Tompkins County Legislature on 2025-03-18 5:30 PM

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Agenda

Agenda: https://tompkinscountyny.legistar1.com/tompkinscountyny/meetings/2025/3/929_A_Tompkins_County_Legislature_25-03-18_Agenda.pdf

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[0:04] So affordable housing eligibility is based on the area median income. So extremely low income is 30% of area median income.
[0:16] A can go up to 80% of AMI, which is what we call workforce housing. Tenants do not have to be homeless or at risk of homelessness. It is just an income requirement.
[0:28] So here's the Tompkins AMI,
[0:34] so for a family of 430% of extreme which is extremely low
[0:40] income is 55,000 and usually with affordable projects we see 60% or less and if we're
[0:50] targeting a high-needs population it might be 30%. And this is something that the developer
[0:56] who's going to develop this type of housing would figure out they'll do the math on what
[0:59] rent needs to be and then they'll make the determination with the income band is going to
[1:06] be for the Affordable Project.
[1:11] Based on those incomes, I mean, realistically,
[1:16] everyone's
[1:17] at risk. And so that's why affordable housing can truly be homelessness prevention, because
[1:25] if you're a family of four and you're only making $55,000 a year in your family, you are at risk
[1:31] homelessness. And so to have a place where someone in that income range can live safely,
[1:38] that is true homelessness prevention.
[1:44] Ask a quick clarifying question. Yes, yes.
[1:46] So going back to on the previous slide, the AMI,
[1:52] maybe I'm not reading it right. I'm just wondering
[1:54] if the middle row should be at the top versus in the middle because you didn't understand
[2:00] that either.
[2:01] You go from 38, then you go down to 23 and then back up to 61 and that's across the board there
[2:07] So I'm just wondering if one of the rows got misplaced.
[2:10] Oh, maybe.
[2:15] Yeah.
[2:15] So they should be aggressively going up.
[2:18] Yes.
[2:18] Yes.
[2:19] We go down.
[2:20] Yes.
[2:20] Thank you.
[2:21] Thank you for pointing that out.
[2:25] Okay.
[2:26] So how do residents pay the rents?
[2:29] So there are, there are, with support of housing,
[2:36] each eye has the rental subsidy which we talked about.
[2:39] So no tenant is going to pay more than 30% of their income
[2:43] towards the rep.
[2:46] So whoever that landlord is or the property manager is always
[2:50] going to be whole in terms of the value of that rental unit.
[2:55] For affordable housing, no resident is paying more than 30% of their income, but that's it.
[3:03] So it's just that 30%.
[3:08] So we want to show you some examples of these types of projects,
[3:13] even though you have them in your community, but before we go into all of our pictures,
[3:17] does anybody else have any other questions about that?
[3:21] The 128 million is that, including your city, and if it does, is there a split?
[3:26] Yes.
[3:27] So, I can't remember this book off the top of my head, there's a cap per project which is 15 million.
[3:35] There's a cap for New York City versus rest of state.
[3:40] There's also a cap that any one agency can get as well.
[3:45] We have a lot of sophisticated housing developers that will try to reach that maximum with lots of projects all at one time.
[3:52] So, we do have those caps built in.
[3:56] Yes. I have other questions, but this one fits here. What if they're in Compulse
[4:01] The Zero? What happens in that instance? Then they pay zero. Certainly in a niche
[4:05] I unit. For a certain period of time or until the end. The rent is the rest of that
[4:12] rent is paid for by the E-shide program. Okay. In an affordable unit, though, it would
[4:19] be then the landlord would have to make that up some other way, move to eviction. But if
[4:26] It's a supportive unit then, right, you should, and you can fill that gap.
[4:31] You know, another question over here.
[4:33] Yes.
[4:33] Just for comparison, can you remind me how much do people have to pay to stay in emergency
[4:38] shelter?
[4:40] That varies from county to county, so it
[4:48] depends on the rate of the hotel room, and that
[4:52] is negotiated with the county and that hotel.
[4:55] There's no maximum on how much a county can pay.
[5:00] 4 emergency shelter placements. So, and the amount that that person might have to contribute to their emergency
[5:08] stay, also varies based on their income and whatever the cost of that stay is. And what we, what we want
[5:17] to say, too, is that when we're talking about shelter versus permanent housing, shelter is mostly
[5:25] paid for by the locality. It is mostly paid for by the by the district. So the state
[5:36] reimburses for 20 to 30 percent of that person's day. It's 71.29. So so we're paying 30
[5:46] percent essentially in your paying 70 percent. If you're impermanence afforded housing, the state
[5:51] is paying 100% of that person's stay, and it's permanent.
[5:56] So in an emergency shelter placement, the person still has to find a place to live
[6:01] at the end of that.
[6:02] So whether it's in an emergency shelter in a hotel motel, in a cold blue warming center,
[6:10] the person needs to find the resources to then exit that situation in a housing market that's
[6:15] very competitive.
[6:17] It's nearly impossible.
[6:18] So, and the county is footing the bill for that placement.
[6:22] If you're in a permanent setting, that person is there for effort, and they don't really
[6:27] ever have to move if they don't want to, and it's 100% reimbursed by the state.
[6:33] We're paying the rent.
[6:34] We're paying the services, and it's a permanent solution.
[6:39] I understood that permanent is better, and especially much better for the county government
[6:44] finances.
[6:44] I don't think I quite understand from the perspective of the person staying in the place for the night.
[6:50] How much are you saying it's just totally variable how much they might have to pay?
[6:56] And even an established, okay.
[6:59] So if it depends on how the county funds that shelter.
[7:03] It depends on the perdium rate that's negotiated between the county and the shelter provider.
[7:10] If there's a specific shelter that you're asking about our hotel, we can find that information out.
[7:14] But it really is a wide variety, which makes the system very confusing for the people that it's trying to serve.
[7:31] I'm looking at this slide here.
[7:33] And the breakdown of the unit looks very similar to the support of housing project.
[7:37] We're about to break ground down here, which is very exciting.
[7:40] Is this the new model?
[7:42] Is this what a mixing the different needs into the same building and supporting them together?
[7:47] we do see a lot of that so this has so greater opportunities this project has a lot of
[7:56] different subpopulations which means that sometimes the operators trying to hunt down a
[8:03] veteran family of four that also has a mental illness so sometimes you can get locked into
[8:11] trying to find the right person for that unit that you've identified and it could get
[8:16] difficult for that operator. So, I don't know if these guys had to do it again if they
[8:22] would have so many different subpopulations, but we do see that. I think what we're
[8:30] encouraging our providers to do in the COC that we operate is just be as general as possible.
[8:37] A lot of times, the people that we're trying to serve fall into these categories and are also
[8:45] long-term homeless, which is one of our categories anyways.
[8:50] So you don't have to pick it like this, but certainly people do.
[8:56] But you have to show us that you're eligible to provide the services
[9:00] for all those different populations.
[9:02] So then there might need to be for six units of serious mental illness,
[9:08] another agency that comes in and provides those services
[9:10] for people that are living in those units.
[9:12] So it can get very complicated.
[9:19] Another question?
[9:22] How did the people who are in need of the service, or in need of housing, in this type
[9:27] of development, get connected with that?
[9:31] They should go through the coordinated entry, weight list, which is operated by the continuum
[9:38] of care.
[9:38] So that's a shared weight list for any unit of housing that is dedicated to someone who's
[9:45] raising homelessness, the mental health system also has a similar list, it's called single
[9:49] point of access or entry,
[9:54] and any mental health dedicated unit might go through that list.
[9:57] They're supposed to coordinate.
[10:00] But coordinated entry is primary for homeless beds.
[10:12] What's the presentation?
[10:14] Thank you.
[10:15] So this is an old barracks.
[10:19] So 14 units of permanent support or housing for homeless veterans.
[10:25] It serves the lower Hudson Valley, HJP paid through a million dollars.
[10:30] There's some trust fund money there, and then each eye is with us.
[10:34] depending on the sub-population that you're picking, that's going to determine what
[10:39] say agency or contract is with.
[10:41] So, this doesn't matter that much now in the beginning of stages of just talking about
[10:46] this housing, but for some people that's a determining factor.
[10:51] So, that previous one of the opportunities for broom, that was a whole, that's half a block
[10:58] that was gifted to that nonprofit by the City of Binghamton.
[11:03] And they just completely redid it and now the whole spirit of the block has changed because of the revitalization.
[11:16] And that's an old barracks. This is another project here.
[11:23] This is Lampfierre Court. This is permanent for housing for individuals and families.
[11:30] This is 24 units of mental health, 10 units of domestic violence, and as you can see, there's
[11:37] more units than that, so there's also tax-cut affordable units here.
[11:42] But this is a different kind of setting, so this looks like a regular community of houses,
[11:47] like a neighborhood.
[11:51] This is one of the ones that was from the beginning of the slideshow, so this is Dimitri
[11:57] House and Rochester. This is small. This is six units of permanent supported housing. So each
[12:02] IHJP can be one house with one unit in it. If that's what the community needs to address
[12:09] the issue.
[12:13] This is larger. This is 10 units of permanent supported housing for SMI, but there
[12:18] are lots and lots of other affordable units. This is out in Chetakua County.
[12:27] This is hotel
[12:28] conversion. So this is in Kingston. This is 70 units of HHAP. So that means 70 units dedicated
[12:37] to people who are experiencing homelessness, but there's also affordable units in there as
[12:45] well. So this funding resource, we also want to talk about the housing our neighbors with
[12:49] nitty actor Honda funding that is repurposed hotel space, office space that can be used
[13:00] that's capital money that can be used to change a hotel in two permits part of an affordable
[13:07] housing.
[13:08] So, you can see that's a very old kind of hotel that we're used to seeing along the highway
[13:14] and this is the picture below is what is eventually going to look like.
[13:18] Am I reading that character that's like a $70 million project?
[13:23] I mean, are you doing a total of all of those together?
[13:25] Yeah, it's a lot, it's big.
[13:29] No, a $30 million.
[13:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[13:31] It's a big project.
[13:40] This is another large project, 70 HTTP units of serious mental illness
[13:44] and some affordable units as well.
[13:50] This is the stately apartment.
[13:52] So this might be what you were talking about.
[13:54] This is getting ready here to get going.
[13:56] So this is in Ethica.
[13:59] So there's tax credits here so that there's an affordable component.
[14:03] HJP gave 4.2 and the total for that project is $32 million.
[14:09] It's 151 total units, 20 HJP permanent supporter housing units.
[14:18] This is another small one in Rochester, 15 units.
[14:25] And I wanted to show the inside of some of these units
[14:27] so you could see what they look like eventually.
[14:29] it looks like a regular apartment.
[14:34] We want people to live well and have a high quality of life,
[14:39] so we like to build beautiful apartments for people. So this is just pictures that we've taken
[14:45] during some of our visits to look at the projects.
[14:54] We also are funding now a lot of co-located
[14:58] projects so this is
[15:00] Is emergency shelter in a permanent supported housing project. So we don't have a picture here because this is a domestic violence program.
[15:08] But we funded 10 units of permanent supported housing and 49 units of emergency for domestic violence in Rochester.
[15:16] This is another one where there's a shelter component with nine units of permanent supported housing for singles
[15:30] in Syracuse.
[15:32] So this is some HTTP money. Eight units of permanent supported housing in 80 beds of emergency shelter.
[15:42] And the city put in some money for that. And then this is a whole block. This is a New York City project.
[15:48] So this is so much money that we couldn't even fit it on this live probably.
[15:53] So this is 115 E to J.P. units of permanent supported housing, but a ton of tax credit.
[16:02] So anything is really possible.
[16:04] So that's shelter in permanent.
[16:06] This is a drop-in center with five E to J.P. units of permanent supported housing.
[16:14] This is in Chanango County.
[16:16] These are small houses, and so they're going to have a couple of those units
[16:22] dedicated to emergency housing and it's important that when you're adding emergency shelter units
[16:31] as part of trying to address the situation permanently that you make sure you have the right
[16:37] number of emergency shelter units compared to your permanent supported housing units. So just because
[16:43] you have 100 people in shelter does not mean you need a 100-bed shelter, especially if you're adding
[16:49] permanent component.
[16:53] So we add first steps in here just because sometimes communities come to us
[16:59] and they don't really know where to start and barking on something like this. So the first thing
[17:05] is to hook up with the COC which you have a great one here in Ithaca. Get some housing studies,
[17:13] get your numbers, engage in their meetings, and then apply to each eye, which is a very low barrier
[17:21] grant to get, we give out a lot of each eye grants because they're intended for new use to be
[17:28] paired with construction funding and that's not always going to happen. So sometimes people
[17:33] can't get their construction funding, it's very competitive. So we have lots and lots of
[17:38] each eye grants out there and it is a very accessible grant to get. And so we encourage people
[17:43] to apply even if you think you might have a potential for a project a year from now.
[17:51] And then for affordable housing, you're going to want to get studies on the need and again engage in the COC and then engage your state representatives that do the development of affordable housing.
[18:05] And you have agencies and organizations in Tomkins County who already know how to do this and have done it successfully.
[18:11] So if you think you have a site, we just want to talk about potential ways to ID that site.
[18:22] It can be land.
[18:24] Any building can be demolished.
[18:26] It does not necessarily have to be rehabbed.
[18:30] Markages can be reimbursed.
[18:32] That is part of what we pay for as our capital development program.
[18:37] We can reimburse some mortgage that a nonprofit has taken out to acquire property.
[18:41] We can also pay for the acquisition of that property upon closing.
[18:46] So there are options, but ideally it's close to services and transportation.
[18:57] All right.
[18:57] Well, thank you for all that information.
[18:59] I know we've had some questions already, and I know we have some more.
[19:02] I really appreciate you being here.
[19:04] Thank you for all the information.
[19:05] It's great to see all these projects and their various forms and be able to research
[19:11] them independently of these projects.
[19:13] How many, or do you know, how often municipality or county is initiating the project as opposed to a not-for-profit developer, private developer, et cetera?
[19:26] I think it depends on the type of project.
[19:29] And we see more non-profits who are embarking, but that's who embark on the project because
[19:38] a county-run construction project can hit a lot of snacks along the road that a non-profit
[19:46] won't hit.
[19:48] And so a non-profit certainly makes it a smoother process, but what we're trying to encourage
[19:56] municipalities and counties to do is to...
[20:00] So if you have a non-profit, who's ready to embark?
[20:04] I had significant issues. That's steering building in the art house.
[20:10] And other people went to this meeting with me.
[20:12] So if I'm mischaracterizing this, they'll pipe them, I'm sure.
[20:17] But I think the big takeaway was the problem was we had a lot of people in affordable,
[20:22] because it was affordable housing, mixed with supportive housing.
[20:24] The support of housing seemed to go OK.
[20:28] The problem seems to stem from us putting people into affordable housing who really need support
[20:33] of housing.
[20:35] And so I didn't know if that was a common problem and I didn't know if you had any thoughts
[20:38] on how to fix that.
[20:40] That is a common problem.
[20:42] So that's what we do hear that.
[20:46] That sometimes more support is needed for the units.
[20:50] Because those people might be at risk to and have just the same life challenges or service needs that people who have experienced homelessness have.
[21:01] And so, what we try to do is make sure that it's a good pairing between an affordable housing developer and a nonprofit.
[21:14] it. In some of our other projects, so it's not formal. There's case managers there already
[21:21] and they'll extend their services to whoever's in the building. So that'll work out
[21:28] if the building's small enough to be able to stretch their resources. But if the building's too
[21:33] big, it just becomes very, very difficult. Well, just because people are now going to look at
[21:40] going to go, oh, stately, that's a big, it's over 100 units, 20 or supportive, that's harder
[21:46] for us to sell now, like in it. And we want to be able to sell it. And I just, how do we
[21:51] avoid that problem there? I mean, do we meet with the developer now and say, listen, this is,
[21:57] we have experience with this now, and this is the problem we face.
[22:00] Yeah, I mean, I would say definitely like that kind of communication in that learning lessons that,
[22:06] and start house are going through now would be beneficial to any new large project like that.
[22:14] I think, and I think communication as the project is operating too is K.
[22:20] So I think moving forward for a steering and our house having a better collaboration between the private
[22:29] property management company and then offer profit that's operating the
[22:33] support of housing units will be key. So as much upfront that can be done to
[22:39] make sure our agreements are in.