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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-03-22 Housing MIN ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION and HUMAN RESOURCES COMMISSION MARCH 22, 2000 MINUTES CALL TO ORDER – The meeting was called to order by Housing Commission Vice Chair Jan Vaughn at 4:05 p.m. Other Housing and Human Resources Commissioners present were Madeline Hill, Carlus Harris, Nancy Richardson, Joe McKeever, and Patty Claeys. Staff present were Maria Harris, Bill Molnar and Sue Yates. PRESENTATION OF THE CONSOLIDATED PLAN M. Harris explained the Consolidated Plan and that this meeting is required before a draft plan can be written. We are required to talk to the public and ask agencies for their input. She included her data collection to date with the previous Consolidated Plan. The draft Consolidated Plan should be available April 10, 2000. It will also be on the City’s website, a photocopy at City Hall, Department of Community Development, and the Ashland Public Library. The City Council has a public hearing scheduled for the draft plan on April 18, 2000, 7:00 p.m. M. Harris said she has had to take 1990 census numbers, extrapolate percentages and apply them to our current population numbers. The 2000 census will not be available until this time next year. The Federal requirements are answered by M. Harris’ research findings. Her findings are shown in the tables included in the packet. Total households as of 1998 were 8,283. The City’s analysis has shown that 49 percent of Ashland households are below median income. Of those households below median income, 68 percent are renting and 32 percent own their own home. Of the households that are below median income, 26 percent are overburdened for housing payments and 33 percent are experiencing a severe cost burden. “Special Categories” are those people in the population that need “supported housing” (special services due to some sort of disability). This table shows the percentage of the population in each category. The average rent in Ashland for a single family, three bedroom, two bath home is about $1130. A two bath, one bedroom is about $600 per month. The median home price in Ashland based on the home sales in 1999 is $174,000. A monthly payment, which would include mortgage insurance and minimum down payment, is a little over $1600 per month. There has been about a 48 percent increase in rental prices from 1995 to 2000 and a 34 percent increase in average home prices. M. Harris looked at income levels. Median income has increased about 23 percent in the last five years. The housing costs increase is about 34 percent for home ownership. There is a gap shown on the graph between “Housing Costs and Median Income”. Assuming someone had no debt and no assets, they would have to make about $50,000 a year gross to be able to afford a median income priced home. Only about 15 percent of the population can afford to buy homes. C. Harris wondered if there is a correlation between being severely burdened, being a homeowner and losing your home because you are severely burdened and not being able to get back into the market. M. Harris said it would be hard to find the data but she could look into it. She said there is a significant part of the population who own homes now that purchased them awhile back and they would no longer be in the income range to buy a home. C. Harris is concerned with the elderly who are on a fixed income. Their tax burden continues to go up and up and up. They could be forced out of their homes. M. Harris said in 1990 the census showed 2.8 percent of rental units were vacant and 2.6 percent of the homes were available for ownership. In 2000, there is barely over a 1 percent vacancy rate for rentals and less than 1 percent for ownership. Trends show that the number of persons per household in Ashland is decreasing. The number of units for senior housing has increased from 1990 to 1998. Land zoned multi-family is being used for ownership not rentals. That means land is at such a premium in Ashland, that people can make more money building houses for single ownership than they can rental units. M. Harris still needs to find statistics on the homeless and quantify their needs. She also needs to do some more work on the economic trends in Ashland. M. Harris said the other segment of the Consolidated Plan they will be looking at is the process used to give out the grant money each year. There were priorities in the 1995 Consolidated Plan but there are no criteria as to how the committee decides what projects should get the money. She thinks they need a grading system based on specific criteria. C. Harris complimented Harris on the comprehensive work she has done. He said in looking at the table referring to the number of households by housing costs for renters, it appears if you combine the over-burdened and the severe cost-burdened that the number of low income and middle income in these categories is rising. McKeever said he finds it astounding that people are hanging onto their dwelling. But, what other part of their family life is dwindling for that? M. Harris noted that HUD does not require us to look at public services outside the homeless. Only 15 percent of the CDBG money can be spent for public services. She believes the intent of the program is to put funds into getting folks of median and below into housing and get the job market going. Schreiber noted that 60 percent of their clients are long-time Ashland residents who have gotten bumped out of housing because of cost or because of the job market. This is not just homelessness involving transients. Hill mentioned to M. Harris to remember those on Medicaid and to mention Linda Vista Nursing Home as well as Mountain View and Skylark. PUBLIC HEARING CHRISTINE BURNS, 621 Oak Knoll Drive, represents Youth Focus. They are working to establish a youth shelter for homeless children in Ashland. Burns said they want to create a shelter for teens, aged 12 to 18. Their first order of business is to get an emergency shelter established and their secondary goal is to have a group home for children who are not able to return home for one reason or another. Their figures show the number of homeless teens in Ashland is really quite large. For many children, it is safer to be out on the street than be at home. They envision their organization being a bridge between their group and the family and ideally get children back in a safe situation in their home. Their goal is for a 20-bed facility. That seems low compared to the need. Most of the kids are not long-term and are in a shelter for less than a week. CHARLOTTE DORSEY, President of Ashland St. Vincent DePaul and a member of ICCA, said she is aware of at least 20 children who are homeless. There is a tremendous need for service. They are getting a limited amount of money for utilities. Most of the money goes for rental assistance because people oftentimes are one check away from not being able to make it. There is a phenomenal need for services. ANNA HOWE, 1555 Windsor, said she is a property manager and advocates increasing the rental housing in Ashland. She has people asking to be put on a waiting list to be called if there is a vacancy. She believes City policy has emphasized ownership. Developers are being subsidized to build owner occupied homes to sell to low income people. The emphasis has been on housing equals ownership. The rental market is getting either forgotten or a bad name. Rentals provide services low income families need. It gives them the ability to leave quickly if someone in the family gets a job or training and needs to move. There is especially a lack of rental housing for larger families. She was hoping they could put together ways to encourage rental housing. If you have larger units, you can provide facilities for children that promote the growth of the family. The City could encourage rentals. It is much easier to deal with rental subsidies than resale. DEBBIE MILLER, represents ICCA. She said they have received CDBG grants in the past and they were able to purchase a resource center with them and with the center, they are able to serve of the very low income people in Ashland. Some of the programs need funding to continue. They have the shelter in the winter months. There is no rental assistance to ICCA because there is not funding available. Many of their clients cannot make it from one month to another. They come for food from the food bank. They come for prescription money. ICCA provides public restrooms, laundry services and voice mail. ICCA’s job is to help folks return to self-sufficiency. They would like to provide more emergency shelter services. ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION 2 And HUMAN RESOURCES COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 22, 2000 SHARON SCHREIBER represents ICCA and CERVS. She clarified and explained the family shelter program. At this point, it is running six months (winter) of the year. They are able to do ten beds a night. They provide one to twelve weeks of shelter for a family. The family is able to stay together in the faith community site (shared between churches). Every Monday the participants carry their mattress to a new site. Food is provided along with case management and medical care. They line them up with all the other services that they need to become self- sufficient and get into housing. She believes this type of shelter is absolutely critical and we need to be able to do more than ten beds a night. They are at the end of the first year of a three year planning process to enlarge their services and be able to provide more beds and serve more families. They are trying to expand and find additional sites for beds, however, if they had one site, it would be less invasive for the families and the people from the faith communities could come in at dinnertime and do fellowship and mentoring. If they had a larger facility, they could do far more. THOMAS HEUMANN, 545 Orchard, wondered if the Consolidated Plan would include ordinances about where rentals are permitted. M. Harris said a detailed review of the ordinances is not a general part of the plan. There will be a section mentioned where the City policies affect the market. Molnar said the Consolidated Plan will identify priorities in terms of rental housing. Then, when the Housing Element update begins in July, the Consolidated Plan will identify the issues and can be used as a framework to identify where accessory units should be placed. This will be a time to look at housing needs in the Orchard area. Howe said she was hoping there would groups of housing that could have set aside 25 percent that would have their rent subsidized with qualified low income renters so people would mix and it would not be a stigma. Vaughn asked the human service providers if they see with their agencies, a correlation for the demands on their services with what was reflected in the presentation today? Claeys (from ACCESS) said the tables provided by M. Harris indicate exactly what the situation is. People have to make choices about whether they will pay their rent this month or their utilities or eat, and when the rent is getting paid, they are at the emergency food bank. Families are struggling with how to meet their needs on a limited amount of disposable income. Schreiber said most of their clients are working. The choice they have is to continue to pay their car insurance or their car payment so they can continue to work and give up their housing. Everything heard today is very relevant. Medinger wondered how our figures compare with others in the valley. He is surprised we are 49 percent below the valley median because you think of Ashland as the rich end of the valley but obviously we are not. M. Harris does not have the numbers but she can work on that. C. Harris is still stuck on the 79 percent who are struggling just to pay the rent or mortgage. Overall, the statistics tell him there needs to be a sustained affordable housing base, be it rental or owning, because people who have found rental housing are paying much of their income towards their rent than can be sustained and still have a healthy environment for themselves and their children. Medinger said this brings up the balance of what you can hire people for and what their most basic needs are. This would be the whole issue of fair wages. It seems there is a national shift since the 60’s that has eliminated the middle class. He wondered if fair wages could be addressed and what could be done to get a broader movement towards making local wages more realistic. Richardson said we are not going to find the service industries raising wages. Hill said she was looking at last year’s plan which included ten percent of the funds going to sidewalk construction and another ten percent for accessibility improvements to city owned buildings. She would like to encourage the Commission, when they get to the draft of this year’s plan, that they increase the percentage of housing and community services and throw out the sidewalk construction and accessibility improvements to city owned buildings and let someone else find the money for that and let’s use our money for housing and community services instead. McKeever said it is like a quantum leap between the wages and the housing costs. The common thread he sees is the cost of housing. He advocates the Ashland Community Land Trust. Get the land out of the formula and things begin to look economically feasible. ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION 3 And HUMAN RESOURCES COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 22, 2000 HOUSING COMMISSION th The minutes of the February meeting were approved. The next meeting will be April 26. Richardson will have a Harvest Built Homes person talk. The city is sponsoring the second open house for all Commissioners. We could use volunteers to man the tables th on April 13 from 4-6 p.m. ADJOURNMENT – The meeting was adjourned at 5:30 p.m. ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION 4 And HUMAN RESOURCES COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 22, 2000