Affordable Housing Review Board Meeting
Documenter name: Judy Winters
Agency: Wichita City - Affordable Housing Review Board
Date: Aug. 19, 2024
See more about this meeting at Documenters.org
The meeting was called to order at 3 pm on August 19th, 2024.
Board members Maranda Penner, Jack Silvers, Rebekah Starkey-Keasling and Brad Snapp (virtual) were present. Valerie Black-Turner and Troy Palmer were absent. These members are local residents who have professional expertise in housing.
The purpose of this meeting was to answer questions and generate discussion among the board members and Department of Housing staff regarding the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) applications that were presented at the meeting on August 5th, 2024. The three for-profit applicants were Large Enterprise, Project Prosperity and Residential Housing Solutions. The only non-profit applicant was Wichita Habitat for Humanity.
Since that meeting, board members used the ZoomGrants app to review and score each application. The scoring criteria includes each developer’s credentials, financial condition and their past experience using government funding.
The board members were asked if they had any questions or issues using the ZoomGrants platform. There were no problems once they got the hang of how some of the features worked.
Questions
Q: How should we score the Funding section? For example, if an applicant has a funding source, do we score it as yes or no (all or nothing), or do we score on what we feel is the quality of funding?
A: There is no set way to do the scoring for each category. You should score on how you best feel it should be scored.
Q: If we believe two applications are basically the same, should we try to score them slightly different to show a difference?
A: Not necessarily.
Q: When you compile all of the scores, will you combine them to give an average score for each applicant?
A: Yes. One board member said they have different scores for each applicant, so we will inherently have some variety for each one.
Q: Should projects that are geared towards home-ownership take more precedence than rentals?
A: Not necessarily, no one unit is any more important than another. There are more ownership opportunities because the number of project-based vouchers, a form of federal rental assistance, are limited to 16 out of 57 available units. The goal was to have a mix of 75% home-ownership to 25% rental units.
Q: Can we recommend partial funding for any application?
A: Yes
Q: If any units are not included in this round, will they go back into the pool inventory for future funding rounds?
A: Yes
Discussion
Troy Palmer was absent from the meeting but emailed his comments for discussion.
All of the members were leaning towards recommending full funding for the Habitat for Humanity application. They feel it has a proven record and the program provides legacy ownership and the potential for generational wealth. They also liked that their plan was to rehabilitate an entire block. They feel this will spur more rehabilitation for the adjacent blocks. They appreciated the financing options for new owners.
Board members felt that Large had a lack of housing rehabilitation experience and with government funding. One member was willing to give them one or two units of the 16 they are requesting. Others declined them because they are not a local company. Their vacancy rates are also higher than industry standards.
There was some positive feedback for the Project Prosperity application. However, some members declined the application because they had no local presence and were not planning on home ownership.
Board members liked that Residential Housing Solutions is a Wichita company and their goal was for home ownership. However, their financing seemed risky. Some were open to partial funding for this application.
Sally Stang, director of housing and community services, pointed out that Residential’s timeline proposed closing on several of their houses in 2025. This would not meet the AHF requirement that funds are to be used in 2024. However, we could ask if they are able to restructure their finances to meet those requirements, or to trim the number of units in their request.
There was some discussion on rental standards in Wichita. Stang said that the Northeast catchment area maximum rents will be decreasing in 2025. These are established by HUD and will require separate maximum rent standards by zip code starting January 1, 2025. She says there will be challenges as they adjust to the new system of standards being set to the zip code level as opposed to the current area level. Eventually, this should help ease rising rent costs in lower-cost areas.
There was discussion on what kind of information there is on the number of evictions and turn-over rates with housing voucher tenants. How motivated are tenants to make payments on time and to maintain these homes?
The leverage is that if a tenant is evicted, they lose their voucher.
How does it compare with foreclosures on Habitat homes?
The owners carry the mortgage so they are more invested in their homes.
Board members were open to some of the applicants’ ideas to encourage tenants to engage in civic involvement as a part of their rent agreement, but these were seen more as a carrot than a stick. Realistically, the tenants’ time and financial priorities may prevent them from doing this. Habitat for Humanity might be better suited to experiment with these ideas. They may be able to incorporate them as participation for an entire block for example.
Some board members have not completed their evaluations and scoring. Staff set a new date of Wednesday, Aug 21st, to complete them. Any member can make changes to their evaluations up to that date. Staff will then compile the information to be presented at the next meeting on August 26th when the board will make their final recommendations.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 pm.
Summary
Summarize the 3 most important outcomes or takeaways from your notes....
- The Affordable Housing Fund is funded with $5 million in COVID recovery money.
- The AHF board is made up of local residents who have professional expertise in housing. Most of them have a preference in using local developers for this project.
- There are a lot of acronyms used in department of housing meetings.
Follow-Up Questions
What are you left wondering? Ask up to 3 of your own follow-up questions...
- How are the Affordable Housing Review board members selected?
If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@citybureau.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line.