# Social Services & Public Safety (SSPS) Committee - April 14, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · April 14, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6744 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6744?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-04-14 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: April 15, 2026 - **Length**: 14,159 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Social Services and Public Safety Committee met on April 14, 2026, at 1:00 PM, with J. Reynolds presiding. The meeting covered three agenda items: the Affordable Housing Fund Report, the Lexington Mobile Market, and Domestic & Sexual Violence Prevention, all of which were informational in nature. One vote was taken during the meeting, and no public comments were heard. All three agenda items were presented as informational briefings, providing the committee with updates across housing, food access, and public safety topics. ## Attendance The following 13 members and attendees were present at the Committee meeting held on April 14, 2026: - J. Reynolds - W. Baxter - D. Wu - C. Ellinger - T. Morton - S. Lynch - T. Eblen - L. Higgins-Hord - J. Hale - A. Beasley - James Brown - Emma Curtis - Dave Sevigny No members were recorded as absent or late for this meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The Committee held one formal vote during the April 14, 2026 meeting. - **Approval of the March 17, 2026 Committee Summary:** The Committee voted to approve the summary from its previous meeting on March 17, 2026. The motion passed by voice vote. [timestamp: 0:03:01] No roll call votes were recorded during this meeting, and no conditions were attached to the approved item. ## Affordable Housing Fund Report [timestamp: 03:31] Rick McQuadey presented an update on the Affordable Housing Fund during this agenda item. The presentation was informational in nature and covered several aspects of the fund's current status and direction. McQuadey's update addressed the following areas: - **Definition of affordable housing** — The presentation included a discussion of how affordable housing is defined within the context of the fund. - **Funding resources** — McQuadey outlined the resources available to support the Affordable Housing Fund. - **Community impact** — The presentation highlighted the effect the fund has had on the community to date. - **Challenges** — McQuadey discussed obstacles the program has faced. - **Future goals** — The presentation included a look ahead at the program's objectives going forward. No vote or formal action was taken as a result of this presentation. The item was received as informational by the Committee. ## Lexington Mobile Market [timestamp: 48:22] Ciara Coleman presented an update on the Lexington Mobile Market, described as a grocery store on wheels designed to improve food access in underserved areas of Lexington. Coleman's presentation covered several aspects of the initiative, including: - **History** of the Lexington Mobile Market and how the program developed - **Partners** involved in supporting and operating the market - **Service areas** currently being reached by the mobile market - **Future plans** for the program's continued growth and expansion The item was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken by the Committee. *Note: Additional details from the presentation — including specific partner organizations, named service areas, stop schedules, and future milestones — are not available in the source data for this summary.* ## Domestic & Sexual Violence Prevention [timestamp: 1:09:11] Stephanie Theakston presented an update on the Domestic & Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition, covering the organization's mission, goals, and current initiatives focused on preventing violence and supporting survivors. The presentation was informational in nature. The update highlighted the Coalition's ongoing work in the areas of domestic and sexual violence prevention, though specific program details, statistics, or budget figures were not captured in the available record of this agenda item. No debate or formal action was taken on this item; it was received by the Committee as an informational presentation. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the March 17, 2026 Committee Summary --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Good afternoon, everybody. It's 1 p.m., and I would like to call to order the April 14, 2026 meeting of the Social Services and Public Safety Committee. Thank you, everyone, for being here today. Our first item on the agenda is the approval of the March 17, 2026 committee summary. Are there any additional corrections? May I have a motion to approve? There's been a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Our first presentation today is the Affordable Housing Fund update. And this is presented by our Affordable Housing Manager, Rick McQuadey. And I really want to thank him for being here in person today. We really appreciate his work and that he's able to be here with us. And so, Mr. McQuadey, I would like to invite you to the podium to give your presentation. This is an annual update that Mr. McQuadey has done for several years now. So, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And good to see everybody and good to be in Lexington. Let me start just by, well, let me figure out how to work this first. There we go. Affordable housing, I get asked a lot of times, what exactly is affordable housing? And housing is affordable for a household when it costs no more than 30 percent of their income for rent, utilities, if they're a homeowner, mortgage payments, taxes, and insurance. And that's what we strive to do with the Affordable Housing Fund dollars, are to create and fund housing that serves that population and meets that goal of having them pay no more than 30 percent of their income for their housing expenses. And as I said, it does include both multifamily and single-family homeownership. I'm glad to say, I think last time I gave a presentation, one of my goals was to do more homeownership. And we've been able to do that this year, and I'm very happy with that, working with Habitat for Humanity and also the Lexington Housing Authority. Our funds focus on households whose incomes are at or below 80 percent of their median income. And a lot of times I'm asked, what's the difference between affordable housing and workforce housing? Just by definition, workforce housing serves a little bit higher population, those between 81 and 120 percent of their median income. And there's a significant need there as well, but like I said, our resources and federal resources go to serve households at or below 80 percent of their median income. The next slide just shows the incomes that we serve at this time. I know it says 2025 on there, but the federal government hasn't released the 2026 numbers yet for Fayette County. When they do, those will be updated. But these are the incomes that we serve, and the incomes are all based on household size. The Affordable Housing Fund was created to leverage public and private investment to preserve and produce safe, quality, affordable housing for residents whose incomes are at or below 80 percent of their median income. And I want to stress the quality. To me, that's important. As you're going to hear me say again, it should cost no more to build an affordable unit than it does a market rate unit. We want the same quality in those. Everybody deserves a safe, quality place to call home, and that's what we do with the Affordable Housing Fund. Again, housing is considered affordable when housing costs no more than 30 percent of gross household income. And how do you create affordable housing? If I can't, I'm not going to build it cheaper. Property taxes are the same. Insurance is the same. The cost of property management is the same. And I certainly don't want to cut down on that. The way to do it is to reduce a project's debt service so that if the landlord or owner can pay less debt service, then they can charge lower rents to the tenants. Same way with home ownership, that if they have to borrow less, then obviously the unit's affordable and their mortgage payment becomes something that they can bear as a family. There are many resources. You know, I said that we are a gap financer. Thank you. That we are a gap financer. And we provide gap financing. There's other resources that go into the creation and the development of affordable housing. And really the preservation of affordable housing as well. And the number one program is the housing credit program. It is described in section 42 of the Internal Revenue Code. It was created under the 1986 tax act. So, what's that, 40 years? And what it does, in a nutshell, I'm not going to explain the whole program to you because it would take a while. But what it does, it provides, it encourages financial institutions to invest equity into housing development. And in return for that equity investment, they receive a tax credit over 10 years. And also in return for that equity investment then, the tenants are charged lower rents. And the tax credit has very specific rent restrictions on those properties. And the credit program is administered by Kentucky Housing Corporation. And we've been very fortunate in Fayette County to receive numerous allocations over the years since we've had the affordable housing fund for tax credit developments. And I kind of like to think that the creation of the affordable housing fund has led to a lot of those awards. And has certainly expanded our ability to serve the population we're trying to serve. In addition to the tax credits, private investment, financial institution debt, subsidy dollars from the federal government through HUD and the federal home loan banks, state, Kentucky Housing Corporation, and then local government, the affordable housing fund that we administer with Lexington and Fayette Urban County Government. And by subsidy dollars, what do I mean? I mean low interest loans. They can be either repayable loans, they can be deferred loans, which means due at maturity. They can be forgivable loans, whereby the owner of the property repays or has no repayment responsibilities over a 15 year period, which is the period of our deed restriction. As long as they remain in compliance with affordable housing fund guidelines. Which basically means you serve those who are income eligible and you maintain the property in a quality manner. I try and make it as simple as possible. So that we can provide these units. And as I said again, reduced debt service, which is what all these subsidies are designed to do, results in lower rents. And also, one more thing. The tax credit program is designed to serve populations at or below 60% of their median income. Even lower than what we're allowed to serve. That's really why I like, one of the main reasons I like housing credit developments. Is it restricts even further the incomes that can be served. The Affordable Housing Board approves all funding decisions. I don't spend any money on my own, I promise you that. Everything goes to the Affordable Housing Board. There's our board members at this time. There's several bankers on the board. I like having bankers, because I like somebody looking over the financial numbers to make sure that these are financially feasible. And they can look over my shoulder and make sure that I'm not missing anything. There's also housing advocates, representative realtors, and representative home builders. Also serves on the board as well as two of our council members. So it's a great board, and they ask a lot of questions. And they're very interested in the development and maintenance and preservation of affordable housing. The next couple slides are really there for your information. It's the application process. I always like for an applicant to talk to me. And normally they will call me, or call the office anyway, and somehow put them in touch with me, before they begin to do any other affordable housing development. Because I want to make sure they understand what they're getting into and what the requirements are. And then we just go down the process. And at the end, once it's all finished, then we do compliance monitoring as well as loan servicing and asset management. These are the evaluation criteria that we use. I think it's important to point out that we don't have a, quote, scoring system or an application window. To date, we've been able to operate this program as an open window, much like a bank does. And as long as we have money available and we have viable developments, then we consider them and try and fund them the best we can. There's been many times that I have worked with the developers on a development where maybe we were $100,000 or $200,000 short. Just work with them on ways, hey, this development will still work if you do this, this, or this. So I try and spread the money that you all allocate to affordable housing to as many quality developments and quality units as I possibly can. Excuse me. I also like the fact that we can remain flexible so that we can meet the needs of the developer. If they own a piece of property, they don't want to hold on to it for a period of time until we can get around to reviewing their application and they don't even know if it's going to be approved or not. That's another reason why I like them talking to me first. And honestly, if we had a scoring system where it was a competition, I'd be very limited in the type of advice that I could give them because I wouldn't want to give them an unfair advantage. So I like the way we've been doing this so far. I hope we can continue to do it with basically an open-window style of funding. But those are the criteria, and when I do my write-up for the board, I divide all my write-up into those five categories or criteria. Now to what I really want to spend some time on. Over the last 12 fiscal years, these are the resources that have come to the Affordable Housing Fund. Over $36 million in general fund dollars and an additional just over $17 million in ARPA funds. For a total of just over $53 million has been invested in the Affordable Housing Fund over the last 12 fiscal years. Additionally, as I said, we fund, and we don't do all loans, or all repayable loans, but I try to get as many loans as I can because I want to be able to recycle those dollars. So over those 12-year period, we've received over $9 million in loan receipts. We've committed $59 million. So that's how, you know, I don't mean by saying, look, you've received 53 and you've funded 59 million. It looks like government work, you're overspending. No, we have our loan receipts that we are able to recycle. We have funded 3,826 units, which is $15,474 a unit. When I first started this job in 2014, our average investment per unit was under $10,000. But due to increasing construction costs, due to increased interest rates, I mean, you could get a permanent loan for 3.5%, 4% back then. All that, in order to keep the rents affordable, we've had to invest more per unit. So that's why you're seeing that number growing and it continues to grow. You know, this is why I called Kevin Atkins. We're doing economic development as well. Outside funding, we've brought over $474 million into the community for the other costs associated with these developments. And then we spent a little bit over $1.7 million in office administration. Right now, we have $1.5 million available. That's all we have. And I've got a development that is waiting on HUD approval. And I have a feeling they may be waiting on HUD approval for another two or three months, unfortunately. But hopefully that will get funded and then all the funds will be fully committed at this time. So of the $59 million that we've committed, $28.5 million is in the form of advertising loans, which means these are repayable loans. And the rest of it's been administered in forgivable loans and grants. We don't do a lot of grants. We only do grants to organizations like Habitat for Humanity, the Urban League. Those are the organizations that receive grants, like the forgivable loan, because it holds developers' feet to the fire. And it makes sure you've got to stay in compliance or you have to pay me back. We also protect our funds through mortgages and deed restrictions as well. And I've already mentioned the $15,474. Right now we receive $885,000, or I should say we're eligible to receive. Some of the tax credit developments have to have sufficient cash flow to repay us. But we're up to $885,000 a year in loan repayments. So cash flow coming back into the Affordable Housing Fund that we can recycle into other developments. And right now, and I just realized this the other day, we have a $20 million loan portfolio. I didn't know it was that big, but we have $20 million right now in outstanding loans that are all repayable to us that over time, obviously, we'll be able to recycle the principal and interest payments that we receive. Is this right? Yeah. So of the total allocations from SLFRF, state and local fiscal retirement, fiscal recovery funds, those dollars, the ARPA dollars, this is how we spent them. And again, we spent $24,607 per unit, a little bit higher. But frankly, we served lower incomes with those dollars. We funded 696 units, all of them at or below 60% of their median income. And 363 of those units were for households that are below 50% of their median income. Feel very good about what we did, excuse me, with the ARPA dollars. And we also were able to fund 45 fully accessible units. All that with these dollars. And what I was able to do with those dollars more than anything else was to provide permanent loans at very low interest rates for some of these developments so that they could serve lower incomes. Just some other statistics. We not only fund new construction but also the preservation of units. That gives you a breakdown of the units that we funded, that we've invested in over the last 12 years. And then, this is a slide I really want to stress. That while we can serve up to 80% of our median income, the vast majority, over 84% of what we funded are for households whose incomes are at or below 60% of their median income. So we try to focus our dollars to serve as low of an income as possible. And make sure that we're meeting the needs within the community. Man, this has been the toughest thing. When I first started this job, again, 12 years ago, I turned down a deal. I didn't want to take a deal to the board because they were going to charge $650 for a one-bedroom apartment. And most of the deals I was looking at were $500. The most was $550. And now, is that my timer going off? That's your timer. Do you need maybe, you have five minutes? The most. For the rest of your slides. Okay. You have five minutes. Thank you. Okay. But these are the rents I'm seeing. But we were seeing in a lot of developments that were coming to us, they said, well, that, you know, especially the smaller developments that aren't rent-restricted with tax credits. Well, the houses down the street, the single-family homes, the other units down there are renting for this. I go, I don't care. That's not what I want to rent for. This program is to have rents lower than market rate. So what the board did was because we were just running up against this. From now on, you can serve up to 80% of area mean income, but the rents that you charge have to be affordable for those whose incomes are at or below 60% of area mean income. That has helped us be able to somewhat, if you will, make sure that our developments are charging lower than market rate rents, which is really something that we strive to do. And these are the special needs populations we serve. As you see, the vast majority of them have been for the, I like to say seniors. I'm going to change that because I would fit that category. Seniors and or disabled. And most of all of our developments are over 90, I shouldn't say all of them. The vast majority of them are over 90% occupied. The elderly units, the units for seniors, they fill up like that. They fill up faster than what the market study projects. It's amazing how quickly they are leased. So there is a huge need in Lexington for quality, affordable units for our seniors ages 55 and over. And then I'll just leave you all with this. These are some of the new developments we have ongoing at this time. I know many of you attended the ribbon cutting for the loss at Woodland. That was just a great development, 38 units for seniors. Again, we're doing a lot of units for seniors. And these are the others. I'll just leave those just for you all to review. And obviously if you have any questions, you can let me know. As we look at the challenges that we face, again, interest rates. Like I said, 12 years ago interest rates, they didn't need our money for construction loans. Now they're asking for money for construction and bridge loans. Because I can loan the money out at a much cheaper rate than what they can get from financial institutions. Across the property management is a big issue. The good property management firms are having trouble hiring and retaining good quality people. Again, construction costs are much higher than they were. And acquiring viable and accessible land. Land in Fayette County is not cheap. But I will say this. The development community has just done an outstanding job of finding available land and making these deals work one way or another. I've always said if you have incentive dollars, developers will find a way to make it work. And they have. And we have, I must say, a great group of developers that we work with. Not only developers but service providers, housing providers. Fayette County is very fortunate with the development community and the organizations that work to help the people that we're trying to serve. For 2027, I'd still like to do more permanent supportive housing. We've done some this year. Still would like to do more. There's still a significant need for that. It's just hard to make these deals work. But we're working on it. The Transylvania development is going to be a huge development. And working through the financing of that. And right now they're in the process of getting the land ready, doing the infrastructure work to the land. And then, obviously, I know we're all familiar with the growing need for all types of housing, especially affordable housing in the city of Lexington, and doing what we can to address those needs that were identified in the needs analysis. And so with that, I'll turn it over to any questions. Thank you so much, Mr. McQuadey, for that very thorough presentation. We appreciate it. Colleagues, if you'll sign in, please. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And, Rick, I was on here, I think I'm the only one on the council, was here when we started here, this in 2014. And one of my biggest fears is when you're going to say I'm retiring and I'm not going to do it anymore. Because you've been a gem that has really pushed this through and has been very successful here. So you're not allowed to retire. Thanks. You know, last Friday I played a great round of golf and thought about it. But then Saturday I came back to reality. So I don't know where that stays. That wasn't at the Masters. I didn't see you playing there. No, and you won't. Good. Deed restrictions, how long do we set those for? Fifteen years for homeowners. Excuse me, 15 years for rental developments. A shorter time period for homeownership, normally between five and ten years, depending on the amount of money we put into the transaction. The latest ones we did for the housing authority were ten-year deed restrictions. And, you know, I just feel like if a person, if an individual that we're trying to serve, a household that we're trying to serve does what they, you know, works hard to be able to afford a home, and they stay in that home and use our subsidy dollars for five or ten years, then they should be able to sell that property to whoever they want to sell and better themselves, continue to better themselves and their lot in life. And I think that you brought that up about trying to get equity, and that's one way for a whole family is to be able to have the income that's going to come from that to improve your life and the family's life. You said our cash flow is at $885,000 now, and that should continue to grow, right? Yes. Yeah, in fact, if HUD would ever approve the loan on this deal where we're going to invest $1.5 million, I shouldn't say we're going to, but the $1.5 million that I take to the board, all that's going to be in the form of a loan, and a repayable loan, second mortgage. So, yeah, that'll take it up above $900,000. And that's great. That just keeps putting more money in that we don't have. We're still going to put the 1 percent in, but that just helps us get additional. And that's my goal, because if hard times come, and we still would have resources coming into the Affordable Housing Fund and be able to continue this program at some level. Exactly. And then you talked about it, but could you go over how we keep the rents down? Because they just keep going up. I know. Well, the tax credit development is a little bit easier in that there's maximum rents that come out every year. Of course, the problem is a lot of developers will increase their rents to those maximums because that's what they can charge. The other thing that I do is I'll put restrictions in there, especially for a development that's being rehabbed. And right now, let's say the rents are $750,000. I say, well, we rehab it, we could probably charge $900,000. And I say, I'll never take that to the board if you charge $900,000. I say, let's go with a sliding scale where you can increase the rents. But I don't want anybody to be forced out of a unit because we funded the rehabilitation and all of a sudden the rents are too high just because we gave you a quality unit. So that's one way we do it. And the other way, quite frankly, is just through our work with the developers. And I just say, I'm not taking this to the board unless I see that this is a viable rent that can be charged and something that the board will approve. And the board is very much aware of this issue as well. And it doesn't force anybody out of their unit or it continues to be relatively as affordable as it can be to the population we're trying to serve. It's really more negotiation than anything else. But we're 10 years, 12 years into this program, and as we grow in 20 years down the road while we still have, how do we make sure that the rents still stay within an affordable- Well, they have to stay affordable to populations now that are below 60 for anything from this point forward. Unfortunately, it's 80% for the ones that we've already got the agreement with. But it's 60% moving forward. They still have to stay affordable to that. And that's really the only way we can hold their feet to the fire. And do they come to you all- They do have a deed restriction that requires them to keep those rents in that line. Do they come to you all when they say, we're going to raise rents, but we keep it- You know, what we do, we do compliance reviews every year. We get a rent roll, and we see exactly what they're charging. And I can look at, from one year to the next, how much they've increased rents to see if they're reasonable. And I do do that. I look at that. Well, Council, I'm not going to be here after December 31st, but we sure hope Rick will be, because you have been a gem for this program, and thank you for all that you've done for us. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. McQuadey, for both your presentation and your work. Having served on the governing board, I've gotten to see firsthand your professionalism, but also your ability to work with applicants. I've personally seen through a couple of developers who just weren't ready for us yet, and instead of rejecting them outright, you know, you worked with them, kind of got them to a place where they could, especially smaller developers, first-time developers. So I really appreciate that kind of work. To go to one of your sort of middle slides, where you have the number of units constructed and also units preserved, there are two categories here. There's affordable units preserved, about 1,200, and then existing units preserved and restricted for affordable housing, about 660. What's the difference between those two categories? The affordable housing units preserved are those that already had some sort of deed restriction associated with it. Maybe it's a tax credit. There's a tax credit compliance period of 15 years. After 15 years, the developments usually need some sort of rehab. So they were already deed restricted, already reserved for affordable populations. The others are those that, yeah, the rents were probably lower than market, but they weren't deed restricted. So these are developments that we've funded and we've invested money in the rehabilitation and then added a deed restriction to those properties. So it looks like we've preserved about as many units as we've constructed. Yes. What's our return on investment on preservation versus construction, new construction? You know, to me it's both. I've always had the feeling that or the belief that if you don't preserve what's already available, you're never going to catch up with the need. You just can't catch up to the need by building new units. You need to do that preservation and make sure that the units you have remain in place and maintain, if you will, a certain quality that is a place where somebody wants to live. Yeah. And the core of my question there is thinking about how far can we stretch these dollars, right? And obviously the cost of construction, the cost of everything keeps going up. So our basic return on investment kind of keeps shrinking a little bit in terms of how far our money goes. So that was kind of what I was asking, like, you know, would preserving units go a longer ways and would we want to focus in on that? Do you kind of drive which lane you do or is it more driven by applicants? Honestly, it just comes through the application process. Now, if somebody came to me with a development and said I want to rehab it, it's not rehab-able. That's not a word. But if it's not, you know, it needs to be tore down and rebuilt, I would say something like that. We have inspectors that go out and do it. I'll give you a perfect example real quick. And that is there was a development that, to me, just look at it. Obviously, I just looked at the pictures. But I also sent somebody out there and said the stairways and the walkways don't look good to me. So I had them hire a civil engineer to go out and look at the development. And the civil engineer said you've got to take them all down and rebuild them. And so that's what I required. So, you know, we try to look at those type of things. But certainly it's still a better investment than tearing the whole development down and rebuilding it. Because the developers are still able to create quality units with those developments. Now, it increased their costs. I had to give them a little bit more money. But the banks that they were working with agreed to give them more money as well. So we agreed to split this cost. I appreciate that. One last question about the special needs population housed. About 41%, 42% of the total units that are funded are going to special needs. Again, kind of the same question. Are you all driving with either your decision making or intent to serve particular populations? Or is it all still fully driven by applications? Right. It's by application. It is a priority of the board. Permanent supportive housing is the highest priority of the board. We want to do more. And we continue to work toward that. We continue to work with the development community. If you want federal home loan bank money, you have to do some units of permanent supportive housing, which is a good thing. Kentucky Housing Corporation, their scoring criteria changes from year to year. So some years they do stress permanent supportive housing. Some years they don't stress it as much. They're very much aware, though, of the need for permanent supportive housing units. So it's just one of those things where we try to do as many as we can. With the ARPA dollars, we try to do that. On the development at the community land trust that AU Associates did, they reserved six or seven units for New Beginnings. And Christy's here today. For New Beginnings to serve her population. So within that 70-unit development, there were six or seven units of permanent supportive housing. And that has worked extremely well. So you have to marry a developer with a good service provider. And when you do that, you can create the units. It's difficult to do. And doing 20 to 30 units of permanent supportive housing is even more difficult. Because not only do you have to be able to, you know, the project has to cash flow. The first question Christy's going to ask me, the first question any other service provider is going to ask me is where do I get the money for the services? And there's just not a lot of money out there for services. And that's a big issue. Well, thank you for that. My time is up. I know that we really appreciate and support your work. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation and for all that you're doing in the affordable housing room. It's truly impactful. And I only hear great words. So thank you. Thank you. So I just had a question first regarding the evaluation of design on development criteria. Can you share the importance of that and why that component? Can you just share the importance of that? Yeah. So with a tax credit development, another reason this is why I like tax credit developments too, is their design is vetted by the first mortgage lender, by Kentucky Housing Corporation, by the investor, and by us. So you have four different set of eyes looking at it. When designs come to us for developments that aren't tax credits, we're not the sole funder of anything. So the banks have to approve it. We have to approve it. And the biggest thing I look for in the design is is it marketable? Is this a place? Is this a type of unit where people are going to want to live? If it's, you know, 100 square feet, just to exaggerate a little bit, you're never going to be able to lease that unit. And marketability is so important. And the project design has so many things besides just the outline and what the units look like. And also, where are you located? Are you located near banks, shopping, public transportation? These are local outside amenities that are important to the success of an affordable housing development. They are, obviously, if it's a four units or ten units, they don't have to have a market study. But they still have to show me what their marketing plan is, and they still have to show me what their design is. Any questions that I have, I can ask an inspector or somebody to look at. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think it's important that we ensure developments that use these funds not only are affordable, but also thoughtfully designed and complement and enhance the surrounding community, as well as creating a space that is welcoming for the tenants and a sense of belonging for the tenants that are going to live in that space. Right. I would agree. And then, like, I guess you mentioned homeownership, and I think that's something that tends to come up a lot. In the presentation, there's a number, there's highlighted a number of units funded or under construction. Can you break down the percentage of those units into how many may be homeownership? One percent. Unfortunately, because Habitat's still building some units that we funded. The units funded through the Lexington Housing Authority, those have already been constructed. They're the units on Shropshire Avenue. Yeah, it's just the homeownership is so tough. You know, the board allocated for those nine units on Shropshire $60,000 in down payment. It's not really down payment, closing cost assistance. It's just subsidy dollars that we provide to the homeowner to bring down the cost of the home and bring down their mortgage payment. That's a lot per unit. But if we can make it work, and the fact that when the homeowner moves in, if they sell that property within five years, they have to repay us the full amount. Then there's a sliding scale as to how much they repay us. So we protect our investment as much as possible. It's just in this interest rate environment and this cost environment, it's just very difficult to create homeownership opportunities for the population we're trying to serve. I understand. It is definitely, I guess, a very complex challenge. I just would encourage us to try to find as many innovative solutions as possible to try to push towards that homeownership lane, knowing that homeownership is that start for generational wealth. But then also knowing that here in Lexington, just between that AMI, almost the opportunity of home ownership is dwindling. It's going to become a point where certain folks and certain AMIs will not have an opportunity to afford a home, and that's kind of scary. So I think we should be trying to look as much as possible and as innovatively as possible to look at these trust fund dollars and look at possible avenues to do homeownership. Just briefly, there's a development in Columbus, Ohio that's just getting started. They built this neighborhood as a rent-to-own neighborhood, and when you do rent-to-own with tax credits, it's difficult. But there's ways to make it work, and it's very innovative, and it's something that the developer has tried to make work. Ohio Capital provided tax credit equity for this development. It's very interesting to see how successful that is because I've kept all the paperwork on that. It's just something that I thought, I don't know if that would work in Lexington, but it certainly is the type of idea you're thinking about. How can we bring homeownership to the population that we're trying to serve? Thank you. I appreciate all the work you're doing. I look forward to connecting and talking further. Appreciate it. Thank you. Vice Chair Elliott Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Rick, for being here. I serve on the board, and it is probably one of my favorites because the way your mind works and the way you are so creative to help these developers is just outstanding. Council Member Morton brought up some points about different models, and I think every model that I've discussed with you over the last six years, we've now tried in some way. I really want to say thank you for thinking outside of the box on one very recently that we haven't done before in Lexington, and I'm excited to see how that one moves forward. Since you've been with us for a few years, I know that there's probably some of your first projects that the deed restrictions have now expired on. Just about. I guess my question is, once the deed restrictions have expired, are you seeing that those developments are staying true to their affordable housing foundation, or are they going market rate? That's a good question. I think some of those that were funded by smaller developers, there's one or two that don't want to do compliance every year. They're going to go market. They want me out of their hair. But I think a lot of them will stay affordable, especially if they have an opportunity to get some rehab money from me to, if you will, bring those units up to a standard that they need to be after 15 years of wear and tear. And that's really what I'm counting on. Now, with the tax credit development, because of Kentucky Housing Corporation's requirement, they have a separate land use restriction agreement that makes it affordable for 30 years. And I guarantee you, because of that, they're going to come to us for some resources to maintain that property. Great. Thank you. You touched on the Woodland development, the loss at Woodland, and how successful that was. And I know the state legislature just passed House Bill 333 that makes it a little easier for religious organizations to do affordable housing on their property. How do you think that's going to affect us, or do you think it might pique the interest of some people who maybe hadn't thought of that before? I haven't thought of that. I actually worked with the religious organization in Bardstown that really spurred this legislation. They're a great organization to work with. And obviously Woodland Christian Church was the same way. They were great to work with. But there may be opportunities when other churches see this, there may be opportunities to do that. Just some education related to what they can do now with House Bill 333. There may be some additional interest. I know there are some churches that own some property that may be very interested. Obviously they're going to need to clear some things with their neighbors, and I'll talk to them about that and how to make that work. But I could see something coming of that, absolutely. I think it would be interesting for us to even, potentially in the new fiscal year, start reaching out to organizations that we know own property, just to let them know that this is a possibility. That may be very helpful. And then finally, I'm very excited. They're not quite open yet. Johnson Park Apartments is the first affordable housing development in the 9th District, and I could not be more excited for that to open in a few weeks-ish, I think. It's 45 fully accessible units for seniors, and we are having a press conference this Friday at 1230. So if any of you all are available to come, I'd love for you to join us. It's not a ribbon cutting of the development. It's just to celebrate our affordable housing fund and all the great work that we're doing as a city. So thanks again, Rick, and thanks for all that you do. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I don't see anyone else signed in, so now I'm going to ask my questions, if that's okay. I want to, first of all, echo my colleague's comments about your work has just been exceptional, and we're really fortunate to have you for however long you choose to be with us. And I just think that what you have done is something that few cities can do, and so I really appreciate it. I ask this question every year. What do you think your capacity is to spend the money that we are allocating for affordable housing? And do you think, I know you just added another position, what are your needs in order to be able to do that? Can I spend the money? Absolutely. There are so many developments that right now are in the pipeline. I just met with a developer this morning who's very interested in developing your district, Council Member Morton. And so I'm very interested in that. There's plenty of interest in the program and plenty of quality development ideas to spend the money that you all allocate. Absolutely there is. And then, what was the second part of your question? Expanding what other needs would you have. We're to the point now, we are currently interviewing for a finance person to help in administering a $20 million loan portfolio and servicing those loans. Additionally doing some reconciliation work, just a lot of financial type work that needs to be done, financial reviews that need to be performed. But in the all perfect world, we would have myself, another affordable housing manager, a compliance person, and the finance person. And right now we've got three of those people. We will have three of those people. We have a compliance person, myself, and we will have an accounting person. We've had some, it's been difficult trying to find the right person for the affordable housing manager position here in Lexington, but we're going to still keep working at it. Thank you, I appreciate that. What is your opinion on spreading, just because I get this question a lot, spreading out the money a little bit at a time in a lot of areas as opposed to fully funding some developments? The issue is with $5 million, let's just take that number, and it costs what, $200 to $250 a unit right now, which is another thing that's gone up, to construct a unit. You would only fund 20 units maybe with the $5 million. This past fiscal year we have funded 174 units with the dollars that we have. So I like the idea of continuing to be the gap financer and utilizing the other resources that are available that I mentioned on the screen to, if you will, provide more units for Fayette County. Yeah, I could do one project and that would be it, but I just think that we need to spread these dollars out as much as we can amongst as many units as we possibly can to meet the needs that are out there. It sounds like you're really aiding the developers in getting all the resources that they need in order to complete their projects and I think that's a huge help. You're not just giving them the money and that's it. Right. I won't even take it to the board until they have all their resources in place. That's great. I know that Councilmember Lynch and I are looking at what other ways we can expand what we do around affordable housing. Do you think that it would be helpful to have other methods like looking at land banks and other things? I know we talk about other cities and what they do and sometimes they have multiple ways of attacking the affordable housing issue. Land banks have proved useful in certain communities. It's really whatever the city wants to do in that regard. Lexington doesn't have, well I don't know, but I don't hear of a lot of vacant properties in Lexington. And here's the biggest issue is when you try and acquire those properties, it's expensive and it's a nightmare trying to find out who has title of the properties, who would sell it to them, things like that. So it's an administrative, it's very cumbersome administratively to be able to do that. I'm not saying that that's not the way to do things. It's certainly something that ought to be explored and looked at. I'm open to any way that we can do that to meet the need that's out there. Any other programs, anything like that, certainly. Thank you so much. My time is up, but I really appreciate you once again being here and all your hard work and we hope to see you again soon. Okay, thanks. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Next we have an update from Lexington's mobile market, which is a grocery store on wheels that serves Lexington in the areas where there's not a grocery store nearby. It's a place where anyone can purchase fresh produce and staples and we have Sierra Coleman here, our opportunity officer in the mayor's office, and she is going to provide us with an update. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmembers, for having me here to present this update on the mobile market. And I just wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to one of our partners, John Rupp with God's Pantry, for being here today. So as Chair Reynolds said, the mobile market is a 60-foot grocery store on wheels designed to go to neighborhoods that may not have easy access to grocery store. Residents can step inside the market just as they would a traditional grocery store and they have the opportunity to shop anything from fresh produce, dairy, meats, and other essential grocery store items. The goal of the mobile market is to meet people where they are and to improve access to healthy food options in communities that need it most. So just a brief history, in 2020, Mayor Linda Gordon established her Commission for Racial Justice and Equality. This commission brought together a wide variety of community members, leaders, and stakeholders to examine and address critical issues facing our community. The commission organizes work into five subgroups, education and economic opportunity, racial equity, housing and gentrification, law enforcement, justice and accountability, and health disparities. Through months of collaboration and research, they produced a comprehensive report with 54 recommendations. One of those was health disparities recommendation number two, improved food access and healthy food options. And the mobile market is one of the ways that we are actively working towards responding to that recommendation. Project timeline and some key milestones. So as I just mentioned, in 2020, the mayor appointed the Commission for Racial Justice and Equality. In October of that same year, the report was released with health disparities recommendation number two to improve food access. In November of 2021, the mobile market budget development began and by November 18th, community input focus groups started with EHI to kind of help us figure out what this program would look like. In May of 2022, research began in collaboration with Morehead Cane Scholars Program. Tiffany Brown, who led the efforts of making the mobile market a reality, had interns from UNC Chapel Hill and they came and did more research to help us shape what this program would look like. On July 1st, LFUCG activated the council approved budget for the mobile market. In November of 2022, the RFP was issued. In 2023, the operating agreement was awarded to God's Pantry Food Bank in partnership with Kroger. Planning and research for market stops began in March, followed by the signing of the PSA in April. By November, the market was unveiled and in December of 2023, the market was fully operational. So this is a partnership between LFUCG, God's Pantry Food Bank, and Kroger. Each partner plays a very specific role, an important role, in helping to bridge the gap between food accessibility and meeting community needs. So LFUCG, in addition to owning the vehicle, plays an important role in raising awareness about the mobile market, publishing the schedule, promoting the program, and monitoring community feedback. We want to make sure that we are remaining responsive to the residents' needs. God's Pantry Food Bank serves as the operational lead. They manage day-to-day logistics of the mobile market, including maintaining and insuring the vehicle, coordinating routes, and determining where and how often the market stops. They have a deep understanding of food access needs in our community and region, so they are able to make sure the mobile market reaches the communities that need it and can benefit from it the most. Finally, Kroger plays a critical role in stocking and sales. They provide the grocery items that are sold on the market. They manage the point-of-sale system and transactions, and they also help to promote the market and analyze our sales data. Together, we continue to meet monthly, but we also make sure that we are listening to the needs of the community to adjust and improve the market when needed. Service areas. The market has a lot of stops all over Lexington, mostly concentrated in Districts 1, 2, and 11. Some stops are chosen based on factors like low income, high unemployment, limited access to nearby grocery stores, low walkability, so areas that don't have sidewalks, large highways, and busy traffic. Data tools and mapping tools are used, such as New Market's Tax Credit Resource Center. This helps identify economically distressed areas that could benefit most from improved food access. Locations are regularly evaluated using this data and community feedback to ensure effectiveness. Sites that are underperforming are removed. The mobile market operates Monday through Friday, making two to four stops a day. Residents can view the full calendar on the LFUCG mobile market website, as well as Guy's Pantry website. We also have a customer feedback form where they can leave feedback for us as well. Demographics. According to 2020 census data, most of the mobile market sites are in neighborhoods that have a higher compensation of Black, African American, Hispanic, and Latino residents. These areas are prioritized because they often experience greater barriers to accessing full service grocery stores and fresh food options. Another important group served by the mobile market is our senior citizen community, especially those that live near these areas as well. We have those who have mobility problems, they have transportation issues, and so they really look forward to us coming to serve their community. I'll also note that while we are able to analyze neighborhood demographics, our partners, Guy's Pantry and Kroger, do not collect or track individual customer metrics. Product selection and inventory. Products were initially chosen based on input from local agencies, including the Kentucky Refugee Ministries and other local agencies that serve some of the same residents that the mobile market does. Kroger continues to track data to ensure that we are stacking popular items. Seasonal and holiday rotations are added to keep variety and meet the residents' needs. The mobile market, as I mentioned earlier, is stocked with a selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, and dairy options, as well as non-dairy, chicken, beef, pork, meat, cheese, and also a limited amount of household products such as toilet tissue, detergent, and cleaning products. So we'll look at a little bit of our financial report. The mobile market is still very young. We've been active for two years, a little over two years now. From 2024 to 2025, we have seen strong growth and we continue to see strong growth and community impact into 2026 as well. In 2025, our total sales was over $163,000 across 736 stops and 9,259 transactions. Our average sales per stop was $222.20. This is an increase from 2024. We saw over 131,000 sales per stop. We saw over 131,000 total sales and the average sales per stop was $119. We also saw an increase in our EBT and SNAP participation. In 2024, total EBT and SNAP usage was 31.4% of total transactions and in 2025, we saw a total of 35.24% of all transactions with SNAP benefits being used. Our top performing sites in 2025 was Ballard Griffith, Rose Tower Apartments, and Emerson Center. And I'll just point out that these are all senior living communities. The mobile market currently accepts credit, debit card, EBT, SNAP, and mobile payment options. We do not currently accept cash because it presents a safety and security risk to our mobile market staff. So as I just mentioned, with increased sales and SNAP participation, we're seeing that this program has been very sustainable for our community. It's a community center model that's working very well. As I mentioned, our senior living communities have been some of the most successful sites that we have visited, not just in high transaction volumes, but also just overall giving a meaningful impact on the residents in their daily lives. We have a couple quotes from the mobile market shoppers. One said that it's very convenient for the people and they appreciate the mobile market for being there. Another said that it's very convenient for those that have mobility problems and all of their neighbors, they appreciate that they have made this available to us. In 2024, the mobile market partners were honored with the Wayne B. Smith Leading with Kindness Award from Sayre Christian Village, and in 2025, in November, we celebrated two years of being on the road. So the success of the mobile market has inspired other communities in surrounding areas to explore what replicating this program could look like in their own communities. The Lexington mobile market aims to serve as a model for other communities, providing guidance on route planning, site selection, product offerings, vehicle and trailer specifications, and operational best practices. In 2024, Guys Pantry and Kroger received inquiries from other local communities and food banks who are interested in launching something like this in their communities as well. Cincinnati recently came down to tour the market and to speak with us about getting this program launched in their area. And so as I begin to wrap up, I'll just say that this partnership has been a great example of what cross-sector partnership looks like. We have been able to kind of lean into each other's strengths to connect with our community and to continue to ultimately meet our goal to improve food access for the residents of Lexington. And there's a lot of different initiatives and programs in the community that are doing the same thing, and it takes all of us to chip away and continue to make these resources available. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. You left time to spare. Yes. Impressive. Colleagues, please sign in if you have any questions or comments. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. Coleman, for the presentation. And I'm super grateful and thankful that my district has so many stops. I know my neighbors definitely appreciate it, especially my neighbors out in Oasis and Kearney Ridge. Every time I go out there, they're saying we're so glad to have that, the mobile market as a stop. So really appreciate that. I just have a couple of questions. On your financial report slide, you listed the total number of active sites and total number of sites visited. I just wonder what was the difference between those two numbers? The active sites, so they add and remove sites. So at the end of 2025, there were a total of 24 active sites. The 22, it may have been two that they removed, so they weren't active anymore. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. My last question is just what are your future plans for the program in 2026, 2027, 2028? It's exciting that other cities, counties want to replicate what we're doing. I think that's awesome. But what are your plans here locally for the mobile market? Absolutely. So I'm excited to just continue to see the growth and where in our opportunity assessment that will be released soon, we're looking at all the stops to kind of see how well they're performing and how well they're meeting their residents' needs. We've talked about other things like right now, the market operates Monday through Friday. On the weekends, maybe visiting, I know we've been to like the health fair before and we've given coupons to have discounts on shopping. We've talked about retrofitting the mobile market to help with disaster relief efforts maybe on the weekend or things like that. So I would like to explore more of those opportunities to serve communities even surrounding. Awesome. Thank you for your work and thank you to the community partners for their work as well. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just wanted to thank you for the presentation and to say that this is a great resource and truly innovative approach addressing food access and challenges in our community. It's encouraging to see both the growth and measurable impact in programs it's having, especially in the areas that have historically lacked access to fresh fruits, affordable food options. As we continue to move forward, I would encourage more innovative solutions and innovative communications with those that need it the most so that we can make sure that we're getting some of those neighborhoods and neighborhood folk out to the mobile market and just communicate with them so they can know the resources available and that this solution is working. So I appreciate you and everything you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Sierra, for the presentation and your work on this. I think it was maybe a couple of months ago, Ashley Smith with Black Soul came down and kind of presented and gave us an update on what she was doing in regards to food access, healthy food access. And she mentioned, I think it was, is it called Scout or Sprout? Do you remember what her motto is, is it Sprout? I know the city has a partnership with Kroger's and God's Pantry for our mobile market. But I do think there's an opportunity to acknowledge the work that she's doing in this space and kind of share the information about both resources. Is that something that you think that we can make that happen and to help to communicate others that are creating mobile market situations? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's something we can talk about and figure out better ways to spread all of the information so that people know where they can go and where they have access to shop. Yeah. And I think we can also see if there's ways that we can help, continue to help support that effort that she's doing. The other thing is, you know, we've heard feedback about the ADA accessibility to the market. Are we exploring ways to make it more accessible for folks to access the current mobile market? I believe right now we have shoppers that are, that help those that are, that need more assistance in that way. Has there been any other conversation around that? John, if you don't mind. I'm John Rupp. I'm the Nutrition Programs Manager for God's Pantry Food Bank, so thanks for allowing me to be here. To answer the question, we did a lot of modeling on the mobile market that Kroger and Darita Care Food Bank had done in Louisville. They had a ramp that they could slide in and out, and we looked at doing that. Unfortunately, it wasn't really feasible with the type of trailer that we got from, I can't remember the name of the construction company that had created it, but what Sierra was mentioning was the Kroger staff and volunteers that work on the mobile market, they will help folks that if they're wheelchair-bound, they can't get on the mobile market, but if they have walkers they can get on, but the wheelchair-bound folks, they will shop for them, so they have a list of items that's on the mobile market, they will give them to them, they can circle what they would like, and then the staff or volunteers can go shop for them. How the design, it's kind of narrow inside the mobile market, so where the coolers and the freezers are, there isn't enough width to get wheelchairs through, so it's just a design issue with that. So I don't know if there's a really easy fix other than making a wider trailer, but then you get into issues with where you're navigating downtown through some of the places that we go, there's really not enough space for parking and issues like that. So I appreciate that answer, and I appreciate the opportunity to try to help folks and make it more accessible, but I'll just say in the spirit of continuous improvement, we just continue to look for ways to try to make sure that this service and opportunity is accessible to all folks. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much for the presentation as well. I was going to bring up the same thing about the Sprout Smoke Market, so I think that's a good partnership. I mean, they really do have great product at a great price, and they're actually, they've got a place located over by Emerson, and I know you guys go, at least you used to go to the Emerson Center, and I know those people really enjoy the fact that you come over there, and many of them kind of make their way over to their site that's in the plaza right next door. So once again, thank you for what you guys are doing. Thank you. Thank you. I do want to give you gratitude for serving so much of my district, and folks are really grateful for it. I wanted to ask, in terms of advertising and communication, what are the main ways that you're able to communicate with people and let a broader audience know what's going on? When I Googled it, I just found the one page on the city's website, but I didn't find much more information, so I was curious. We have the information on the city's website. It's also on God's Pantry's website. They have a page for it. I know they publish the schedule weekly, as well as the stops, as well, on their Facebook page, and word of mouth events. Here recently, we started printing out schedules and passing them out at some of the events that we've been at, so really just social media. I was wondering if maybe, because you go to quite a few apartment complexes, if you could print them out and give them to the management there so that the residents had that information and that they were aware, because a lot of times, some of the populations that you're serving don't primarily use social media and tend to respond more to old-fashioned papers. I would just encourage that, knowing some of the feedback that I've heard, but otherwise, I'm really excited, and it's grown a lot in two years, so congratulations, and thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Finally, we have an update on the Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition. The coalition's mission is to create a culture of safety and empowered stakeholders by advocating, educating, and collaborating, and coordinating with services for communities impacted by interpersonal violence. We have Stephanie Thixton here, our program coordinator, and she is going to share our update. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you. Thank you for having me back. Just to let those of you who are not aware, the Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition is established by local ordinance, and it's Lexington's coordinated community response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, and stalking. This is a list of our membership, as laid out in the ordinance. We have law enforcement, the court system, attorneys, service providers, all represented. A couple years ago, we only had two or three at-large members, and we've recently expanded that to 10, so that's allowed space for survivors to actually be on the board and otherwise diversify the voices around the table. And as Councilmember Reynolds said, our goals are to make sure that systems are responsive to survivor needs, to promote best practices within domestic and sexual violence prevention, to monitor the effectiveness of services, to educate the community about domestic and sexual violence, and to provide information and resources on related issues. We strive to be survivor-centered, community-oriented, and oppose oppression in all forms, as that is the root cause of domestic and sexual violence. Oh, there's our mission. Okay. So Green Dot is our most visible program, probably, that the domestic and sexual violence prevention does. It's our primary prevention program. It is based on evidence-based training for community members to safely intervene in situations before violence occurs. So since I last presented here in April 2025, our part-time Green Dot coordinator, Alyssa Turk, has conducted 15 active bystander trainings, and as a result of those trainings, the Citizens Police Academy has incorporated Green Dot into their curriculum, and the Fayette County Detention Center is now using Green Dot as part of their orientation for new recruits. And just like the big Green Dot, Alyssa continues to come up with other creative ways to introduce Green Dot to the community. We have a full thanks to this council. We have a full-time coordinator of resources for children and youth experiencing intimate partner violence, either by living in a controlling environment by, you know, either a parent and or adult who is abusive or experiencing violence in their own relationships through team dating violence or both. This year, Melissa has conducted six trainings on the acute and long-lasting effects domestic abusers' behaviors have on children, and she's provided information on evidence-based practices that support positive outcomes for child and youth survivors, and as a result of her efforts, the Children's Coordinating Council has added domestic violence as a primary prevention focus in their 2026 strategic plan. Right now, the resources, the number of resources that we have for children and youth experiencing domestic violence are much less than you could even imagine. So we're very grateful to her for continuing to share information about that and hopefully add some capacity to our community to support those really vulnerable survivors. She's done three trainings on team dating violence, providing information on how team dating violence differs from what adults experience in relationships with abusive partners, why team dating violence is constantly increasing, and discussing barriers and gaps in prevention. As part of our It's Time campaign, which hopefully you're familiar with, Melissa helped produce 15 video testimonials from community members on how to best support children experiencing domestic violence, and two PSAs that feature children. Now we had a couple of council members that also did these videos, but I wanted to share this one with you. Just our whole approach was that you don't have to have special training, you just have to have compassion and be intentional on how you interact with children to make a difference. So hopefully this will, oh, thank you. I've been teaching for 33 years, and I think the most important thing that I have learned, teeny, teeny little actions of compassion and kindness to the child are going to go a huge way. When these children feel validated, feel seen, then they become adults who can also reflect the same behaviors onto their own children, and that way we break the cycle of trauma. Sometimes we recognize that the behaviors are off. I have learned to recognize that these behaviors are cries for help, and that we do not need to judge the behavior, but keep loving the child, and that eventually that helps with the behaviors. As a dance educator, I like to provide a space for them to feel safe, to create. Dance is very meditative and very mindful. Having that social aspect of community, self-expression, I think that's so very important and very healing. So we have 14 other videos from teachers, from judges, from council members, all talking about ways they can, in their roles, help support children. And just, I really, truly believe that if we can prevent domestic violence, prevent children from having to live in those households, that we can solve a lot of other issues in our community. It covers about, I don't know, a 10 out of the 15 ACEs. So hopefully we can help build the capacity of our community for this. And then, can I go to the next slide? Thank you. Melissa also helped coordinate Art of Healing this summer, which connected how ACEs and community engagement and creative expression can reduce the negative impacts of domestic violence for children, build resiliency and relationship bonds that act as protective factors against abuse and exploitation. I should have checked the order of these slides. I apologize. And then, Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition continues our longstanding prevention events for Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April and Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. Wake Up Lexington or Purple Pumpkins, Wear Purple Thursday. And this May will be our fifth annual appreciation and awards event to thank the amazing advocates and other professionals we have in our community doing this work. We also, a lot of the things that we have done have come out of our fatality reviews. This media guide was one of them and it's been really well received from organizations in our community and it's opened up opportunity for new partnerships and new types of training. So hopefully we can change the narrative on how domestic violence is portrayed in the media in a way that educates people about it. We've also, through grant funding and LFUCG match funds, since April of last year we've helped provide some housing stability for 141 adult and child survivors in this past year by helping pay rent when someone has been removed from the home because of abuse. We've also provided safe measures like security cameras, lock changes, window and door repairs for families that have experienced domestic violence. So that has gone to help 73 adult and child survivors. Right now we're working on a training for local guardians ad litem, helping them to understand domestic violence specifically from a children's perspective. Those are the people that represent children in court. And we have another fatality review in May. So I'm hoping we'll get some more goals that we can work on throughout the year. Wake Up Lex is this Friday. For those of you who are not aware, we just partner with local coffee shops, ask them to put these special drink sleeves on their drinks for one day, Friday. And then people who get them, we ask that they take pictures of the cups. On the back is some resource information for survivors of sexual violence. So it's hopefully a way to reach people that we wouldn't otherwise reach, but also to help spread the message of support for survivors through the community. There's a list of participating coffee shops on our Facebook page, but pretty much any locally independently owned coffee shop in town is participating. They've been great partners over the years. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation. All the good work that you do. Colleagues, if you have any comments or questions, please sign in. Councilmember Curtis. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me since I don't serve on this committee. And thank you, Ms. Thigston, for being here and for giving this presentation and for all of the work that you all do. This is an issue that hits very close to home for me, and I have a few questions, if you don't mind. Sure. So, first of all, there's obviously been so much effort put into the coordinated community response and to making sure that we're not leaving gaps. Do you perceive there to be any gaps that you all are looking to fill in the near term? I could spend several minutes listing all the gaps. We are really at capacity right now for staffing, but definitely the LGBTQ community, educating them specifically, breaking all the myths that are there. Serving children that have experienced domestic violence is a huge gap. Hopefully we'll be looking for some grant funding to help with some trauma therapists that understand power and control. I mean, there's just so many gaps right now. Think of any vulnerable population and their experience is tenfold. And I really appreciate that, because you kind of hit the nail on the head with where I was going in terms of how do we support those who are perhaps more likely to experience domestic and sexual violence, like members of the LGBTQ community or immigrants, who in this current political moment might not feel safe or comfortable coming forward and seeking those resources. And so I guess the question that I have on that front is that what are we doing right now to engage those communities? So we've actually done a lot of work with immigrants, trying to figure out a better process for U visas, which is the special visa for domestic violence survivors to remain in the U.S., trying to figure out if they are taken into ICE custody, how we can help protect the children that are left behind. And then just there was the one domestic violence fatality we've had in Lexington this year included two immigrants and an immigrant child. So we've been working, trying to make sure that she stays safe. But in terms of outreach, it's really difficult. There are some communities that just won't acknowledge that it's happening. And so we continue to try. We've published all of our information in six languages. We've tried to do videos for those that are not able to read their native language, but those haven't worked out so well. But we just continue trying to come up with different ways to help. When government is not as helpful or when people become more afraid to ask government for help, then that's really when community has to step up. So individually, we also try to just let people know the best thing you can do is when people tell you that they're being harmed is to believe them. You don't have to conduct your own investigation on whether or not they're being truthful. Chances are they are because false reports are really less than 2% and police data in Lexington shows that it's less than 1%. So really just start by believing survivors, especially those that might not have the same access to resources as others. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate the work you're doing, especially around the accessibility component of that for folks for whom English might not be their first language and they might have a difficult time accessing those resources. And I appreciate you drawing attention again to the fact that false reporting in instances where there's domestic and sexual violence is nearly nonexistent and having that statistic about Lexington specifically is I think something that a lot of folks could really use a reminder of now and again. So when it comes to what we can do on this legislative body, do you see any policy barriers at the local level that are limiting the scope of prevention or survivor support here in Lexington? Well, I was so grateful when you all passed the new policy for paid time off for survivors of crime victims for LFUCG employees. Really the best way I think locally is to get other employers involved. We do have a little handbook on how they can make their workplaces more responsive to survivors. I'm happy to consult on that, but if you are familiar or close with anyone that does own their own agency and they would like to take steps to help support survivors since economic dependency is a great barrier to leaving, I would be happy to do that. If you could make that introduction. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I've got a couple more questions, but I'll log back in. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all of your hard work, all of the staff's hard work, and then the partners who are tackling this challenge. Combating domestic violence, sexual violence is critical to the safety and stability and the well-being of our community. And this is an issue that impacts not just individuals, but impacts families, entire neighborhoods, and often in ways that are unseen but are deeply felt. So the work of prevention, education, and coordinated response is essential, not only to support survivors, but to create a culture where violence is not tolerated and where resources are accessible to those in need, and I know that's exactly what you're doing. So thank you for your work. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that statement. It is a community issue and not an individual issue, so thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Thiessen, for all of your work. We really do appreciate it. To follow up on Councilmember Curtis's points about not just serving kind of everybody who faces this issue, but serving the most underserved populations, I definitely commend your work with immigrants, refugees, and new Americans, especially in this current political climate. The language access issue is real and difficult. Resources aren't always, you know, readily available, and you stack on top of that ideas of cultural competency, differences in culture, and social norms. That's a whole other layer, and one of the things that I've always found to be helpful when we're engaging with some of those communities is kind of making contact and building these relationships with folks that I would call ambassadors, folks that kind of have a foot in each culture, folks that are very active, you know, some nonprofit leaders, other community leaders, and kind of getting those folks in, because, again, people often conflate government as one big entity, right? So the fear of the federal government or the state government kind of translates also into fear and reticence to reach out to us as local government, too. So if we can do that kind of outreach through those community leaders who are already placed in those communities or trusted leaders in those communities, I think those are always a great approach, and I know you know that. If I could say, just because I want to give them credit, Global Lex has been a great connector for us in terms of that. They're doing a great job. Yeah, and I'm also very excited about Global Lex under new leadership. I think there's going to be a lot of energy and a lot of collaboration in that, and anything I can do to kind of leverage my connections with those communities, I'm very happy to help. So thank you for all your work. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you again, Chair, and thank you for recognizing me as I don't serve on this committee. So right now, I don't think it's any secret that we're sort of in the middle of another cultural reckoning with what happens when powerful people are perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence. And I'm talking about everything here from Epstein survivors to President Trump to a couple members of Congress who just resigned today over the allegations and misuse of their power in ways to perpetrate sexual violence towards people who were not in a position to fight back against that. And I don't think it's any secret to anybody in this room that even members of this legislative body have both perpetrated acts of sexual violence and been victims of acts of sexual violence. So here at the local level, while we can't change what the federal government does or what the state government does, are there policy changes at the local level that you could imagine or the coalition could imagine strengthening accountability and better protecting survivors when their abuser is somebody who is in a position of power? So it is all about power and control, and I appreciate you saying that. It has been story after story lately about that. I do not know enough about how any policy could make changes for elected officials. I know that there was a bill in the assembly this past session that didn't go anywhere about how to do that because there are members of our assemblies of both parties that are also have used their power in ways that they shouldn't. But I know that as leaders, that you just speaking about it, you being aware of what a good response, supportive response would be if it happens again, is really tremendous. I wish I could say, yes, I have a policy in mind, but I really don't, but just even the awareness of it and the swiftness with which consequences are coming now for that behavior being exposed is somewhat encouraging. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate that, and I just want to thank you again for all of the work that you do and to encourage all of my colleagues up here and everyone else in state, local, federal government that when you are in elected office, you are a leader and you are setting an example, and you have to lead by example in terms of believing survivors and advocating for them. So while we can't necessarily always make policy change, we can always work to make that cultural change. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much again, Ms. Thiessen. I have one question. Could you help clarify for the public how the coalition works with social services? They give kind of advice and advocacy and direction, and then you all are the ones that make it happen. Well, I would say it's a coordinated effort. We work with the people in the community because they're boots on the ground to help us understand where the gaps are, and then we work with them, both with service providers and people more involved in systems to make those changes. And so it's really important that those leaders are around the table. If there are agencies that are not on the coalition that are seeing issues, we're happy to put them in touch with who we think is the best person regarding whatever their issue is in the community. But yeah, and social services, if they need resources or something, we can help direct them in that way. Thank you. We appreciate all the different programs and initiatives that you all are doing, and don't forget Friday to wake up and have some coffee for a good cause. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, colleagues. For the items that are in committee, does anybody have an update or something that they would like to remove? If so, please sign in. Okay, I do not see any. Then we have come to the end of our agenda, and we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.