Like a little kid And I'm still standing After all this time Picking up the pieces of my life Without you on my mind I'm still standing Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm still standing Yeah, yeah, yeah Once I never could have hoped to win You're starving down the road Leaving me again The threats you made were meant to cut me down And if my love was just a circus You'd be a clown by now Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. We have a full house. If you do not have a seat and you are standing, please go to the overflow area. Unfortunately, we have fire code that does not allow us to have people standing in this room. and if there are a few seats up front, maybe if someone wants to come up front. Otherwise, you will be able to see the overflow. I will now call to order the October 10, 2023 meeting of Social Services and Public Safety Committee. Thank you all for joining us today. The first item on our agenda is to approve the August 22, 2023 committee summary. Council members, are there any additions or corrections? Motion approved. Second. Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. And now we are going to hear several presentations and I would like to remind all of our presenters to please try to stick to the 15 minute rule. And all my colleagues to please stick to the two rounds of five minutes. And that is so that we can finish this meeting on time at three o'clock. And our first item is the community risk assessment. And we have a presentation by Chief Wells of the Lexington Fire Department. He's going to present to us their community risk assessment, which is a part of their accreditation for the Center for Public Safety of Excellence and Commission for Fire Accreditation International. They are presenting before us today for part of that process. They need to do for part of that process. So, Chief Wells. Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the committee members. with me today. I have our accreditation team, Captain Cooper, Captain Pletsky, Miss Dawn Morris, as well as some of my staff who, should there be any questions, they would be the brains that can answer those questions. So it's my pleasure to present this to you today, and I understand that you do have a very full docket, so I'm going to be succinct. So the purpose of this, in the fall of 2023, so in the coming months, we will be considered for accredited status through a cooperative process with the Center for Public Safety Excellence, also known as SIPC, and the Commission for Fire Accreditation International, or CFAI. This process, the accreditation process, provides a framework for continuous documented quality improvement through data analytics, internal self-assessment, strategic planning, and community engagement. As part of that, we had to create the first ever community risk assessment standard of cover or as I'll call it the CRA SOC. So quality improvement in fire service is defined as community risk assessment or defines a community risk assessment as the identification of potential and likely risks within a particular community. So essentially what we do is we look at the community as a whole, all of our buildings and all of our infrastructure and all of those things, uh define what level of hazard they are and then look at how we would respond to that so there's three major initiatives with the cra soc the overview of fayette county including economic demographic geographical infrastructure and climate the overview of services that we provide including specific information and then all kinds of stakeholder input some of you were able to to participate in that and we're very grateful for for your input so this is the content the document itself is only around 100 pages but then there's a couple hundred more pages of of appendices that has been provided to you and i assume that if you have any questions you're you'll be asking that but we go over all kinds of different things we we have to look at the community itself everything from what is our legal basis for existing to the topography to population diversity and housing, how we provide services, how we staff our units, and then some things like special projects and special things that we do, such as community paramedicine and all of those things. The CRA SOC is an in-depth examination of all of our risks, as we said. we come up with a hazard mitigation plan and we identify the risks in terms of census tracts so we were divided that up into 82 separate US census tracts we're able to get statistical information regarding unit our utilization unit reliability amount of dollar loss and amount of dollars saved basically and here's an example of one of the things that comes from this so baseline response time so 90th percentile response times for incidents basically mean that we respond to a given address 90% of the time under a certain amount of time our goal is to reduce all of those times by 90 seconds and we think we can accomplish that through improvements in dispatch technology station alerting improved routing and mapping and then we'll have to look at where are the gaps and do we need to add any additional resources but we believe that it's feasible that we can reduce our response times by one and a half minutes which is is pretty impressive but this is our first time going through this process and one of the things that we determined was you can't really improve what you don't measure and so this is allowing us to to measure those things so that is the 30,000 foot view of our CRA SOC it is required that we present this as part of our accreditation process and we will be happy to answer any questions should you have them. Thank you so much, Chief, and I think it's amazing that you all are going through this process. I know it's a lot of work, so thank you. And now I'll open up to questions and comments from my colleagues. Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief, for the presentation. I do think I will commend you for taking a step to improve our department, which is, that's already at a high standard. So I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Are there other fire departments in Kentucky who have this accreditation? I believe we would be the third. The city of Louisville fire department and Bowling Green, I believe, are the other accredited fire departments. Okay. And would it open us up for any potential grants? I think it certainly helps. To be an accredited department absolutely helps because that means that you're doing a better job or at least they know you're doing a good job of your data collection. And once again, I appreciate your all's commitment to the community and anything that we can do to serve our residents better is I'm all for it. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Hollinger. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Chief, you said that you want to improve it by 90 seconds. What is it presently? And for insurance reasons, isn't it like four minutes? Isn't that kind of the benchmark? So there's a number of different standards, and I may ask Captain Cooper to come up, and he can probably break it down a little bit better. But when we looked at response times, we looked at all kinds of different calls. So for a fire, for example, within the urban service area, it's important that we get 17 personnel on scene within a certain amount of time because that's how many NFPA has determined it takes to effectively begin to fight a fire. So each type of call has an effective response force, and for different types of call in different parts of the community, so rural is a little bit different than urban, there is a different time frame and a different effective response force. So yes, four minutes is a wonderful standard. We would love to be able to get everywhere in the county within four minutes. Certainly we're not there. And I don't know if there are, do you have any specifics as far as what current response times are? Thank you for the question. So what we did was we broke down our responses, as Chief said, based off of risk classification and where the incident occurred. So we have times based on urban and rural high. Those are essentially times in our urban services area. And then we have times that are in rule low, which that's everything outside of the urban services area. Those would be the large census tracts that you see outside of the urban services area. When we're talking about structure fires in particular, our travel times in the urban services area for the first unit are 440 for urban areas, 445 for rule high, and 9 minutes and 30 seconds for rule low. Obviously, the times in the rural areas are going to be longer because most of our resources are centered to the urban services area where most of our population density and runs occur. So it's going to take longer to get units out into the rural areas because, frankly, there aren't as many runs out there. Therefore, our resources aren't out there. We have an appendix that is attached to this document that breaks down each of our run classifications and all the times associated with them that you can refer to to see. And all these times are 90th percentile. Thank you. And is this for the first one to ride? But you also mentioned that you said that you need 17 to be on. Yes, that would be correct. Yeah. So to get our effective response force travel time, the truck with the 17th person in our urban area gets there in 10 minutes and 37 seconds. Rule high would be 15 minutes and 39 seconds. And rule low, which would be your rural areas, 17 minutes and 36 seconds. And it just takes longer to get units to the country because you have less roads and we have less stations out there. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief, for the presentation. You might just have answered Mr. Cooper about, so when you say we've got 82 separate planning zones, do you rank them like you just said, rural low, rural high? and the whole amount of those totals, 82, under those three sections, is that how it's working? Yeah, and what we did was we broke those down by persons per square mile. We used U.S. Census track data, and we ranked them by a group of how many persons they have per square mile. So obviously your true rule low areas are going to have much less persons per square mile than your urban areas and your rural high areas. Okay, so that's how you look at it. And along with that, we provided socioeconomic information, but we also put what council districts are associated with each one of those zones. So you can look at those zones and see not only who lives in your area, but what types of incidents that we're making in your area to inform your constituents. That's good information, Dan. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, super. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief and Captain, for the presentation. I just had a quick question. I apologize. I walked in in the middle of you going through it, Chief. So will this assessment help us not only as a department but as a community and as a whole to address some of the gaps that we have? Just last week, I had the pleasure of the opportunity to do a ride-along with Station 4. And we got a call, and I went on a call with them. And the person that was experiencing the incident, it was an emergency to them. But I guess as defined by what is truly an emergency, it wasn't an emergency, but the customer wound up getting taken to the hospital. Is there any way to have information about what we can do better as a community to address those calls that aren't really emergencies to help our department improve on actually responding to other types of emergencies? Thank you for that question. It's very relevant and very timely. This is 100% a quality improvement process. Part of it is a strategic plan. So, you know, we've been going through this planning process to help us identify where we want to focus our resources over the next five years. But another part of it is we have a peer team that's coming in this fall that's going to look at our organization from an outside perspective and say, you're doing this well, you need to do this better. And it absolutely will allow us to hone in on those things that we need to improve on to better serve the community. and also to identify places where maybe we're not doing a good job of messaging X, Y, or Z, so we need to focus our efforts on that. It's really going to help us identify gaps and then respond to those better. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be beneficial just overall for the overall safety of our community. So thank you all for all the work that you all do and the service that you provide and continuously looking for ways to improve. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And I don't see any more comments, but just once again, I want to chime in. And I think that our fire department is excellent. And I really appreciate all the work you're doing to make it even better. I'll just echo the comments of my colleagues. And thank you for presenting to us today. Thank you. Next, we have the juvenile treatment court annual update. And Councilwoman Gray is a sponsor of this item. And I will turn it over to her. for any opening remarks and introductions. Thank you, Chair. First of all, a young man by the name of Christopher Abbotsmart had planned to be here to speak as he is the first graduate of the program, and he happened to be one of my students at Crawford Middle School. Unfortunately, he's unable to attend, and I have not received a video that we had planned to play in his absence. But speaking just on behalf of him, from what he has told me, this program has changed his life. The Chris that I knew has matured. This program has helped him get on the straight and narrow. As the young man that I met many years ago, he was in jeopardy. He was in deep jeopardy. And seeing the young man today, who he has become, it's because of this program. All of the support that he received, the wraparound Kiwi Figs, has been with the young man as well for as long as I have. Actually, maybe a little bit longer than me over at Crawford. And it's actually, thankfully, part of this program that is changing one child, one family at a time. And he would like for me to say that to you all, to the judges, and to Ms. Keevy-Figgs. Thank you for changing his life and being there for him when the support wasn't there. But please. Thank you for that. We appreciate that, Councilwoman Gray. And thank you all for having us. My name is Melissa Moore Murphy, and I am the 4th Division District Court Judge. I, along with Judge Lindsay Hughes Thurston, who you will hear from, and Kiwi Figs, we have the opportunity to run the juvenile treatment court that we began in. We started the conversations in 2020, but we began this court actually last year. It launched in 2022. This is our mission statement, and I know you all have had the benefit of having the packet prior to. I won't read this to you. I won't offend your intelligence. I know you all can read that. But I will tell you that most of this mission statement, the essence of it comes from the juvenile statute, which can be found in KRS 600. But the big part of what we do and what we try to make emphasis on is focusing on the overall wellness by focusing on mental health for our children. Not saying that that's not something that has been focused on prior, but that is the purpose of juvenile treatment court. My, I guess, statement that I always say is that I don't believe a child wakes up in the morning and says, I want to commit a crime or I want to commit offense or I don't want to go to school or this is this. There is something else that is going on, whether it is an adverse childhood experience, whether it's trauma, whether there is something else underlying that's causing the issues that they face. And so they may have found themselves in the court system, but now what can we do to prevent them from coming back to the court system? So this is what we do, and again, using this integrated approach by doing wraparound services, focusing on mental health, but also making sure that they are accountable for their actions. This is what we're hoping will provide long-lasting life changes for them. I'm not going to do all the talking. Actually, Judge Thurston is going to come and present the next part, and then you also have the opportunity to hear from our program coordinator, Kiwi Figgs. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Judge Lindsay Hughes Thurston. Thank you so much for having us here today. We're so excited to be here to tell you about our success that we have had since our launch. It is a program that we are truly passionate about. Judge Murphy and I had a little dream, and we decided we were going to make it work. We'll figure it out, but we're going to make it work, and we have. And we're so proud of it, and we're so proud to have KiwiFigs on our team. So just a little bit of background on how we made our dream work. We had to collaborate, right? That's what makes the world go round. And I know you all know that from your experiences in leading. So we have an agreement with our administrative office of the courts. They are our fiscal agent. And then we have an agreement with Fayette County Public Schools. Obviously, a bunch of our clients, our kiddos, are from Fayette County Public Schools. And so when we approached them with this idea and this dream, they were on it. And we are so grateful for that. They acted as our hiring entity in November of 2021. And that's how we got Ms. Keevey, who, again, you will hear from here in just a moment. And, of course, your all's investment, the city's investment in our dream, in our kids, is what has gotten us through the finish line and passed. We could not do this without you all. We could not do this without the buy-in from our city and our county. and we are grateful for that. I'm just going to give you sort of an overview on how this works, and then you'll hear from Ms. Keevey. So we take referrals from the court-designated worker, which is an arm of the administrative office of the courts. We also take referrals from family court, mostly status offenses, which is truancy, beyond control. What's the other one? I just forgot. Yes, beyond control and truancy are the main ones. Let's see, we also have referrals from our juvenile court. That is the juvenile court that we, along with our colleagues, administer. We have five divisions of that as well. And those are the main kiddos that we are pulling out of juvenile court because, again, as Judge Murphy said, we identify that they need extra services. It's not that our juvenile court isn't working, it is working. But we have an extra intensive approach, which leads me to the four phased approaches. Each phase will include an individual participant plan. Obviously, each child is different. Each child comes to us with different perspectives, needs, traumas that we want to address. So we make sure for each phase that we have a new IPP as they go along. To get into the next phase, they have to petition themselves. They have to write out why they believe that they should phase up. And they also must not have any new charges. They must engage in random drug screens. Many of our kids are engaged in mental health services. And we are able to wrap around additional family and educational supports. One point I want to make before calling Ms. Keevy up here. Just because you get a new charge in our program does not necessarily mean you're going to be uninvited to our program, for lack of a better term. We understand these kiddos are going through a lot of, as Judge Murphy said, their adverse childhood experiences. We work with them as long as we can to keep them in our program because we know they're in our specific program for a reason. So just because a new charge comes about, that does not mean you're automatically kicked out of our program. So that's just sort of how the mechanics work. And I'll invite Ms. Keevy up here to give you the nuts and bolts of what we have done since our launch on March 11th of 2022. Hello, I am Keevy Figgs and I am the program coordinator for Juvenile Treatment Court. Since our launch on March the 11th of 2022, we've had 44 referrals, and of those 44, 25 youth have been accepted. And as Councilwoman Gray mentioned, we've had two graduates. So Chris was our first, and then we had a young lady that also graduated, and both of those young people have also graduated from high school. We currently have 11 youth that we're working with, and nine of those youth are receiving mental health services. One is currently at Appalachian Challenge Academy, and because we thought that was a good fit and what he and his mother wanted at the time, we advocated and helped him get there to Appalachian Challenge Academy, and he'll graduate from there in December. We have two youth who are currently enrolled at BCTC for dual credit and we're super excited about their involvement with BCTC at this time. We have one youth receiving academic coaching and we also at this time, we're kind of proud of her, she's the president of her student government at TLC. As Judge Murphy and Judge Thurston mentioned, mental health services are our priority. with juvenile treatment court. So these names listed are persons or agencies that we are partnered with that currently provide some type of service to our 11 youth. And these are all local agencies. This also shows the other community partners that have worked with our youth, whether it be for mental health services or other outside programs. So besides just coming to court on that individual participation plan, we also include other activities such as One Lexington has come and done a four week program with our boys. Our children participate in the youth advocate program. So SOULS are some of the community partners that we currently work with and provide services for our youth. These additional positive social activities and engagement are listed. Our children have participated in fun activities to very serious activities. We have children who come in and don't pass our drug screen, so we've provided some drug education. The public library has offered sessions to allow our youth to understand that the library is more than just checking out a book, that there are activities that they can participate in. And as mentioned before, OMAC and the YAP program have also been involved with our youth. UMatter Kentucky is the nonprofit organization to maintain and raise funds for JTC operation. So we don't have an abundance of money. So the money that we do have comes from monies that have been donated. So we have tried to give incentives to our youth. And through this UMatter Kentucky, we've been able to do that. For instance, we have a young man. I'm going to show you this little board. Our youth are required to do a vision board. And this young man, when he came to us, had missed over 60 days of school. And we can brag now and say at this point, he has missed three days of school since we started last year. And we gave him, told him that if he went to school and did what he was supposed to do, we'd give him a gift card and he got to pick where he wanted his gift card. It was to Ross, and so we got a gift card to Ross. And this is his vision board, and this young man is making progress. We didn't want him to change schools. He said he could do it, and now he is a student at Lafayette and doing well at this time. So these are our board members, and they give us input and encouragement with JTC. And as we mentioned, this was going to be Chris's time to talk, but Chris was our first graduate. And as Councilwoman Grace mentioned, Chris was also a student of mine when I worked at Crawford. And very proud of Chris and the young man and father that he has become and the things that he's doing at this time. He even calls from time to time just to tell us hello and was very proud of the baby and sent us lots of pictures. So we are keeping in touch with Chris at this time. And are there any questions? Thank you so much. I'm just really impressed with what you all have done. I know that the judges, this was a dream of theirs, and to see it come to life is so amazing. So I just kudos to all of you for making this work. I'm getting ready to open it up to questions for my colleagues. Just real quick, I want to ask a question that might help answer some other questions. Can you briefly describe what happens once they get in the program, just what it looks like? I know they're connected with these different things, but what, like in the day of somebody that was in treatment court would that look like? A day for the youth, what it would look like? Yeah, what kind of does their process look like? So each has an individual participation plan, and on that plan, there's things from attending school with no unexcused absences, doing a random drug screen, ensuring that they're participating in the mental health services, keeping in contact with me, attending court dates and anything else that the judges deem as appropriate for them to do, whether it's curfew or following the rules of their home. That's about it. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. Thanks again. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Figgs, Judge Murphy, and Judge Thurston for the presentation and the work in regards to this. I remember just a few years ago when y'all came to us asking us to partner with you all to get this started and seeing it actually come to fruition and actually benefiting some of the young people in our community is really something. Let me ask, so you're an employee of Fayette County Public Schools? Yes. Okay. So what about funding for the court? What does that look like? What are your plans and what needs may y'all have in regards to serve more families? Go ahead, Judge. So when we came, and again, I think Judge Thurston kind of said it, we were just going to figure it out. What we figured is that we needed a person. So the funds that we get from Urban County Government and Fayette County Public Schools funds Keevee. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. And actually, she was lucky to get a raise this year. So yay, Keevee. So the additional money, we have had the opportunity to get a donation from Brothers Run, which is a Versailles nonprofit, which invested into what we were doing as far as mental health services. And they gave us a $5,000 donation. That specifically goes only to the incentives that we do for our kids and whether we take them gift cards, whether we're transporting them places, all of that. So anything else that we need, which is drug screening, electronic monitoring, eventually we will need someone to assist with Kiwi. She is only one person, and she does it all. She is going to the schools. She's going to their homes. She's going to appointments. She's driving them to driver's licensing testing. She's doing a lot of things that social workers and program coordinators do, but it's only one of her. So when you ask what else could the funds be used for for the court itself, that's what we need money for still, that we don't. Right now, we have partnered with agencies that have done drug testing either through insurance, but if a child doesn't have insurance, we have to find ways to fund that drug training. Because those are important things that we need to know. We always talk about mental health services, but substance use is co-existent with a lot of our kids. And so we need to know where they are. If they have a marijuana issue, we need to know that. We need to figure out how we can get them through that. And so those are the things that we need funds still for. Electronic monitoring would be the other thing. Because, as Judge Thurston said, we don't kick them out just because they have new offenses. But we do want to sanction and find ways. And so we're not putting them back in detention. We're not doing that. But we do want them to understand, oh, no, what you did, you need to be held accountable for. So those are other things that we do need funding for. Thank you for that. It sounds like Fayette County Schools is a big partner in this. Have they already expressed the willingness to help support additional funding for additional staffing? I don't know that, Andrew. I can't speak to that at this time. Okay. What I will say is that we have had strong support from student support services as well as Fayette County Public Schools' legal department. And we have not asked for that. I will say that. That's not been something that we've requested at this point. But they recognize Keevy's, her importance, because it's not just what she does at treatment court. It's also proactive because there are some kids that maybe we have assessed that chose not to participate in the program, but she's keeping her eye on them because they also are Fayette County Public School kids. So it becomes this cyclical approach of we still know that this kid still needs help. They may not be in treatment court, but she's one that can still make those connections with those kids. Okay. Well, I appreciate that, and I was going to ask a question about grant funding, but that goes into staffing. I mean, if you're doing direct services to young people and trying to administer the program, there's another set of hands to write a grant. So I kind of understand that. So thank you for all the work you do. Know that you've got a supporter here and me on city council, and I think other council members support the work that you all do. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. If I may, just as you said, Council Member Brown, and I know my time's got 25 seconds. As it relates to grants, we still find ways to fill out applications for grants when we see them, but we are not a 501c3, but we started that process with our UMatter Kentucky because we realized in order to get grant funds, we were going to have to do that. We have started and we are recognized through Kentucky as a nonprofit, but we haven't finished the process through the IRS because that will also take lawyer time. So we just haven't got that yet. Thank you so much. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me because I do not serve on this committee. Thank you all for your presentation. You're doing phenomenal work. And my only question is, is how do you determine or what criteria do you use when selecting the youth to participate in the program? So the board, there's members that are mental health providers in the community. They worked with Judge Thurston and Judge Murphy before I was brought on. And the screener that they decided to use was the GAINS screener. So the youth are screened with that, and I have one of those today at four in assessment with the young lady. So we use that. We also just, I sit and just talk and kind of fill them out because this is voluntary. So if parents come in and don't want to participate or the youth don't want to participate or the kid tells me that I really don't like to talk to people, that's going to become a problem. So I go back and the team, Judge Murphy and Judge Thurston and I decide if this child would be appropriate for JTC and we go from there. Thank you, and thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Chair. I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. I just needed to, that was on my heart. So thank you all for all the hard work that you do. I'm going to ask this committee, and I hope we take it to the full council, that there has to be some way that we can help fund this juvenile treatment program. Because there are so many traumas and so many variables that go into why a child is in juvenile court. Even stemming all the way up to parents, maybe absent parents, maybe parents are in prisons or in jails. Grandma is raising the children. So I'm just saying to this committee that we need to have this conversation to get it to the full council to find some streaming source. I know where Council Brown was going at it. He didn't go over the finish line, so I'm going to dive over it myself. With my 300 pounds, I'm diving over it. And so I'm just saying that to the committee. Thank you for your presentation. It is so important that we break this generational curse. And it's not color issued. This is all the way across the board, all of our children, every race, every gender. This is so important. We must find some other people to help you do this so that you won't get burnt out because we need you. We need you. And so I'm just saying that. I'm making that statement, a strong statement. Thank you. Thank you. For your work. Thank you. Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to reiterate the importance of Kiwi Figs. Kiwi Figs is a very special woman. I worked with her. I was blessed to be her co-worker. Twice. Twice. Blessed was she. Really. But the work that she does, and from speaking with Chris, I know that you showed up. You showed up for this young man who is special to both of us. You showed up when it wasn't really your job to do so, but it was, I know you. For you, it is your job. But you go over and above. And you have personally, and when I think about the fact that you saved Chris Abbotsmart's life. Like I get chills in this program to know that he was not just cared about from me, but the court system that you all helped him find out who he was. And when I look at Chris and when he so wanted to do this video, council members, because for him, he would do anything to make sure that we financially support this program. He would do anything to ensure that we've reached more young people just like him who didn't know that there was actually help out there for him. He wants to reach people who are just like him, who didn't know that they were worthy and they could live, live a life that was normal, quote unquote normal. So this program right here saves. It gives hope to the hopeless. It helps our parents out who don't necessarily have the tools, who know that they're losing their children and they don't know how to get them back. This program right here, Judges Murphy, Judge Thurston, and of course, Ms. Figgs, we're here to support you. And you know how much I care about young people. And you all are doing the work that just about no one else is doing. And I feel it is our responsibility to help you out. And like in the text I was just sending you out, we're working on it, and it's coming. But, yes, I just wanted to reiterate that. But one other thing, regarding parental support, how has that been with you all these past two years or this past year or so? So with the youth that we accept and are participating, our parents are phenomenal. They miss work. They have to report that their kids aren't doing things, And that's not an easy thing to do as a parent, to sit and tell the judges or myself that your kids may not be following rules. But our parents have been good. They're supportive. They call all hours of the night and stuff. They tell good stuff. They tell bad stuff. They've been supportive. And the judges don't always hear the conversations in detail. But the parents are very grateful for the judges and that they take the time. You know, we're at court some days after 4 o'clock having JTC because the judges have done their docket in the morning, then we're there in the evening or afternoons doing JTC. So our parents have been really supportive and do usually whatever the judges tell them to do. That's nice. That's nice. But thank you all once again. I can't say thank you all enough for all that you do and Kiwi for all that you do. Thank you. I see you. I've always seen you. But after speaking with Chris. Thanks. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. And just real quick, our Department of Social Services and the Department of Youth Services, what kind of relationship do you all have with them? And do you all work together or collaborate on anything? So these youth are all of our youth. So whether they're in juvenile court or JTC, they're the youth of Lexington Fayette County. We try to, we do work with DYS on some things, but there are some things that they haven't been able to help us with as easily, such as the ankle monitoring and drug screens due to budget issues. The lack thereof or commingling funds? Say that word again. So you said DYS has been able to work with you with ankle monitoring? They have not been able to work with us for use of ankle monitors. And it's because there's a lack of funds or because it's hard to transfer the funds to have them used? They have presented it to us as lack of funding on their end. Okay. So that's, as we've all said here today, the graduated sanctions option is very important to us because we want our kids out of custody, and an ankle monitor is crucial to our work, and we're having trouble with it, quite honestly. And it's a tool that is necessary for our toolbox that we are struggling with getting support from. Okay. Well, I think that's something that we can be supportive of and help those conversations move forward if that's a stumbling block. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Judge Thurston, are you all familiar with Kurosoft? What is it? Kurosoft. It is a company that has monitoring, but one thing I know is about stigma. and youth, so these monitoring devices are actually in the phone. You look like a normal person so that that person won't have that ankle monitor and get teased and then it may cause other problems. So do you all work with Corosov? We don't, but the court designated worker who monitors and oversees juvenile court, the higher juvenile court if you'll say, they have a system like that. I don't think it's called that. I think it's called Reel Link or Ready Link or something of that nature. And so I don't think they've used it very often, so I'm not sure what their results are. But we have heard of it, and it would be something we're interested in. But, again, we have to figure out a way to pay for it. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you, colleagues, for your comments. I just want you all to know that we're supportive, and thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. Judge Murphy, Thurston, and Ms. Figgs. I really appreciate it. And we'll be hearing from you again in the future and how we can help support you even more. Thank you. Sorry. I was interested in asking Commissioner Alan Bryant about the Department of Youth Services and the ankle monitoring. I see her up there if she's willing to come down. I just waste like 20 of your seconds. I'm sorry. I should have passed me a mic in the back. Yeah, we could have. Sorry, Commissioner. That's fine. I think we want to do everything that we can to be supportive of the efforts. Can you give us a little more insight in regards to the ankle monitoring and partnering with the- Sure. We have a bill that ranges anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 a month for drug testing and electronic monitoring from youth services that's related to the youth. So is that something that we budget on an annual basis? No, we have not budgeted. I mean, you can't predict necessarily how many kids you're going to have, but no, we have not budgeted for that. So it does put us over our current budget by some thousands every year. Okay. All right, I just saw you back there and thought we could get some clarity to that. Yeah, absolutely. And definitely we can provide the council with a PDF of, say, the last, what month is this, October, the last 10 months or so, if you all would like. Yeah, I would like. Yes, sir, Mr. Brayle, Council Member Brayle. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And finally, we have a presentation about source of income discrimination. And this item is sponsored by Council Member Savigny. And I will turn it over to him to introduce the item. Thank you, Chair. Earlier this year, I, like most of you, listened to a group of tenants who for years have tried to get heard. I listened to so many of their requests. But many of them I really didn't agree with. but there was one that I leaned into because I think it needed to be shared in a public forum, and it was source of income discrimination by landlords. While source of income includes quite a few types of different currency, the one that's gotten the most discussed is the use of Section 8 vouchers. Quite simply to me, Morgan's $1,000 personal check and Jan's $1,000 cash payment or Pat's $1,000 voucher all have the same $1,000 value to the landlord and shouldn't be considered in themselves as a method to discriminate against any tenant. A landlord has a lot of different tools that he or she can use to determine which person's $1,000 they will take, and I certainly don't want to take that away from any of them. It is a free market, and I'm not suggesting anything other than that. There's a giant chasm of difference, though, between preventing a landlord from saying, I don't take vouchers, and I am forced into exception of the Section 8 program and a tenant I don't want. I've had dozens of conversations with landlords, friends, constituents, tenants, and stakeholders on the topic. This discussion and debate have really shined a light on the housing voucher program in Lexington and some of its issues. It does seem like a faction wants that to be the discussion, and I really appreciate that. But that's not the issue that we're discussing today. That issue deserves a discussion on its own merits on another day. My hope today is that you understand from the presentation that discrimination is the issue at hand, and it's addressable. I want to thank Councilmember Shayla Lynch, who is not a member of this committee, but with her help on this issue because her expertise and knowledge in this area is second to none. And I want to thank Commissioner Lanter for his great work on this presentation. So please, without further ado, Commissioner Lanter, share your presentation with us. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Sevigny. And I appreciate the invitation to present on such a non-controversial issue. Hopefully we can provide some clarity and help the council make an informed decision on how they would like to move forward. This is not a new issue. As Councilmember Savigny mentioned, this has been a conversation that's been going on in our community for quite some time. The presentation you're seeing today, I actually started approximately one year ago and had just had to update it and revise it as we've gone along. But this has been a topic of conversation amongst particularly folks in the housing world for quite some time. You know, we have vetted it with different groups, our own landlord committee that works with my office, our tenant committee. I've spoken to different landlord groups, you know, full transparency. They're not a fan. Our Homeless Prevention Intervention Board has twice adopted resolutions in favor of this and asking that it be adopted. So what are we talking about exactly? Sources of income discrimination means you refuse to rent to someone based on how you're going to receive the payment. So Section 8, Housing Choice Vouchers, it gets all the attention, but it also includes Social Security, Alimony, Child Support, and also there are any number of a dozen or so other voucher programs out there in our community that are not the Housing Choice Voucher Program that the Housing Authority operates. Who does it impact? Well, if very few landlords accept vouchers, then households who are attempting to rent a unit have their pool of options restricted. Their housing search takes longer. Oftentimes, the folks that we're working with are homeless, whether on the streets or in a shelter, and have a voucher, and they can't find anywhere to use it. We've had folks homeless for as long as 120 days with a voucher in hand, and no one would rent to them. It also limits the quality and the size of the units that are available. and the locations, which we'll look at a little bit. So you look at the map below. We pulled some data on certain dates leading up to this presentation. This was using a link the Housing Authority provides people with vouchers to visit to look for units. On September 27th, this was what was listed. Now, aside from the small number, I would point to if you draw a line across the page, all but one of the units or two of the units is north of Main Street. We've talked to a number of our providers, our homeless providers in particular, are impacted by this. They've had multiple cases where their clients have had to return vouchers because they could not find a place to use them. They've also had clients in units, and a new buyer comes along and says, I don't take vouchers and now they have to move out and find a new place. So I know this is a little hard to read, but this is the data from our housing authority. This is local data. Our housing authority's program is very successful to their credit. The moving to work vouchers, which is really when you say Section 8 Mainstream Voucher, that's the bulk of those is what you're talking about. It's almost 100% utilized. And what that means is they don't have a bunch of vouchers sitting out there not assigned to anyone. It breaks down to different types. You've got the VASH program, which is for veterans. We've got different emergency housing, which is for homeless folks, their foster youth initiative. But as you can see, for the most part, all of them stay above 90%. HUD is happy with them. They think they run a great program. I would agree. Their number shows it takes an average of 36 days from issuance of the voucher to lease up. And I looked at the first six months of the year. They issued 215 new vouchers. and of those 18% were returned unused because the person couldn't find a place. More importantly, though, it's other folks on the spectrum. So our nonprofit partners have had to actually return our HUD ESG funding, which utilizes rapid rehousing vouchers, because they can't find anyone to take the money. And that means there's people who are homeless, and there's money to help them, but there's nowhere to rent to them. You all may recall the conversation we had this summer about the $400,000 that Councilmember Fogle worked with. That was unspent ESG money that we were reallocating. It could have been used to help people in permanent housing. The most significant impact is on the vulnerable populations, those who are in or exiting homelessness. is a team of care data which is our homeless collaboration shows that their average length of time is over 100 days from issuance of a voucher defining a unit so you've got people who are literally living on the streets with a voucher in their hand for housing so i've already mentioned very few rental listings in lexington take these vouchers we did a check on september 15th there were 557 rental listings in lexington 534 of those published openly we do not take any kind of vouchers or section eight so that's only four percent of available units were potentially available and that's just the ones that advertise they don't take section eight there's many others if you call they'll say they don't it gets particularly troubling if you look as the unit need gets larger if you need a three or four bedroom the pool gets extremely small so what has been discussed is state and local governments can adopt legislation that prevents this. The fact is that landlords have to take legal forms of payment that are otherwise, if the tenant is otherwise eligible for the unit. All their other rental criteria remains the same. 21 states, I think it's up to 22 states actually since I did this, 119 counties and cities, including Louisville and Cincinnati, have some form of this. Theirs are actually more restrictive than what's being discussed here. So the impact is on our low and moderate income citizens. They are the ones who are utilizing these. They are the ones who can't get housing as a result. Those households are disproportionately comprised of minority populations. The Lexington Housing Authority data shows in Lexington, 76% of Section 8 housing choice vouchers are held by black households. And if you just look at non-white households, it goes up to about 80%. Now that does not mean that landlords are intentionally discriminating based on race. It's the indirect discrimination that results because of the population being served. So if you have this, there's obviously less likely that they'll lose a voucher because they can't find the unit. And the other important thing is it improves access to resource neighborhoods. So you saw the map earlier where everything that was available was north of Main Street. It opens up other areas of the community for people to potentially rent in. Now for landlords, it applies to properties that are within the maximum allowable rent for the voucher. No one is forcing anyone to lower their rent to what the voucher amount will accept. So just to give you an example, and this is not a fixed price, these are just examples, The fair market rent in Lexington, which is used as a base for calculation for most programs, was $1,600 or so for three-bedroom, $1,772-bedroom, $983 one-bedroom. If you're charging well over that, this initiative has zero impact on you. I had someone who rents a luxury apartment for $2,000 a month call and say, you're going to make me rent housing choice vouchers, and said no, because no one's ever going to be eligible for a housing choice voucher at your unit. It's too expensive. If your rent is higher, you won't be impacted, and you don't have to lower the rent to that amount. The only thing it really does is say you can't advertise that you don't take Section 8 and you must include the voucher in the calculation of household income. So I know a lot of people understand that landlords will say you must make three times the monthly rent. You have to include the value of the voucher in that calculation. However, you also have to do the inspection process if it's required. Most programs, Housing Choice Voucher does, require pre-inspection, but you are not required to repair items that fail inspection if you wouldn't have repaired them for another renter. Now, if you turn someone down and say, sorry, I won't pass inspection, then turn around and fix it for the next person, that would be a violation. You're also not required to wait unreasonable amounts of time. I know there's some myths out there about 90-day waits for rents. If it can't get executed in a timely manner, you can walk away. I'll go ahead and skip this quote. So what the proposal from the law department was to add this to the fairness ordinance. It seemed to be the simplest way to handle it. We already have a fairness ordinance with an enforcement mechanism in place. All you really have to do is just add language to it. You could also do a standalone ordinance. That's totally up to the council. So what it does not do, it does not prevent landlords from using credit history, eviction history, criminal history or any other commercially reasonable non-discriminatory practice. No one's making you rent to sex offenders, felons, or any other group if you choose not to. It does require, or does not require landlords to make repairs or alterations if they don't pass inspection. Now I will say that what you're saying there is you'd rather rent to someone with your code violations still in place, so it's not really an acceptable position to be renting code violations but you don't have to make the repairs and generally it doesn't restrict any of your other rights as a landlord with a written lease agreement like i said it doesn't require anyone to hold the unit for an unreasonable amount of time i did talk to housing authority they said that they can set people up same day when they receive direct deposit and w-9 forms then there's a couple other steps basically looks like five to seven days if everything follows appropriately obviously there's exceptions to everything and someone can find a story somewhere where something fell through but that's the general average so there have been studies on these they've been around for a long time they do produce more available units for people with non-standard income sources however they don't solve all your affordable housing problems as a community that's really what it's doing is opening up access to more units it's not necessarily you know bringing down rents preventing evictions or increasing the number of affordable housing units in the community that's a different program it also helps people get access to high performing schools more jobs transportation they're not restricted to the one or two neighborhoods where there are landlords who will take their voucher and it reduces the amount of time it takes for them to find housing and it will still be a problem for folks who have poor credit eviction history, ex-offenders, those folks are still going to have trouble finding units because that is still a barrier and this does not address that. I get asked a lot, won't the landlords just raise the rent? This didn't happen in Louisville. It hasn't happened in other communities that have done this. Landlords set the rent. I think it's fair to say that most landlords are already charging the highest possible rent they can get for the unit. If not i'd like to recommend they do that but you know again they can already do this now looking at louisville they passed their uh much more restrictive ordinance by the way theirs includes criminal history and some other areas that we don't address their average rent was 891 when the protections took effect it was 895 and a month later it was 904. during that same period rents actually went up by a larger amount in lexington the enforcement would be delegated to the human rights commission that's that's part of tying it to the fairness ordinance uh the plan would be for little or no enforcement the first year just an education campaign and i would point out that louisville has only really had a handful of actionable complaints as you can imagine this could be a little difficult to establish in terms of proving things but the fair housing council is going to help us they're going to work with landlord groups on education if this were to pass housing authority is obviously good with working landlord on setup fair housing can do that too our office will obviously contribute before before i wrap up i just want to say one more thing i'm this morning i went to a sort of ribbon cutting for an excellent display i'd recommend at the central library called undesigning the red line and it's all about the history of redlining in lexington and elsewhere and you know that was mostly a home ownership issue and it's had a long-standing negative impact on our community and many others tenants don't have that protection we have we've tried to walk back a lot of the redlining the damage is still there but that was for homeowners this wasn't really addressed with tenants our federal government has privatized public housing and our private market has cut it off and so we have a whole group of citizens who have nowhere to go for housing glad to take questions thank you very much for your presentation Commissioner Councilmember Baxter Thank You chair and Charlie thank you for this presentation I think you did a really good job of answering or or describing some of the concerns that the community has expressed um but i have some more questions that i'm going to ask we've received a lot of emails from our landlord community regarding some misinformation and things like that so i'm just going to kind of quick fire some questions at you um can you is will source of income discrimination be any is it any form of rent control no rent control is illegal in the state of kentucky it's not allowed okay another concern that we've received is that the section 8 program results in higher rents because it one increases administrative costs for housing providers and two delays the leasing process in your opinion will this raise rents across the board you mentioned it earlier but yeah i think i would take issue with increasing administrative costs it's a two-page form that they fill out i mean it's it's a couple more pages of paperwork than they would do otherwise and as i mentioned in the presentation and other communities this has not resulted in increased rents thank you do you feel like this ban would reduce the number of evictions this is not intended to reduce the number of evictions this is intended to improve access to units to get people into housing there's other programs that address keeping them in there once they're in another concern that we've received is if the housing authority has to increase increase staffing levels could that potentially increase property taxes the housing authority is not funded by property taxes they're funded by money from hud and their own rents so even if they did have to increase that which i'm not sure that's the case it would not lfcg doesn't fund the housing authority that's not our money okay um and can you clarify if all property owners would have to have an initial inspection or do they only have to have an inspection if they accept an application from a voucher holder they only have to have an inspection if they're accepting an application for it for for whatever that voucher requires so obviously the biggest program in section 8 they require an initial inspection there's other vouchers that have different inspection processes but they're all pretty similar and it would only be required to go through the inspection as part of the voucher application process does that answer your question kind of so i guess the concern that i've received is that if we pass a ban will every landlord across the board have to go through the initial inspection process no just just when you're working with a tenant who has a voucher if the market another tenant walks in they're not using a voucher then no there would be no inspection okay and then I'm gonna go back going off script here okay so in your myth busting slide you were talking a little bit about the timeframe that the housing authority is giving you for inspection period so let's just say they get an inspector out to the home and there's a broken window and the broken window is going to take four months to come in because of all the other things in the market um will that landlord have to hold that property for that amount of time or can they then move to another i know i know part of what you're gonna how you're gonna respond but because that was a hud inspection item will they have to hold that property for that amount of time and lose rent no no they they could tell that you know i'm sorry i'm not gonna be able this fixed for four months and the tenant has to go find another unit it's it's um nothing is requiring them to make that repair the only thing this ordinance would do is say you can't advertise i don't take section eight and refuse to entertain the notion if you start down that road and something is a barrier to it you walk away so essentially this would just prevent a landlord from refusing to review an application from somebody that had okay i have so many more questions so i'll log back i'll look back in a minute thank you chair thank you uh vice mayor thank you chair for recognizing me even though i don't serve on this committee uh thank you commissioner for that um presentation i also have a bunch of questions um do we know um out in the housing market how many people are out there with vouchers looking the actual number at any given time the housing authority have to answer that question i know there are a little over 3 500 vouchers active but obviously most of those are in place at least if you look at the data that i had for january through july and they had issued 215 vouchers if you figure the other programs out there another couple dozen more then over that six month period there were only 240 ish okay So how long can you have a voucher? When do they expire? And what happens when they expire? That would probably best be answered by the housing authority. I think they're here if you'd like to ask them. Okay. If we do have somebody who can answer that, that'd be great. If not, I think there's some extensions they're allowed to do that I'm not familiar with the process. I'll ask him. I think Mr. Sims is in the overflow area. So if he could come in here, I think several council members have questions for him as well. Thank you. And I can hop to the next question while we're waiting, too. In this presentation, there were a couple of times where it talked about not requiring landlords to wait an unreasonable amount of time for kind of all this process to go through. What do you consider an unreasonable amount of time? I think unreasonable probably is in the eye of the beholder, right? Like, if you think you've got five other tenants who can lease it tomorrow, then tomorrow is probably an unreasonable amount of time. I think it would be if the council wanted to examine that language and put a fixed time frame on it, that's something the council could do. Again, all we're interested in is seeing that the application is entertained and not 97% of the units not even taking your phone call. Okay. And while Mr. Sims is coming up here, I'll get to my next point, too. One of the things that I always look at with any sort of ordinance that we put on the books like this is the idea of enforcement. And I know our enforcement mechanism for this, if we did it through the fairness ordinance, would be the Human Rights Commission. I used to serve on that board. I know it's a small, scrappy staff, and they have a limited amount of personnel and resource to give to it. But then we also talked about the fact that Louisville have had very few actual complaints, right? So can you give us sort of your thoughts about this as an ordinance in terms of its effectiveness, enforcement versus kind of a deterrent effect? The idea that this is not about a bunch of people getting charged or getting fined or having complaints lodged against them in order for it to work. Is there an element of this having it on the books at all kind of making it effective? Does that make sense? I think I get what you're saying. It's the idea is to open the market up so that people with a voucher will be heard and their application considered. In terms of enforcement, no one intends for, as you mentioned, the Human Rights Commission does not have the capacity for a large-scale enforcement. I hate to use the phrase keeps honest people honest, but, you know, if there's a way around not renting to someone, you can generally find a way around not renting to someone. And I don't think, you know, the Human Rights Commission or anyone is going to be, you know, running around town, you know, interrogating landlords. They're just going to be responding to complaints as they get them. Yeah. Thank you very much. Mr. Simms, I had a couple questions about vouchers and how long folks can hold vouchers, how long it takes for them to expire, and what happens after they expire. Can you reapply? How does that work? Initially, when we, let me first say, I also have our technician, the manager of the Section 8 program, so if you really want to get into the weeds, we're going to ask Aldine Pleasant to come and respond to you. But basically, we start out with a 60-day period, and that can be extended to 120 days. And depending upon circumstances, she can evaluate whether that extension can be granted beyond that. But basically, 120 days. Okay. Once that 120 days elapses, are you able to reapply immediately and get it back again? Is there any sort of waiting period between? At the end of that 120 days, basically that voucher is going to be given to someone else to extend an opportunity for them to use it. There has not been much discussion in terms of why and what purpose. Whether it is a housing choice voucher. So on one hand, we can't find houses that are available in other situations. the tenant may have chosen not to take a particular house. And so after 120 days, depending upon the conversation that staff has had with them, that voucher, they could lose it. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilwoman Menares. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Sims? Okay. I was going to ask regarding what you just started talking about. Because one of the statistics on here is that since January to July 1st, the 250 new vouchers were issued and then 18% went unused. So the assumption could be that 18% went unused because they couldn't find housing available. However, in the Herald Leader, it addressed that statistic as well. That the housing authority said that it was for a variety of reasons. And so it's not necessarily because a unit was not available, per se. There could be units available, and the voucher recipient just chose to not go with one of the units available. Is that correct? That is correct. A variety of reasons, and it's difficult for us to determine. We attempt, through conversation, to determine why. But one may not be able to get that voucher because they just can't find the four-bedroom. or the three-bedroom in the particular neighborhood that they want or the particular school district that they want. We have had people who were looking for a four-bedroom. They couldn't find it, and they decided that they would take a three-bedroom. So it is, on one hand, sometimes we cannot find the units. Other times it's that, I don't know what I want to use the term, the tenant has been too choosy in terms of I want this particular school district, this particular neighborhood. And oftentimes the neighborhood is based on support. My family, my support, my babysitter, all in this neighborhood. I want this neighborhood. If you can't find it, you can't find it in this program. We don't build them, so we can't provide them. We can only encourage landlords to take them. Thank you. And then Commissioner Lantern. Yes, ma'am. So you were also going into what this means and what this doesn't mean. So I just wanted to ask more about what this doesn't mean when it comes to you're not setting rent. So a landlord still has the ability to set the rent for their units. We're not forcing anybody to remain within a certain range. And then you also said that this is just that the applicant that has a voucher would be considered. So if a landlord has five applicants, the landlord still considers and can look into criminal background check for each of those applicants. Eviction history for each of those applicants and all the criteria that they normally look at. and a voucher recipient is just considered equally with regards to income, but a landlord would still make the best determination of who is best qualified for that unit. Is that correct? Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Nothing about this gives the person with the voucher preference, nor does it prevent the landlord from using all their other normal criteria for tenant selection to choose the tenant that's best fit for them. So even if it was determined that a voucher recipient was the one that they wished to be considered, and the unit went through an inspection, a landlord is given a list of items to be repaired before a tenant can move in, there is nothing that forces a landlord to make any one of those repairs. That's correct. They could just move on to the next tenant if they subdues. So even if it isn't because it's an unreasonable amount of time to wait, the landlord could still just not do the repairs for any reason whatsoever and then move on to the next? Yeah, like just as a hypothetical example, if there was a hole in the wall and the housing authority inspector was unwilling to approve it due to the hole in the wall and the landlord didn't want to repair the hole in the wall, but there was another renter who was fine with that, they could rent to that person and not repair the hole in the wall. And then when speaking of inspections, every one of the voucher programs that you listed in your presentation, all of those have some sort of inspection attached to it? Yeah, I'm not really aware of any voucher program that doesn't have some type of inspection involved. Now, there are third-party payment programs, like say the housing stabilization program, that don't require an inspection, but an ongoing voucher payment is almost always going to require at least a minimal inspection. And then should any of these tenants move out and there be, let's say, damages upon someone exiting a unit, who's responsible for the cost of those damages? That would be treated as any other normal transaction between the tenant and the landlord. So whether we were a voucher holder or not a voucher holder, however the landlord would handle that situation, they would handle it the same. But if it's someone without a voucher, someone with income from a full-time job, let's say, those wages could be garnished. So what, of course, would a landlord have as far as being able to obtain those funds? That would be for their legal advisor to tell them. but I don't, there's, I guess, to your point, there's no evidence that people with vouchers cause damage to units at any greater rate than people without vouchers. So, you know, it would generally be treated the same as any other. Now, whether they get a wage garnishment in a case of something with employment income, you know, voucher holders have employment income. You know, they're paying a percentage of their income as the rent. So it's not that they're unemployed, per se. There's some kind of income. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Sims, I heard you say that perhaps the residents were being too choosy in expecting to live near or have their children go to the same schools. Did I hear correct? Let me be sure you understand that that was not a negative statement I'm saying in terms of when we give one a voucher, it's a choice. They may go anywhere in Lexington that a landlord at this point is willing to rent. We give them the voucher based on the family size. So they're either given a voucher for one, two, three, four bedroom size. So if they can't find one because there's one not available or they can't find one because they're looking for a particular school district, which are comments that have been shared with staff. So when I said two choosy, I'm saying that they've given a choice to make that. If they can't find the four bedroom, do they wish to go to a three? That's their choice. We can't force them to do it. Thank you. I just wanted you to clarify. Okay. Also, so do vouchers keep up with the rent increase? Or how do we know how much, like, for a three-bedroom voucher that would be? HUD makes that determination. Aline, why don't you talk a lot about that? HUD publishes fair market rents annually and the housing authority sets our payment standards based upon HUD's fair market rents for the Lexington area. When a landlord requests a certain amount of dollars for a rental unit, we do a rent comparability. We have a third party agency that updates market rents in the Lexington area and It's based upon those rent updates, the rent comparability for rent reasonableness test. But the landlord requests the amount and we approve it if we can based upon fair market rents. So if, say, a landlord raises rent that's above that fair market, that would exclude those residents with vouchers? Initially, a family can't pay more than 40% of their monthly adjusted income toward rent and average utilities, and that's a HUD regulation. Housing Authority has no control over that. So the more money, more income, household income that the family has, the more expensive unit they can rent. If we have a client that has zero income, then they cannot rent a unit over the payment standard for rent and utilities. Thank you. Commissioner Lanter? How often do landlords in these large complexes say we aren't taking vouchers any longer? That's actually a big part of what's been driving this challenge. A number of our large complexes in the community are now owned by out-of-state corporations, many of them. And the bigger they are, the more likely that is the case. and I would say at least 90% of those large apartment complexes owned by out-of-state corporations do not take vouchers. It's not uncommon for them to come in and buy one and implement that policy. So you're saying that it's normal for, say, a change in ownership and then voila, we no longer take vouchers. So right now, what is our remedy for the large number of, or I'm just assuming because I'm looking at my district, the large number of landlords who are saying they're not taking vouchers. There is no remedy for it. No remedy. And so just for clarification, so what you said is that basically there is no one being forced. It's just to take a voucher. It's just saying you don't have to choose the voucher, but you can't say you're not going to take any applicants. So you can't discriminate. Correct. Okay. Okay. Just clarifying. Thank you, sir. And thank you. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Council Member James Brown because he hasn't spoken on this subject yet. Thank you, Chair. and thank you council member Savigny and council member Lynch for working on this item and bringing it forward and Commissioner thanks for the presentation so you you said that there are more restrictive policies in other communities can you just give you mentioned criminal background checks can you mention some of the other parts of the policy that would make it more restrictive in these other communities so in it if you were to expand what you were banning essentially you couldn't in some communities refuse based on criminal background credit history eviction history there's any number of things that landlords use to to narrow their pool or choose their tenants and this would only deal with source of income whereas some of the other ordinances in other cities there's a list of four or five things besides source of income such as criminal history or credit history so so do these other communities and maybe you haven't research this so they have fairness ordinances that they've attached it to or is it just an ordinance they put on the book i don't have enough research to say whether that's another little words stand-alone ordinance the other thing to and when we talk about affordable housing or rental rates when it comes to vouchers is purely a formula based off of the family's income in what the landlord is running the property for and and and i guess maybe mr sams or uh... the uh... the lady that's out there the housing voucher program administrator so can you explain that a little bit because it's not just a set number across the community am i am i correct is actually tied to the the family situation and the right the rent can you pick the question again so it's so there so there's no standard amount that there's no standard threshold that rents need to be either above or below to qualify for vouchers. It's actually, and my question is, is it based on the family's income in correlation to what the rent the landlord is charging? Is that correct? The family pays the greater of 30% of their monthly adjusted income, 10% of the gross income or the minimum rent. That's what the family portion is. The housing assistance payment is the difference between the tenant portion and the contract rent that the landlord charges for the unit. There's no set rent. Landlord can request whatever rent they want for the unit, but the rent has to be reasonable and it also has to meet that family's income cap because per the HUD regulation, they can't pay over 40% of their monthly adjusted income for rent and utilities. And that's where a lot of clients can't rent units on the Section 8 program because the landlord's gross rent is more than their 40% that they are allowed, what we call their shopping dollar amount. Okay, okay. So that answered my question because I think in a lot of people's mind there's a threshold of where rents need to be to either qualify or not to qualify, and it's more that goes into that calculation than other things. Right. And then, Charlie, my last question is, I think we're kind of winding down as a community using some of the federal funds that we've been given to address a rental situation, eviction prevention. Would this policy prevent, say for some reason we replenish those funds, would this policy prevent us from addressing some of the issues with landlords to pay back rent and to keep folks in their property? because it's probably not a voucher, but it's Are you asking would this apply to rental assistance programs in terms of they have to accept the funding? Yes, they would have to accept the funding from Housing and Stabilization because that's a payment source. Okay. Alright. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Austin, I have a couple of questions for you, please. And if you're not the appropriate person, you can refer me on. I'll give you back to her. Okay, so we've heard from some community members that voucher programs interfere with lease renewals. Do you feel like that's the case? A lease renewal interferes with lease renewals? I'm not for sure that they would. I see somebody creeping behind you. Let's see. The housing authority has to approve rents anytime a landlord requests an increase in rents. And sometimes what happens with lease renewals, the landlord will increase the rent without notifying the housing authority. And we will tell the clients don't pay that amount until we do a rent reasonableness test to make sure that the rent is reasonable. So I think that's one issue dealing with the lease renewal. Okay, so I'm going to give you an example. So if my lease is up and I'm a voucher holder or it's nearing completion and I want to renew my lease with my landlord, but my landlord wants to increase the rent amount, they would then need to notify the housing authority of their increase. Yes. And if they didn't do that in a timely manner, then that could potentially link them. Right. Okay. Yes, because we have to give a client at least 30-day notice of any increase in the rent portion. Okay. So I'm assuming there's an educational component there with landlords who are utilizing the program to make sure that everybody's on the same page. Yes. Okay. And then one of the major concerns that I've heard is that the landlord community, that nearly 70% of those who do not currently accept vouchers have in the past, but have stopped because of a negative experience. So do you feel, one of my questions is why do you think that is? Why do you think they have this negative experience or perception of the program? And then what improvements to the program do you think could make participation more appealing? I would need to look at it case-by-case basis as far as landlords' concerns, the negativity of the Section 8 program. I think we run an efficient program. We're not perfect, but not knowing why, most of our landlords that are currently participating on the program have no complaints. We've heard that it takes 90 days for an inspection. That's not true. Our normal inspection process is within three to five days we inspect the unit. Sometimes the inspector cannot get in touch with the landlord. They attempt to call him, send him an email. If the landlord is not responsive, then they can't schedule the inspection because a landlord or a landlord representative needs to be at the property. As far as housing assistance payments are concerned, we do two monthly check runs. We do what we call the first of the month check run, and that's usually, depending on holidays or business days, it's usually the first day of the month, and we do direct deposit, and then we do a mid-month check run. Once a unit passes inspection, we input the contract in the system within two days, and then at the next check run the landlord should be receiving their housing assistance payments so I don't know why there would be you know 70 percent of landlords saying that they are dissatisfied with the section 8 program currently we have over 700 landlords participating on the program and we have 3,000 around 3,600 participants on the program we pay out monthly over two million dollars in housing assistance payment to landlords okay thank you I appreciate that clarification and with a few moments i have left i'm just going to make some remarks you know i really appreciate this presentation the clarifications that it's provided you know there's been a lot of rumors and false information kind of circulating but i personally can can understand the concerns of our landlord community i will encourage that same community to review and share this presentation with others that own rental properties because i do think that it has provided a lot of clarification for myself it's cleared up a lot of things too and i understand the intent of the proposed ban more now than i did before even with that better understanding i still have reservations because i think there are valid concerns raised by the rental community and there's always unforeseen circumstances or consequences of any legislation but I'll consider those possibilities as well as continue to educate myself during this process and I wanted to thank the community for your feedback and I look forward to continued conversations. Thank you chair. Thank you. Councilwoman Menaris. Thank you. I just had a few more questions. Commissioner Lantern. I was asked for non-section 8 vouchers, how long are those vouchers for? So if we were giving a voucher to get a homeless person off of the street, how long does that voucher last? They're all different. Some can be as long as two years. They are different from the Housing Choice Voucher in that many of the homeless program vouchers tend not to be permanent. They're more six months to two years. Each program varies a little. and they target who they're serving is derived by how long that is like is that person for example likely to be self-sustaining in six months or do they need two years and so it can vary but i think the two key takeaways are they they tend not to be permanent like the housing choice vouchers are and that they they vary in length depending on the depending on the person receiving them but it would be a minimum of six months yeah there may be some three-month ones out there but but most of them are six or longer. So the concern was when they're shorter than 12 months, then having to turn over that property if there isn't an ability to pay rent after that voucher expires? Yeah, and one thing that I think is a key point is in a lot of cases with these, what we call COC or vouchers or homeless vouchers, the lease is often between the agency and the landlord. not the tenant isn't necessarily a party that or they're a party to what's called a program agreement and so they're sort of master leasing the unit for their clients so it could be that the the client changes that the lease is still in place and we've had one organization that does a lot new beginnings they can't they're struggling now to even get that arrangement they can't even get anyone to let them master lease a unit so that they can have tenants come in and out of it and is that the case also for the vouchers uh for for example the foster children that are trying to also be placed i'm less familiar with that one to be honest with you but they all i can say is they they tend to all run the same general way okay thank you and then i have another question for mr sims or someone from his with regards to section eight And it's specifically about what would it take for a recipient to get kicked off the program? What is the reason why vouchers rescinded? Once we give a voucher to that tenant, they have a lease with the landlord. And so they would, if they are in violation of that lease, then the landlord can evict them and they have to go through a court system to do that. Once they have evicted them, we would look at the cause, whether it was noncompliance with the lease, whether we felt it was the landlord was the problem versus the tenant. And if it were strictly noncompliance, then we would take that voucher and they would lose the right to have a voucher. And when would that person qualify for another voucher? Two years. After two years, they can apply anytime on the waiting list, but we can't serve them for two years until two years is that. But in answer to your question too, there are multiple reasons that a family loses their Section 8. Some of them just get up and move from the unit without notification to the housing authority. Of course, our clients pass away. Some fail to provide information that we need in order to certify them. We have to do annual certifications and they fail to provide information to our office. Some fail to occupy the unit as a primary resident. They'll have a section 8 unit and they're living someplace else. So it's just multiple reasons that we terminate assistance for our participants. Would you happen to know maybe in the last five years? or do you have any statistic of how many people have been removed from the Section 8 program? The last five years, we have terminated 1,400 people approximately from the program. And it's for multiple reasons. As I said, I can kind of give you some numbers. deceased 175, evicted 124, phage allow inspection 22, phage occupy units primary residence 36. And one of our big ones is they voluntarily get the section 8 up. We have 196 that voluntarily get their section 8 up. And then we have clients that reach zero assistance. And once they're at zero assistance for six months they graduate from the program and we have to terminate them and we had 112 participants that actually graduated from the program. What about, I also heard about concerns of them moving in other occupants that shouldn't be in that household. Yes, sometimes they do move in unauthorized individuals and if we find that a better we meet with the client to discuss only the persons they've listed with us and on their lease can live in the unit and if we get documentation, we have proof that someone else is living there, we will refer them for termination of assistance. Our participants, they do get the opportunity for an appeal. They can appeal the termination and they meet with an independent party that will decide whether or not they remain on the program or if they're terminated. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Fogle, because she has not spoken yet on this item. Thank you, Chair. So it has been said north of Main Street, so District 1, 2, 6 are really in the meat of that. I would just like to make state for the record that I don't think any homeowner or landlord should be absolutely forced to take any voucher or make decision based on what government says. But with saying that, I don't expect them to be discriminatory either because a person has a voucher. Mr. Sims, at the beginning of the vouchers, if my regulation is right, wasn't the Section 8 voucher intended on going toward home ownership when this first started? Not in its beginning. the beginning in the 70s was they were called Section 8 certificates and then they became housing choice vouchers. It was only, and I said recently in the last 10 or 15 years, that home ownership is allowed under the program. And so we do participate in that program where after a tenant has been participating in the program for a year, if they choose home ownership, they can work toward doing that and the voucher will contribute to that mortgage for 15 years. It's a difficult thing with banks because you're dealing with a split mortgage payment. Okay, thank you. And the other thing I would like to put in the atmosphere is that I keep hearing about unhoused and the vouchers. I want this room to know that a disaster in Eastern Kentucky's flood and a tornado in the Western Kentucky can force a family into having to receive vouchers. So I want to take that stigma off of people who may be on third and entry or in front of the Life Day Center. I want to make sure that people who have vouchers could end up any kind of way to have to receive. Your husband gets hurt on the job and you go one income instead of two incomes, could force a person into having to accept that voucher. And of course, people who are on vouchers, I'm talking about my constituents. They want to live in better neighborhoods. They turn those certificates in because they have been forced to look in areas that are high crime, a lot of murder. If you look at some of the vouchers that's been turned in, or you ask the person why, it's not just because they wanted to turn it in, it's that they wanted a better living for their children and their grandchildren. So I want to make sure I make that statement and that you all understand. There's hardly any housing in Lexington that does not rent below $1,200 for, I've seen some studios are at that price. But when we look at gated communities, isn't that a developers, they have the right, I guess, to, because what they really do, they exclude based on the folks they won't live in on their property. And so, it is said that we have been forced, and so many families don't have a place to live. And now we've got these vouchers. I don't like giving the government back any kind of money. I don't care if it's two pennies. They can't have it. And I'm not talking about us, the government. I'm talking about the federal HUD. I'm talking about us too. Hold on, let me change that statement up. But anyway, so everybody in here knows that I am for the people by the people. I truly am. I always have been and been blessed to sit up here on this horseshoe with the rest of my coworkers. But this is a serious issue and I'm hoping that we can find a medium. I would love for the city council, they're going to kill me, be able to supplement any damages that is done for homeowners that they have suffered, that has vouchers. Somehow there's got to be something we can come up with. So the homeowner doesn't lose and the families don't lose. And so that's what we wake up every day is to try to help somebody better their self and to better their life. So in saying that, I hope we can find a solution and work together seriously. Yeah, that's it. My five minutes is up and I'm going to be obedient. Brenda. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, so when you all looked at the days worth of rental listings on September 15th, and you were trying to look for the number of listings that said they don't accept Section 8, did you see other stipulations of other sort of prohibitions, like we will not rent to X, Y, and Z, other things like that? That research was done by our housing advocate, and I didn't ask her to do anything other than just count up the number of units. advertise no Section 8, so I couldn't really answer that. Okay. I'm curious about that in terms of what sort of other limitations people put on who they want to rent to. And then this percentage of 4%, I think it's what, 23 listings that didn't say we won't accept Section 8 or vouchers, right? But that 4%, those 23 listings did not say we will. Correct. It's still possible that if you called, they would say. So what we're looking at then in terms of the folks who will accept Section 8, it's somewhere between 4% and 0, right? That's the reality of it. The ones that didn't say it doesn't mean they will. And did you see any that said we will accept vouchers or Section 8? I don't recall. Again, that's not a search term we use. Yeah. So, you know, there's been talk about the idea of choice and where people can choose to live. and what other criteria that they bring into it, closeness to schools, their support network, transportation work, whatever it is. But if I'm a person that does have to rely on the housing voucher and I'm going online and I'm able, let's say, theoretically, to look at 557 rental listings, the entirety of the rental listings that are available, there would only be 23 that I would even try to apply to. would you say that's a reasonable assumption? Yeah, if you were using that listing as your... Yeah, so, I mean, if I'm using a Section 8 voucher, I would not be applying to these other 500. Ones that literally say... There would be no point, because they actually advertise... There would be no point. And for me, as somebody searching for housing, then I am listed out of 557 rental listings in all of Fayette County, I am limited to those 23. And so I think the idea of choice is really crushingly small for somebody who's relying on the voucher in that those are the only 23. So it kind of in some ways may not even matter as much for me as the person looking as to is it close to my family, is it close to schools, is it close to where I really want to be in Lexington. So it's just something that really struck me, this idea of it. I also want to just kind of, you know, we've gone back and forth a little bit about like what this proposal, what this proposed idea or ordinance does and doesn't do, right? If I am a landlord and I want to make a post to rent out my property, the only thing that this proposed idea or ordinance would do is I can't say the words, I will not take housing vouchers or Section 8. That's correct. That is all this would do. And so striking that from my posting, I can turn down every single applicant that has a Section 8 voucher if I want to for other reasons. For other reasons. Yeah. If it were documented, you turned it down because of the voucher, that would still be a violation. But if you turn them down for any other, literally any other legal reason. Right. And there are a number of different reasons that I can take. and it's still well, well within my power as a landlord to determine who I want to rent to. And I just want to kind of throw one more number out there that we haven't talked about. It's somewhere around 50% of Lexingtonians are renters. Obviously, not all of them, and probably a small segment of them, are Section 8 or voucher holders, But that's kind of the number that we're looking at, and that's kind of the effect that something like this, I think, would have. I think this is a really, really good discussion, and I think Commissioner and Mr. Sims and your team have done a really great job of debunking kind of a lot of these misconceptions, misinformation, and disinformation, honestly. because I'm somebody who, when I think about doing right by the people, really, really cognizant about unintended consequences and what, you know, things that we put forward could actually come back to us negatively because of reactions and things that happen. So I appreciate this conversation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And I want to thank everybody for all the emails and phone calls we've received in the last few months because it's a very passionate issue. And a lot of people are very involved in it. And I really want to appreciate all that you all do. Mr. Sims, in today's Lexington Herald-Leader, it said the Lexington Fayette Urban County Housing Authority, which oversees federal housing vouchers, also does not support the ban. What does that mean? You'd have to ask the writer. I have made it very clear to everyone that my issue is the Housing Authority Voucher Program. And what we have talked about is how do we get more landlords. And my suggestion is that we incentivize the program, that we give landlords an additional $1,000, $1,500, to try the program, to dispel all the rumors, to give them an additional security deposit. And we're doing that now. Now, the fund's going to run out at some point. But to say try the program, everybody incentivizes now. You incentivize, you pay to hire people. The banks send you a thing and say if you open up an account and keep it in there for six months, we'll give you an incentive. So that's been my position is to, I don't want to deal with a landlord who does not want to participate. Okay? Or that feels forced to participate. I have clearly stated that we as an agency and me individually opposed to discrimination of any type. But here, if you read the paper, if you listen to all of the latest news, the attack has been on the housing authority's voucher program in terms of how do we prevent this ordinance from occurring. I don't pass ordinances. We have 723 landlords under the program. We spend $2 million a month to landlords who pay their taxes, their insurance, and their mortgages, and to utility companies. So we're saying that our program is a success. Certainly we can improve it. Certainly we can enhance new landlords as HUD gives us additional vouchers. Other than that, my position is really insignificant as it relates to the ordinance itself. I don't have a vote. I want to protect the program that in Lexington has been successful. HUD is doing a survey right now on incentivizing voucher programs. And whether they'll end up giving us additional funds to do that, I don't know. But I'm in conversation with one of the HUD researchers as it relates to that. So that's my position. Simply the program today for Lexington Works, $25 million program, 3,600 families, 723 landlords. Thank you, Mr. Simms. I appreciate that explanation. One of the questions I have, and I think we're going to discuss it here, is since we've heard from both sides, but I would like to have public comment. I think we're going to set at some point a public hearing to hear from both sides. Because when I hear the stat about 70 percent no longer accept the vouchers, I want to know why that is. And as what Mr. Sims said, how can the program be such that we might not force it on landlords but make them want to take it because they want to use the program? So I'll be curious to hear from the public comment and see what we can do and what we can do better. Councilman, one of HUD's intents, and it is irritating to a landlord, is that this program is to do away with renting of substandard housing. And so if, in fact, you are a landlord and we come out, if the window is broken, we can't pay you until you get it fixed. Now, you can choose not to deal with that tenant, but we can pay you. And you can get it done in a couple days or you can do it in a week or two weeks. So our inspector disapproves it. We have tenant complaint inspections. So once the landlord is under our program, if a tenant calls up and says the refrigerator is not keeping things at the proper temperature, we must do a complaints inspection. So those are things that landlords oftentimes don't like. It's serving HUD's purpose of being sure that property that we rent meets housing quality standards. standards, but it's irritating to someone who, if they're on the private side, don't have someone looking over their shoulder. Thank you, and I think my time's up. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, and I'll address the hearing in a little bit. We are going to try to finish this up as quickly as we can, so those of us that still have comments, if we could just be as concise as we can, that would be great. Thank you. Council Member Pullman. Thank you, Chair. And I was just going to comment that we have received so much communication, probably more from landlords. And it's a lot of food for thought. I mean, I've given so much thought and attention to this. And today was very helpful in terms of my colleagues with very thoughtful comments and questions that you brought forward. And I think we're still learning. I mean, I know I am. Learning as a community. And so I really think it's very important for us to come together with the public opportunity to hear the voices and to kind of flesh this out. And I was going to ask you, Council Member Chair, do you have a date? I've seen a couple dates. Can you announce a date yet at this time? In my comments, in a few minutes, I will do that. Okay, great. I think it obviously would be something that would be very beneficial to the community, both sides. Okay, thank you, Chair. Madam Chair, Madam Chair. Yes. May I just extend to you all an invitation. I heard from Councilman Brown that he had spent time with the fire department riding the vehicle. We would invite you, if you're interested in participating and observing a real inspection, we'd have to schedule that with you. We would invite you to participate in a half day or a day or one or two. If you want to come in and watch and observe our operation in terms of recertifications, calculations, all the issues that are involved in issuing a voucher, we'd be more than happy to do that with proper scheduling. Thank you so much. We appreciate that. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me since I do not serve on this committee. Thank you, Council Member Civigni, for leading the charge on this issue. It's been an honor to work with you on this issue. And thank you to Commissioner Lanter for your presentation. Thank you also to the community. Thank you for your emails, your phone calls. I appreciate the conversations that we've had thus far, and I look forward to continuing to have conversations. And I invite everyone to schedule a meeting with me for the one-on-one conversations. I look forward to that. I just want to provide a few comments. The presentation today was fact-driven, and I appreciate that. The 15 years I served renters in Lexington and Fayette County, I regularly saw the need for a source of income protections. I witnessed the struggle of renters trying to find housing who had incomes that included a housing subsidy, Social Security, Social Security disability, alimony, or child support. Commissioner Lanter stated in his presentation that in Lexington, 76% of Section 8 housing choice vouchers are held by African American-led households. Thus, those are voucher holders who look like me. They look like Councilmember James Brown. They look like Councilmember Fogle. And they look like Councilwoman Denise Gray. This is important, 76%. This issue is not just a civil rights issue, but a human rights issue. We all deserve a place to call home, and it is up to us to remove as many barriers as possible for people to find housing and to maintain it. Many of you in this room attended one of the many fair housing trainings I conducted statewide. So you have heard me say that housing is a stability factor for individuals and for families. Without stable housing, the domino effect of decline is very rapid. I am reminded of a client I helped many years ago who was a newly divorced single mom of two beautiful daughters, both under the age of five. She had not worked since she had gotten married and her husband was the sole breadwinner of the household. Upon divorce, she had to navigate on her own finding a home for herself and her daughters as well as trying to find a job. She struggled to find a rental home because many landlords did not want to accept the child support and alimony income that she was receiving. She had to couch surf with her two daughters and depend on the kindness of friends until she was able to find an apartment, and it took a very, very long time. And due to that displacement, it took a huge toll on those two little girls. And I unfortunately had to witness that. And I don't want to witness that again. I recognize that many landlords have been told that this issue is a hill that they should die on. Well, many of our neighbors have already been suffering on this hill for years because they are unhoused or are experiencing housing instability. Mr. Marshall, you were right. This is a life or death issue. For many of our neighbors in this city and all over our county. And I would like for everyone to keep that in mind, that this is a life or death issue. Is it not our duty to be our neighbor's keeper? Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair. It's hard to drop the mic after that. Thank you, partner. Sometimes when we shine a light on something, other things show up, and I think that's what's happened with the light that we've shown on this case. But when push comes to shove, there's just a large group of tenants and activists who plain and simply want more choice and want to be treated as individuals. And I agree with them. Some apartment complexes we found today are issuing blanket statements to existing tenants that we don't take your money anymore, your vouchers anymore, putting those vulnerable people out on the street with little recourse. If they can find housing, they in a way are being redlined, as Charlie mentioned, into a very small section of the rental market. As Council Member Wu said, Vice Mayor Wu, 537 out of 557, and that's probably looking at it. Those people were not taking vouchers, so that's looking at it generously. the geography in Lexington that these vouchers are accepted is really noticeable even to just the casual observer. This to me seems just like a modern form of redlining from the 50s and the 60s and that has no place in 2023. That being said I really look forward to the public hearing with robust discussion on the topic discussions with any of you over the next six weeks and I hope this body will definitely entertain that idea. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, and thank you, Council Member Sevigny and Council Member Lynch for working on this item and bringing it before us. I think that, you know, we have heard from both sides in the last few weeks, and there's been a lot of misinformation that has already been said going out there, and so I hope that over the next few weeks we can help have a discussion, a further discussion on this item. And so I was going to ask some more questions, but we're running out of time, so I'll ask them later. I think I want everyone in the community to know that we're trying to hear what the needs are in the community and respond to them. One thing that has come before my office, especially this past year, has been how many people are unhoused in the community. And that's been a complaint from a lot of different people on a lot of different levels. So I think for me, it's important that we work on solutions to housing people and that that's important for the whole community. And I want to do that with input from everyone including the people that are housing folks. So I just wanted to state that. Because we have had such a robust amount of input and we do not accept public comments in committee, I will be calling a public hearing just to hear this one item, source of income discrimination. I asked my colleagues and it seems like Wednesday, November 8th at 6 p.m. is the best for everyone. So if you are on this committee and you can attend that day, please raise your hand. I got an email from, I have seven people that said that they could. Tana, one, two, three, four, five. Okay. You had said yes. Yeah, I think you both had said. Okay, so, okay. The other option would be doing it on November 14th at 6 p.m. Is everybody available on November 14th? I was hoping to hear it before then, but I know. And also, any of my colleagues that are not on this committee are obviously welcome to attend. Okay, so 14th, 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, we'll do it on November 14th at 6 p.m. So there will be a public hearing called and there will be a public notice going out for that date and time, Tuesday, November 14th at 6 p.m. We do have a committee meeting earlier that day, but we will not be hearing this item at that meeting. and then we will go from there on what our next steps will be. We're not going to go over the items in committee because we've run out of time. So without further ado, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.