This instrument that Dr. Leffler has developed, which she hopes to bring with her to tomorrow's meeting, will be a list of questions for the agencies. We're going to start out by asking them, did you have a needs assessment or have you participated in a needs assessment? So this semester will be mining existing needs assessments, which we thought was the desire of this committee just to start out finding out what's in Lexington. And if not, then give us our needs. This will be directed by UK. After all, that's what we paid them for. So they could not come today. Dr. Leffler has a class today at 11. Students are in class today. And that's why, really, we set up the Wednesday meeting. And I know some of you may not be able to come tomorrow. It's at 10 o'clock in the fifth floor conference room. Both the representatives from the college and all three students will be there. But anything that you all want to offer today in terms of a needs assessment, I did review the needs assessment that you all had in the packet from Los Alamos, and I sent it to Dr. Leffler and Sarah Beth Lukefeld to review so that they would also know a kind of an example. After I read it, I think it certainly looks doable. It doesn't look like, and the community was nothing like ours, but the needs assessment didn't look like something that this group could not come forward with. So that's kind of where we are. Okay, thank you. And we certainly don't want to tie their hands with this example. As you said, we're paying them to do needs assessments, so we are looking for their expertise. Are there any comments from community members regarding the scope of the needs assessment or anything like that? But I had some questions. I know in the last meeting we talked, and I kind of was starting to add some things in that maybe weren't really in the scope of the needs assessment when we first put the contract together with UK. And one of them was asset mapping. And we have an asset map that – do you have a copy of this, Commissioner? No, I don't. Okay. Thank you very much. This is something – you know, I worked with – when I was in St. Louis in grad school, I worked with the Vashon JVO. which was a HOPE VI initiative there. And this is the target area there in yellow. And part of what they did, we had four different committees, economic development, education, social services, and I can't remember the fourth one. But the four different groups were broken down, and we actually used youth to go in to all the agencies in the target area, and I think we took maybe a mile around that area. And they had a questionnaire, and they went into each agency, and just had them verbally fill out that questionnaire. And it was just simple information about the name of the agency, what they do, who they serve, the times they're open and closed, website, e-mail address, pertinent phone numbers, that kind of thing. But also information that included what types of IDs you need. If I need two IDs, one with a picture, so that I don't get all my stuff together, ride the bus all the way over there and then find out I needed two IDs instead of one and have to come back another day. And then they put all that information into a computer program, and then located around that target area when the Hope 6 was done, we had touchscreen computers. And so if you were looking for childcare, you could go in, touch on the screen, put in, say, five miles around your address, and all the childcare programs would pop up and all the contact information and that kind of thing. Certainly that's probably outside the scope of what we've contracted to do with the U.K. students. But maybe that's something that someone else in your department could do, or maybe even the summer youth program, employment program, might be able to do. That would be different than the needs assessment? Yes. Partners for Youth started something kind of like this when they did the I Do initiative. What they wanted to do, they talked to GIS. Glenn Brown has been involved in that as well, and they met with Mark Sellers. And they have done a map of where there are buildings where youth can do things and churches that could offer that. And so when they put IDU together, they use this asset development kind of tool. We'll be glad to share this with Dr. Leffler and let her look at it. You know, I don't know, that may be something for a future group of students to do. Right. Yes, I know that is outside of the scope that we've contracted to do. Right. Are there any other questions? Councilman Henson? Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, I guess I see on this map where it talks about family and social services. Do you know what that might entail? I have a concern. Okay. We've put a lot of focus, which there needs to be focus, on our youth, youth violence. But I also think it goes hand-in-hand with that as parenting. So I was wondering if that would be included in a category. Because I really, I don't know, I just see that as unsupervised children. and things like that that will attribute to youth violence or youth getting, you know, just heading down the wrong road. So you would like some focus on parenting and families? Yes. Okay. And other than that, I guess we'll just, I will be very interested to see the results of this assessment. The students are very excited. They came down, by the way, and saw council chambers, and one of the students said, you two can talk, I'll do the writing. So they're really getting started, and so any of this will be helpful. And we'll pass this on to Dr. Leffler. And we'll be meeting with the students tomorrow, correct? Yes, I hope some of you all can come tomorrow because the professors and the students themselves will be there. Unfortunately, Tuesday is a big class day in the graduate program, and we just couldn't get them here today. That would be great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I have a question. Can we focus also on the economic aspect of it? I know normally in a needs assessment, maybe that wouldn't come up as something that would be important. Specifically poverty or jobs or? Both. And then also financial literacy. I know that you've been doing some work in that area as well. Okay. But if maybe part of the questionnaire for these agencies and for the stakeholder groups, the parents and the families and the kids, what type of education have they had? What do they have access to? Are they banking currently? Is it a bank or credit union? If so, what's easy about it? If not, why not? And what would it take to get you involved? that kind of thing. Okay. We will include that. Any other input? I'm sure we're going to come back after you get started with all kinds of input. Hopefully we'll see some of you all at 10 o'clock in the morning, those of you that are available. Thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Next on the agenda is, if I can pull it up here, the Consolidated Plan update with Director Gooding. Yes, we started the process for the 2013 Consolidated Plan. The first public hearing is scheduled for this Monday. September the 24th, and all the materials should be on the website by that day. The Emergency Solutions Program is an update of the old Emergency Shelter Grants Program. Regulations were issued during the past year, so I've updated the information in our program to indicate what those differences are. And also this year for the CDBG services portion, which is about 15% of the CDBG funds, this is where we seem to have the most competition among agencies. Social services has agreed to provide for an independent review of those applications. and at least make recommendations based on their review. Okay. Are there any questions? Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Just wanted to ask, Irene, do we have our current balances of this past year's monies, and do we have any left? Have we utilized all of them? Because as we start this process again, the thing that Council struggles with and has since I've been on Council, and I know we've changed the process on two or three times on how we allocate money, but the monies that we allocate are people that we're giving them to utilize them correctly. I know your group does a great job of following people, but do we have balances in those pots of money that people aren't utilizing? We have some agencies that are slower to use their funds than other agencies. And one of the agencies, of course, is our own agency, Division of Engineering, and a lot of that has been their slowness has to do with obtaining right-of-way, moving utilities. So our delays, we understand those delays. For our agencies, we have one agency at this point who is a little slow on using home funds. So we do have balances in our various CDBG funds? We have, for CDBG, we know the balance of our encumbrances, and we know the balances of our non-encumbrances. Yes, we would have those balances at this point. If you could share them with us, I think what's important here is there are a lot of good projects out there that may or may not have received funding in the past, or we can maybe accelerate funding to some who can utilize it today versus having funds sit there. this is important money for our community I know it's been dwindling down year after year from the federal government so we're not getting as much as we used to so that's why it's even more critical to make sure folks are utilizing it the way that meets our needs so to speak in our community and a good example is the Charles Young Center that's a great project to utilize those fundings on and it just so happened there was money available at the time to get that going but we have some other things like that out there that we could do the same thing with and that's what I'm looking at be creative with this money. Let's not let it sit there year after year if they're not utilizing it correctly or fast because time is of the essence for some of these projects and I'd like to be able to put it to use if we can. If you can let us know what those balances are and if you need input from council but I think there's some other worthy projects on our social service side of the house that can be utilized in immediately. As long as you bear in mind that we are always limited on how much money we can use for services. That's by statute. We cannot spend more than 15%, and we stay very close to that 15% line. So we can never allocate more money beyond the 15%. And then when it comes to other types of projects, you know, to establish a new project, we have to do a substantial amendment to the plan. And then secondly, we have to environmentally clear all projects before we can do them. Yeah, and your department does a good job of making sure we keep that due diligence, and I appreciate that because that's the name of the game, be accountable for the money we're spending, and that's what your area has done a great job with. But I just want to see if there is balances in other areas we can actually use the money today because that's important. And we also have just issued the draft of our 2012 CAPER, which is the comprehensive annual program report. So if you'd like to have a copy of that, that should be available to you at this time. And that's what we did last year. It was a report of those accomplishments. Okay. And then last but not least, how do we advertise these dollars to our community partners? I send them a letter. I send them a letter, and it goes on the website, and it goes in the newspaper. And you say send them a letter. You mean the current people that are receiving funding? It's anyone who's ever expressed an interest in funding. It's not just current people who's receiving funding, but anyone who has ever claimed an interest. They're on our mailing list, and they stay on their mailing list until they either go out of business or ask to be taken off the mailing list. We also send it to all neighborhood associations in low-income neighborhoods, all churches in low-income census tracts. Send it, of course, to the council, to council aides, to the mayor's office, to social service divisions of the government. And does the mayor's office do a press release for you to acknowledge that these funds are coming up and the discussion of the plan? Do we do that? I don't know. I've never seen a news release done. We do advertise it in the paper. As well, because I'm not sure everyone gets it or even reads it to that degree in some of those sections. So it would be good to have that as much publicity as possible. Well, I'll ask Susan if she'll do one. Yeah, they do a great job, so that would be good to get this word out. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Ms. Gooding? I have a few. As a follow-up to Council Member Stentz's question, he asked about leftover money or balances that could be used for other programs or services. To follow up on that, I would ask, it seems like every year we come to a point where we have money that comes back into the mix because someone isn't able to get their project done by the end of the grant deadline. and earlier this year we had some and then we took that money and used it for something different. Yes. So I guess my question would be can you provide some information for us that kind of speaks to the track record of people in the past? What entities have received funding but couldn't get their projects done in time? And if you know why they couldn't get it done, What I'd like to see happen is avoid, if we're giving people money multiple times that don't get their projects done or that we have to go back and ask for extensions on the grants, that we either help them get their ducks in a row so that they can get their projects done on time or we find some other way to allocate that funding. Because, you know, I always go back to when we have a funding stream like this that comes from somewhere else, like the federal government, there are people at that level on one side of the aisle or the other that are always going to want to cut whatever the program is. And then you've got the other group that's trying to keep the program in play. What's important for those who want to keep it in play is that they have good data to give to the other side that says this is the good we're doing with this funding. If you cut it, this is what is lost. But if they go back to the local governments and they see that we put together a master plan and submitted it, and then every year it seems we have groups that either can't get their projects done and we have to ask for continuations of the grants, or they don't get it done and we take that money and do something different, it makes it hard to tell the story to keep that program in play. And so I also think that when we have our master plan meetings and the community as a whole comes together and says, this is how we want to spend this money, and everybody agrees on that, but then at the end of the next year we take this pot of money and kill that project because they couldn't get it done and spend it someplace else, that doesn't allow for the community as a whole to determine what happens with that funding. And also what I'd like to be able to see is to go back 5 or 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road, and this community be able to look at that funding source and say, this is all the good that we created with this funding, or this is how we moved the needle in these areas with this funding. And it makes it difficult to do that if we all agree we're going to do these projects, and then we have to take the money away from that project and it never gets done, and it gets allocated to a different project. So if we could get some type of report that helps us get a handle on that, and if it's things like right-of-ways that can't be obtained and so that's why we're pushing out the deadlines, then we need to understand that too so that we just don't say, well, that's the issue. We look at how we resolve that issue. And I know that when we talked about the storm sewer work, we've got a group that's starting to look at this whole right-of-way acquisition process because it's going to be an issue there too. But we've got to start to look at what our challenges are and find a way to address those challenges so we can move forward instead of accepting that that's the challenge, if you will. So could you do that? Then also, have you done any follow-up surveys or anything with either these agencies that receive funding or with the community sort of a post-look at what we did with the last five-year plan to see how it shaped out at the end of the day to see if people are happy with the results and would they do anything different or do we need to change direction. We've done this in social services in terms of looking at our funding and what it is we want to address. We're doing the needs assessment and all those kinds of things. it doesn't seem that we're doing I know we have this process for the comprehensive plan but we have very few people show up for the meeting and there seems to be very little input even though you're putting the letters out and advertising on the website so how do we get a better feel from the community if they like what's happening and if what's happening is working and effective it's my experience that if they don't like what you're doing I think you will hear from them. So every year we do a five-year plan. We go out and we're required to do consultations with various types of agencies to collect data and to try to assess what the needs are. You know, we invite public opinion. I'm not sure what really to expect from public opinion, but if you do hear from them if you're not doing something that they want done. Sometimes if we give people a vision to respond to, we'll get maybe more feedback. So as we put together this process, like when you go into this meeting that's scheduled, do you talk about what our goals are for this funding, what we hope to see change in our community based on this funding, or do we just open it up and say, here's a pot of money to do these types of things if you're interested in doing a project like that? We provide them with a summary of what the programs are about, what the federal goals are. The federal goals, again, are talking about decent housing, suitable living environment, and expanded economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income people. We explain what the funds available are. We are committed to using the funds for whatever we provided for in our five-year strategic plan. Again, it is based on services. It's based on housing. It's public improvements. Again, it's a suitable living environment and decent housing primarily. We also provide them with information, quite a bit of information, on how we spent the funds in the past. And for the most part, people use this avenue as a way of applying for funds for their agencies. I, over the years, as far as general public, what I'd like to see for my community, I could probably count on my fingers the number of people who got up to talk about what they'd like to see the community look like. It is almost always, you know, my agency or I want funding to do blah, blah, blah. So I don't, you know, they're kind of memorable, the ones that I did hear from, but it's memorable primarily because I don't hear it very often. Right. And I think this is probably, in communities like this across the nation, I think that's probably everyone's experience. Council Member Henson? Thank you, Chair. I think there may be folks in the community that don't have a good understanding of what these funds can be used for. They, you know, maybe in the neighborhood associations. So I don't know what we could do better there. But I think unless they've really utilized the funds or, you know, they're just not aware. Even though they get a letter saying come to the meeting or whatever, an invitation, they just think it's another meeting and don't bother. But I think it would be beneficial if there were some way we could better explain what these funds could be used for without them having to attend a meeting. Okay. And we don't have time to do that. Or at least get their interest up enough that they would attend the meeting, I guess. But that's just a thought. I just feel like there probably are many, many association presidents that receive them and really don't have a clue what it is and just file it. However, if we are actively doing something in their neighborhood, yes, they do pay attention and we will hear from them. Especially a few years ago, we were changing how in Northland Meadows, Arlington, we were doing one street before the plan. And then one street that was in the plan was going to be done later. Well, yes, I heard from those people. So, again, it's a silent majority out there. But you will hear from them. You should hear from them. All of you should hear from them. If they don't like it, you will hear. I don't think I've ever heard from anyone, but thank you. It means we're doing a good job. But we would like to improve that outreach. If you could think of ways to make it meaningful to people, then I'd like to hear about them. Thank you. Customer Ford? Okay. I have a question. When you look at, you just started reading some of the headings that the money could be used for. What about the affordable housing group? The people, there's many groups in this community that are interested in affordable housing. Have they engaged you about this funding? Do they come to these meetings and say, let's bite off a big piece of this money and direct it towards affordable housing? But we do. They know that we do, in fact, all of home, home is for affordable housing only. Right. And we use it for affordable housing, and, you know, they're part of our audience. That's the Chickie group and the affordable housing group. They are part of our audience, and they, I believe, are familiar with what they're doing, what we're doing. and I don't think they're opposed to it. They just don't think it's enough. Okay. Some of the comments I'm hearing are that we're hoping for some type of a framework that you use to put together this process and then track the process. Can you put something like that together for us? I think people are looking for something to respond to because we're talking more in the abstract. I'm not sure what you want. Okay. I'll let Council Member Ford go, and then I'll try to figure out a way to rephrase it. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Meyers. Good morning, Ms. Gooding. Irene, how long have you been with the government in regards to your role of working with the consolidated plan, may I ask? I've been here over 20 years, and I have been responsible for the consolidated plan since HUD started requiring it, which was in 1995. And I think I echo some of the comments that have been made around the horseshoe that we generally are in agreement that we administer the three programs, Block Grant, ESG, Emergency Shelter, and Home Will. I think our track record is there. Over those 20 years, and we're in entitlement, so our money's come directly from Washington. We don't have to petition an intermediary state government. They come directly to us. And realizing that we're thankful for the funding that we have now, I would guess that it's not at the level that it was in years past. Can you briefly talk about, not necessarily specific numbers, but just in the overall scheme of things, the level of funding in years past to where it is now in regards to our HUD funding? Not enough? No, it's not enough. When I came here over 20 years ago, our CDBG allocation from the federal government was about $3 million annually, and now it's less than $2 million. At one point, I was going to go through the little consumer price index and do a chart, but it was so demoralizing that I just sort of thought nobody needs to know. Because it really tells a story about how much we don't have now. And home funds we were getting a few years ago, we were getting about $1.5 million. We're now below $1 million because Congress cut it about 40% last year. So the 112th Congress has been very damaging to these programs. Irene, thank you for that information. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I will, as a member of this committee, I will support our efforts to learn more about these programs. I'm fortunate just personally to have a pretty good understanding of it, it but I don't discount the need for information that we're asking but as I look at today's agenda we were talking about a needs assessment and we're talking about what we do with our grant programs the need outweighs what we have and I'm really interested in how we grow the pie if not with the HUD funding with other sources of funding to address these needs. I have confidence that the folks at the University and Social Services can help us there. I have confidence that Irene and her shopping grants can administer the program. And I don't mean to have an edge to these comments, but while they are doing that work and will remain supportive and hold them accountable I really want us to kind of use our limited time on how we can impact some policy to let the folks in Washington know that it's damaging, as I mean, we see it, the cuts that our community faces when we lose these valuable funds. That's really what I'm interested in, Mr. Chair. And if there's a way that we can do that, I think it would be very helpful. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't say this. The work that the grants office does, and probably more importantly that the providers on the ground do, If a project isn't getting done, believe you me, it's just not because somebody's sitting in an office and they choose not to do the project. There's so much that is entailing in getting these things done. But let's figure out how we can raise the resources needed to address our needs, allow our staff to continue to administer as they do, and let's pass on policy. I'm really interested in being a policymaker as opposed to an administrative checkpoint, for lack of a better word. Thank you, Arlene. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Look forward to the convo. Thank you. Are there any comments from committee members? Okay, I have a question. Yes, ma'am. During the coming year, while we're going through this process, if you happen to have a project in your neighborhood that you would like to have considered for funding, I think we need to know about it. For example, and again, these funds are for low-income persons, so if you know of a park in a low-income census tract that needs attention, you need to direct those comments to general services. If there is a social service agency that you feel needs more attention, you should direct that to social services. And we will see if we can't consider some of those things for funding. But we need to know about it. Thank you. I guess I have some comments, and I'll go back to your comments, Director. about the 204th Congress. The 2012. The 2012 Congress. The 2012. The reason that I brought up the issue of being able to tell the story is because when Congress cuts that funding, that's how and why they cut the funding, because they don't see that the people who are receiving the funding are either providing enough information to them to encourage them to increase the funding or keep it level or they're just not hearing anything at all. But we can create policies, and I welcome any policies that you want to bring forward. I think that the problem here is it's not the way you administer the program. No one said that. It's that most people don't understand this program, and most people don't understand what the money can be used for. And I think that we need to have a visioning process around this fund and then put something out to the community to respond to, and then they can begin to say, oh, okay, well, now we understand some of the things the money can be used for. We like this, but let's tweak it a little bit and do it this way. But there needs, as our community, we need an overarching understanding of what this money can be used for and where this community wants to go with that funding. And I think that's one of the things that's missing. In terms of increasing the pie, that's about the only thing that's going to do it. The home funds decrease every year whether or not Congress cuts the program or not because part of the thing is as you increase your housing stock, your funding automatically goes down. Is that correct? Now, home, these are all based on congressional allocations. But I thought that built into that policy, they're giving you the money to make a difference in your community, And as that difference is made, the funding automatically decreases. The money was decreasing all along even before Congress made any cuts on the CDBG program. Is that not correct? No, I don't. CDBG funds are allocated to communities, and the formula includes your poverty rate, your population, your age of housing, and then something called some development figure that they use, either a minus or plus development. This is what goes into the formula for CDBG funds. So as you make improvements in that and your housing stock changes from where it's at to where we're trying to get it, doesn't the formula necessarily require that the funding decrease as a result of that? Well, it's hard to believe that we would ever improve it enough for that I mean, it's just, I really can't see that as a, that's really not their basis, I don't think. These are appropriations that they make, and it tends to change from year to year. I mean, recently it's been going down. It's been going down for several years. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Ford? Councilman Ford? Cut if you're out of compliance. They've done that before. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I withdraw my comments. Thank you so much. Thank you. I would like, if there's no more comments from committee members, are there any community partners out there that would like to respond? I'm Jack Birch with Community Action Council. Maybe to provide you with a little bit of perspective from recipient agencies' side of this process. One, there was some illusion about agencies funding themselves. Let me assure you, Ms. Goody gives none of us any kind of overhead. If you want to build something, you've got to pay the salaries of people who build it. You've got to pay the salaries of people who do the counting. You've got to pay for your own audit. It is specifically for that community need. Some of us would love it if she gave us money, but she won't even discuss it with us. You talked about community needs and how they're identified, and then you talked about programs that spend fast and don't spend so fast. Let me just talk to you about two that we do, or two that are in the current packet. we do a furnace replacement program funded with CDBG. It's an emergency furnace replacement program. It didn't come about because, quite frankly, Community Action Council at its planning level, we sat down and said that was a need. We kept having our family service workers tell us that there were people who their furnaces didn't work and it's the middle of winter and they couldn't find a solution. We had adult services with the Department for Social Services saying the same thing. We had other smaller agencies saying, you know, this is a real crisis in the community. We do some furnace replacements in the context of overall weatherization of the houses, but it's a long process. If you apply today, you might get services in six months. It's just it takes that long to do all the workups and contract all the work out. So the emergency furnace program was set up to keep people from going for a long period of time with no heat, people who cannot afford to replace their furnaces. It's been slow sometimes. We don't run around looking for ways to give away furnaces with CDBG dollars. It is there when a social worker at an agency has a crisis, and we can send somebody out that same day or that same night and get a contractor in there the next day. So you may see money carry over, but I think that's a good thing. What we basically discuss with Ms. Gooding each year is how much money do we think we need in total to get through each year. But it's community-driven. It's not something we sat down and said we would do. Another one is a playground that's been funded for the Russell School site. When we were working on the Russell School site, we took down an old playground that was there. Community Action Council is responsible for 30 playgrounds, and so we've actually got a specialist who works on those issues for us. The playground no longer met safety standards for playgrounds because it was wood and it had nails. And actually, nowadays, you're not allowed to use government money to do that. The older people in the community were deeply upset about the playground on the Russell site because they said that there were very inappropriate activities occurring at night, and they were. Younger families with children in the neighborhood wanted something to happen. And I know all that because I got lots and lots of phone calls. So we took that old playground down because we said there may be a need for children to have a place to play, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that. And now we've applied for the funds and you all have funded it, and we will be installing it this year. That's a quick spin, too. All I need to do is get approval from urban county government that all the final details are done. And we've actually already taken bids. I'll have a purchase order out in 24 hours, and it'll be built probably in two or three months. So when you look at a project, if it's taking a while to spend, you really have to go back and look at the context before you decide that someone's just not using their money well or appropriately or in a timely manner. And maybe we need to do something with the process so you understand better why some of us ask for funds to do certain things. Because I'm not sure that people know, Irene, that we're doing furnace replacements because that's what the community said it needed. And we're doing a playground because the community said that. And maybe that's just another page or a paragraph in the process of requesting the funds. I'd be glad to answer any questions, Councilman Myers, if you or anyone has any. Thank you. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. So where does the committee want to see us go with this topic? Do we want to have any further work done? No input. George. Oh, yes, sir. One of the ideas that Council Member Henson brought up, I do believe that, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, information and education is important. And even Irene mentioned it. So if there are ways that perhaps we can improve our outreach to let folks know about these programs, I would encourage us to kind of consider about how we do that. When they have the workshop, the public hearing next week, that's just kind of the nature of things. As Irene, she hit the nail on the head. If things are good, folks are quiet. If things are bad, then folks kind of freak out. I'll give you the context of the Charles Young Center and an opportunity for education and outreach there. We're going to be fortunate to open those doors here pretty soon. And I think what folks need to understand about that project and similar projects to it, funded with these kind of special grants, are what goes going to it. Historic preservation. The neighborhood needs to understand historic preservation in the context of those funds because they have an impact. One of the things that will slow a project down or keep a project from getting started is environmental review and environmental clearance. all of these guidelines and similar things that entail project management, grant management. Some folks may not be interested, but I think that the community would be, particularly the neighborhood leaders that we have, may be enlightened to know a little bit more about what goes into these projects. So I would encourage somehow if we can consider how we enhance our outreach. Not that we're doing bad. I'm certain that these grant funds have certain requirements that we are meeting in regards to public notice and public input. I would also, I'd be remiss if I didn't say this, I don't, in regards to the decreasing of funding, I don't know if any of us up here can speak to the mindset or to the action of the 112th Congress and all Congresses before them in regards to these decreasing of funds. And I don't think it's truly fair to say it's because of what we're not doing or what we're not exhibiting that we've done. One of the Hope 6 projects I know is that we were, after some setbacks in unfunded application, I think it was leadership from Kentucky. I think Senator McConnell, if I'm correct, who was very influential from Washington, D.C., in making sure that that project got done. And that would have only been able to garner his support if we're doing things right, if they're seeing that it's being done. The challenge is that unfortunately it's not enough for all the need. So those are just my thoughts. I do think that somehow in this committee, in closing, I would like us to get down to the work of how we help make some things happen, how we help improve what the service providers on the ground are doing. And I'm not saying throw more money at the problem, but how can we, around this horseshoe, make some decisions that will help folks get projects done and help people on the street? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Are there any more comments? Yes, ma'am. Please, your name and your address, please. I'm Billy Mallory, 549 Mustang Crossing, and I'm president of the William Wells Brown Neighborhood Association. And we have a small area plan, and there's a number of projects or a number of goals in there that have kind of got stuck. And I've been a part of that process for the last, it's been four years now. And never once did I hear that CDBG funds could have helped with any of that economic development. and very fortunate because Mr. Ford was able to look at the CDBG funds this past year and see that there were some unallocated funds or reallocated to help renovate the Charles Young Center. But we're not really – I just wanted to tag on that I don't think the public is aware of how those funds can be used. I am also a member of CHICI, and I don't recall ever, except maybe when Chris was in community development, anyone ever coming and talking to CHICI, which is all of the organizations that provide housing and homeless services. But I don't know that there's ever been any sharing of information with that group as well. So I definitely think there needs to be more public awareness. Thank you. If I could ask you a follow-up question, how can we make that happen? What can we do differently? You're a member of two different groups. What can we do different to get information? Shiki meets once a month, and we would be glad to invite someone from community development or someone who knows about the community development block grant funds to talk about that so that everybody understands how they operate and what they can be used for. you know, informing neighborhood associations and maybe having some kind of an area meeting and talking with people, but also specifically where there's small area plans, because there's an East End small area plan and a Central Sector small area plan, but I don't know that CDBG funds have been utilized for any of those projects in there. Thank you. Councilman Ford, do you have a response to that? Not a response, just a request, Mr. Chair. Sure. Thanks, Committee, for your patience. Ms. Gooding, if you could, please. Yes. Explain the relationship between Chiqui, Central Kentucky, housing, homeless, and housing initiative in our government, particularly in regards to the there's a plan on homelessness I believe that they're very active in. David Christensen and his folks, please. Right. They are Central Kentucky Homeless and Housing Initiative. It's an organization that was created to do something called the Continuum of Care, which is HUD's on the side of the HUD house that deals with homeless funding, and their purpose is to come up with that homeless assistance plan, and it's called Exhibit 1 of the Continuum of Care, so that those organizations can make applications to HUD under the Continuum of Care. I have spoken in the past to Chickie about the consolidated plan. I certainly don't do it on a monthly basis or even an annual basis, but a lot of the applications that we get are from people who are involved with that organization. So Chickie does tend to be familiar. They do tend to be familiar with our side of the house. they're not really related to us. They're an organization that makes sure that the continuum of care gets done and that those funds flow to Fayette County. So they are aware and involved. I know David Christensen, their director, is always there. Thank you, Irene, just for that clarification. And again, I do support how we continue to enhance it. If we're lacking to reach one, that's probably too many, but to make sure that we can get to as many people as we can, particularly the neighborhood associations, as Ms. Mallory mentioned, I'd be supportive of them, Mr. Chair. Thank you again, Irene, for the clarification. Thank you. Ms. Gooding? I wanted to ask a question. You said two things there, and I'm not sure if they're one of the same or if they're different. You talked about the homeless services side of HUD, that you could apply to money to them. Is that directly to them, or is that still through us, through our CDBG funding? There are several organizations that belong to CHICI, whose primary mission is to serve homeless needs. and those organizations also apply for CDBG and emergency solutions grant funds. Okay, but there's not a way for them to apply directly to HUD. It's the money that HUD gives us that you were talking about. Their continuum of care is where they apply directly to HUD. Okay, so there is another pot of money, continuum of care. It's called the Supportive Housing Program. Okay. And Shelter Plus Care. Both of those programs are on that continuum of care side. Okay. Thank you for that. And then I had a question. We were talking about programs that don't get done and then the fundings used to fund something different. This year, I think, one of the examples was some money to rehab some houses. Is that correct? This was the Community Development Block Grant Recovery Act special allocation. These funds were set up, about half the funds were set up to go to community action for energy efficiency improvements. They spent their funds. The other half were on our side. We were going to use them in conjunction with our housing rehab program. and because of the structural problems that that created, particularly with lead-based paint abatement, we weren't able to spend all the funds for our housing rehab program energy efficiency. And that's why we requested the reallocation to the Charles Young Center. These funds have to be spent no later than September 30th, actually September 28th of 2012, which is next week. And I'm happy to tell you that we will be able, as of the end of this week, we will be able to draw all of those funds so we will not lose any of those dollars. Thankfully, we were able to do it with being able to use funds for another project. And if any time it looks as though we're not going to be able to spend dollars, rather than give them up, we certainly are going to request approval of a new project. Oh, absolutely. The request of the new project isn't an issue for me. It was the fact that people decided we were going to do a project originally that didn't get done. So I'm trying to understand why that one didn't get done. But you said you were going to put together something for us on that. I think that's it. Ms. Wallace, do you have anything? Okay. So one of the things that I'm trying to do as a chair of this committee is to operate this more as a committee so we're not just pushing buttons on the microphone and all that, but really get a lively discussion going. And it seems like it's almost like pulling teeth sometimes to get people to speak. and I mean really I'd rather have an issue of everybody trying to talk over each other than nobody talking at all if we could get some conversation going. I think that with community development and social services, it's a decent sized piece of the pie for the city's budget, but there's an enormous need. And any way that we can help the administration administer what they do, find new pots of money that add to the pie, increased efficiencies and able to spend that money with technology or something like that, we need to do that. And so really if we can get this committee to people to really just start chiming in, I feel like half the things on the agenda are things I put on there. Council Member Ford, I like you talked about policy. That's really what we do as Council Members of the left-sided branch of government. So please, anybody who has any ideas for things that we can do to help, please bring those forward. Let's get them into the committee and start to have discussions about how we can get it done. Is there anything that anybody would like to add today on any of the issues that are on the agenda or what we might put on the agenda or how we might move forward with these two issues? I know with the need assessment it's going to be kind of an ongoing thing. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner? One thing I would like to offer to you all, the emergency shelter grant is now the emergency solutions grant. There's new guidelines from the federal government. Connie Godfrey, our director of adult services, worked with that with the grants department. She is going to have a community meeting so that the families that utilize those funds will understand the new rules. And it's going to be more than just emergency rental assistance. is going to be long-term with case management to help people become self-sufficient. So at some point, we would certainly invite you all to a community meeting where Connie could bring that presentation to this group, and that would help you understand one piece of the CDBG funding or the consolidated plan. Okay. Commissioner, while you're up there, is anybody that has Councilman Lawless? Thank you, Beth. Can you elaborate on that? Okay. You said it was now changed from? Yeah, emergency shelter grants were more short-term. It was to help people. It's to prevent homelessness now. It's more like the rapid rehousing funds. We used to maybe help for rent for one month to help a person through a crisis. Now it's going to be like we can help people over multiple months. The amount that we help them with subsistence will shrink over that four or five months because social workers are going to be working with them on a service plan. we're going to get you into housing now you know are you applying for school and are you learning to budget are you getting a job and so we'll help you with 50 percent of your rent or 30 percent of your rent and i don't want to give you the wrong details here but miss godfrey has done this in great detail with director gooding to figure all this out and she wants to have a meeting of the community partners so that people will know how to apply which i think is a great way to let people know if they're eligible for these funds or not, because people will come to us at adult services and say, I need my rent paid. They don't understand the rules. With general funds money, your income has to be reduced to zero. With emergency solution grants, you're at a percentage of poverty, which means a lot of our refugees, for example, who have moved here, that haven't, you know, their subsistence has run out after their six months of relocation, and they're working at low-end or part-time jobs. They'll now be eligible for emergency solutions. Their income does not have to go to zero. So it's a change. It's a more long-term change for families. So we would be glad to update you all on that as it progresses. It's brand new. I'm very interested in that. And years ago, the Fayette County Adult Services had a division that did pay people's rent for. And we do that. And so I know things have changed since the olden days when I used to ride my horse to work, but thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing more about that. Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Chairman. In regards to issues that we can discuss in the committee, and I don't mean to delay us any further, So, but help me here with how we can discuss an issue that is of interest to me in regards to workforce job training. I know we've talked about it a little bit earlier. And I ask for your help and the committee's help in regards to if the council rules how we may get such a topic into this committee. But the Workforce Investment Act. and if we could get that in this and have that discussion, I think it would be helpful. I'm personally, we've talked about it in the links process, social services, Council Member Eleanor and Council Member Beard and I the last few years, but I think that is, again, a tool, for example, and a policy that we may want to pursue to be able to kind of take advantage of our, kind of shape our own destiny. Right now we're participating in the Regional Workforce Board, but I think we should examine and explore if having our own workforce investment service area would be the best thing for this council and for Fayette County. So that's an example, Mr. Chair, that I would like to see put in the committee. I didn't come prepared today to put that in committee, and hence my asking of your guidance about the council rules of how we get such a topic in the committee. But I'll defer to your guidance of when we and how we get that done. Thank you. Sure. I'm going to at least try to partially respond, Council Member. the first that needs to be referred to committee it can be referred to committee by an individual council member or the vice mayor and if it's an individual council member if somebody correct me if I'm wrong it's either at a council meeting or a work session the vice mayor can refer at any time but about that particular subject you and I have talked about this a couple times but in addition to the ad being a resource whether you want to use them or not but you have two members of the state workforce investment board that are from Fayette County at least two and I think they'd be interested in pursuing a self-contained program for Fayette County, one Rick Crispin and the other Ed Holmes, and I think either one would be delighted to speak to the committee about that. I think you also might want to dialogue with the existing Workforce Investment Board for this area, but I know you guys have been down that road before. Well, Paul, thank you. Thank you very much. And I probably will, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, prepare to bring that forth to a work session. Perhaps not today's work session, but maybe share some communication with the rest of the council to hopefully get the endorsement of bringing that before this committee. Our understanding, as Paul mentioned, our understanding of the relationship now between the urban county government and the Workforce Investment Board. This is not to say that they're doing a good job or a bad job. But the policy question is, is it in the best interest for Fayette County to have its own workforce? Louisville has its own. It's much larger than we are. But we are still Fayette County, and we have a constituency to serve. So, George, I'll work with you offline to prepare to get that before this committee. Absolutely, and I'll support you 100% in that. And we've had some conversations. I've had some conversations with other community leaders on that, and I know where we used to be with that million, million, too, and we need to revisit that and bring that back home to Fayette County and put together a program here. And certainly that was part of what was on my mind when we put into committee our relationship with the ad. So I look forward to getting together with you on that and bringing that forward. There's certainly a lot of things I think that this committee can do to work together with the administration in our community to advance the needs and the causes of social services and community development and even to some extent economic development as a part of those two things. And I look forward to just kind of meeting with each one of you guys offline to come up with different ideas for things that we can put into committee and then working together to bring some substantive discussion forward so we can make some policy changes. So is there anything else that we want to talk about on the items that are on agenda today? I do have one question for Commissioner. The needs assessment, the scope, it's going to include, they're looking at all of the needs, right? Homelessness. They will start with the six areas that we kind of anecdotally identified. Could you go over those again real quick, please? Okay. Let me see if I can get them out of my head. We did basic needs, health care, violence prevention, aging, positive youth development, and substance abuse and mental health. Correct? That's it. And then, so can we, I think you're already going to add economic, or not economic development, but financial, literacy, economic development. That would fit in the basic needs area, and we'll make sure there's a question about that in there. And when we get to positive youth development, for example, we'll make sure that we include Council Member Henson's question on parenting. So some of those questions you all have will fit into one of these areas. These areas are so global, the needs assessment is trying to narrow them down. So let me ask you this. When that happens, when the question is in there, who is the question posed to? We will start out by posting to agencies to mine data. That's this semester. Next semester there's going to be focus groups, survey monkeys, those kind of things to get input from consumers, public, stakeholders. And so that's why we really want to make sure at this meeting tomorrow, or you can email Craig and I. We want to know what are the kind of things you want them to be looking at. Is there something we're missing? Because once we start this semester, and there's always time, I mean, once the existing needs assessments are mined this semester, that's kind of why I like this multi-part type project. Because when they present to you all in December, if there seems to be a glaring hole or something that y'all feel like didn't get addressed, we can correct for that when they do the focus groups. Okay. Because that was what I was trying to understand was if there's not someone out there that says, I need financial literacy training or I want to become banked or involved in banking, how would that hit the radar for the needs assessment? Because probably most of the agencies out there, unless you include banks and credit unions, that's probably not something that they do. And a needs assessment will be imperfect. But we're going to try to front load it with as much that we feel like can specify missing things. And then after they come forward with what they found in December, that should spark people to think, well, when you have a focus group, you might need to ask the question this way. Gotcha. And so you all will be directing the team that's developing this need assessment all along the way. Okay. Thank you very much. Anything else? Okay, and the last thing on the agenda is committee items. Is that right there? And so with the Community Development Block Grant and its consolidated plan, do we feel like we've answered the questions around that today, or do we need to have any more discussion on that? Is that okay to take out or is there? Okay, we got a motion and a second to remove that one. All those in favor? That passes. And then the Vice Mayor appoints a task force to look at a need for a new Senior Assistance Center. CAO Maloney, do you have an update or do you want to? Yes, I have an update. We've hired a consultant who has come in to look at some scatter sites. They put that together, about five, and then also an additional three other sites they're going to look at this week. And the vice mayor has appointed a couple people from the commission to be on that, and we in the administration have some folks on there. And hopefully in the next six weeks. I think they said eight weeks. Eight weeks after this study had been done, they would come back with probably one of those locations. Excellent. That's a timely report. Do what? That's a timely report. Thank you very much. So I guess we'll just leave this in here until they come back with that final report. Once they come back, we'll be able to be sure to get it either on the council as a whole or bring it back to this body. Okay. November, Maggie. November is probably what we're looking at. Okay. Thank you very much. and the last one on the docket is to consider the Section 108 loan program and I know that this committee made a recommendation that was passed by the council that we would do I guess submit an application for the 108 do we want to take that out or is there any discussion about what that application should be Council Member Ford I look to you since that was your item. Okay, got it. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess my only question is, it appears that the committee and the council, for all intents and purposes, is considerate of endorsing pursuing a Section 108 loan program. I know that the administration has a project in mind for use of this program. I guess if it's okay, Mr. Chair, if I can ask Ms. Gooding a question in regards to this. Irene, if you could, please. My question is, I'm just wondering, is there any administrative step or action that we would formally need to take in order to implement and pursue Section 108 as a tool? Or do we have to petition HUD officially? HUD, you have to submit a 108 application to HUD. Is it project-specific? Yes, it has to be a project-specific application that you submit to HUD. Okay, great. To explain the application to the project to the extent that you can, and then they will come back and ask for more information. Okay. Thanks, Irene. Considering that, Mr. Chair, I don't know if there's any more work to be done for this committee. per my request i would make a motion to remove this item from the committee can we have a motion and a second all those in favor okay that passes um miss gooding could you do us a favor though is is the application really thick the application is just a blank application for a 108 is it no it's not very thick i mean i think I think what you ultimately submit is pretty hefty, but the kinds of information that they want, I can probably e-mail it to you. Can you e-mail that to us, and then we'll e-mail it out to the full council just so they can see what it is that's required in the application. Okay. Thank you very much. Is there anything else? Do we have a motion to adjourn? I move. Got a motion and a second. All those in favor, say hi. We're adjourned. Thank you.