Bangor council backs conditions for Yellen Pines credit enhancement deal

[23:31] Susan Deane: Yes, I think we do. We are back in the workshop. We have finished our executive sessions. I understand somebody has a motion, Madam Chair. [23:47] Daniel Carson: Yes, I wanted to move pursuant to our executive section that we exercise our option second [23:56] Wayne Mallar: then [23:57] Susan Deane: move in the second year that we exercise our option on property and executive session. Further discussion? Welcome. Councilman? Yes. Council Dean? Yes. Walker? Yes. Council Walker? Council across? Yes. Council Manager? Yes. Council Beck? Yes. That's a fish. Yes, I am a yes. So it's all of us. Great. Okay, then we [24:35] Carollynn Lear: are going to move into city manager updates, and I know we have a pretty fast agenda, so I actually didn't have much in the way of updates that needed to be discussed, but I did want to remind everyone want that next week is a no meeting week for council. It's a month when we have a fifth week, which means we don't have committee or council meetings, so you will not need at all next week. The following week I also wanted to note that it's Labor Day, which means that your committee meetings automatically get pushed to Wednesday, so there'll be no meeting on Monday. Labor Day committee meetings will happen on Wednesday evening. [25:23] Susan Deane: After a week and a half. [25:28] Carollynn Lear: Tremendously. All right. And then with that, I think we can move on to minutes. Okay. Who's doing Yellen Pines? I'll probably. Yeah. Do you want me to give up my seat so [25:45] Carolyn Fish: So Birgitta can join us. [25:46] Susan Deane: I can go over there. [25:47] Daniel Carson: Birgitta, do you want to come up? [25:49] Susan Deane: Let me make sure we're all in [25:59] Susan Faloon: the same room. We're all coming in. It's scary, Bryson, the size of the table. It's OK, though. [26:09] Susan Deane: I'm fine with the brain. Oh, OK. Yeah. But I'll come here back. We'll make it work. [26:18] Carollynn Lear: That's left. That's the answer. OK. And do you come down here and try to make sure where it's a little easier? [26:53] Susan Deane: Maybe it's easier that you would prepare. Good evening everyone, can [27:04] Angela Walker: we, what, good evening everyone. I am happy to be here to offer some recommendations for our CEA agreement. It seems as though throughout all of our meetings, the main concerns were in the buckets of city fight financial protection, long term affordability and use home for good programming services and long term accountability. And with that said, I'd like to read the, I would like to offer recommendation recommendations. So I think we start with number one, the assessment cap, the 75% reimbursement would be calculated using the agreed assessed value of the completed project when the CEA begins. So right now that project is estimated at three million, so that's 70, so it would be 75. So we cap it because as that project increases in value, that CEA could potentially increase. So the recommendation is to cap at three million with a 75 percent reimbursement. So approximately we would be talking about 38.5 per year over 1.6 million for 30 years. We looked at the mill rate historically, the mill rate changes but not drastically, so we don't anticipate there to be a drastic change. Any questions on that? Just [28:45] Carolyn Fish: so I understand, sure, I get a lot about this. So when you say it's going to cap at 3 million no matter what over the 30 years, you know, it's just going to stay capped [28:58] Angela Walker: at 3 million? You can, so that's my, that's my recommendation for a condition for our agreement. So normally it would, I mean, we can put all different types of agreement, but that was a major concern in terms of how much the city's investing. And so if we cap the estimated project value and understand that with, I don't want to get too technical, but with a CEA, so you're giving funds based on the difference in value. Right now we're not getting any tax revenue from that property, so we're estimating that when the project is completed it'll be 3 million, and we can say screenshot in time, 75 of 3 million over 30 years. So even though it costs 11 and I [29:50] Carolyn Fish: understand now, I've looked at it, and thank you, I've been asking a lot of Q A so I could be better prepared, not with everyone's time, but I'm still a little confused. So even if the true value, assessed value in 10 years is six or seven million, it'll still just be assessed, it'll be froze at [30:07] Angela Walker: three million if we agree on that recommendation and the difference in the project. So the project, and Mike can speak to this, but Mike's here, right, Mike? The project is 11.1 million, but the TIF and CEA agreement is based on the assessed value of the projects, not the cost of the project. Yes, I [30:28] Susan Deane: I understand. And then that's going to be froze if we agree on [30:33] Angela Walker: it. And I also want to caveat that a lot of these recommendations came from a really in depth conversation with our legal representation for TIFs and CEAs. And I think that we should definitely, once we decide on conditions, we should definitely go over them with him so that we dot our I's, cross our T's, and make sure that they are actually possible. [31:00] Susan Deane: My question is on the assessment cap. The very last line says the owner would be responsible for taxes associated with any additional value. So how does that pertain to the cap if we're capping it at three? [31:11] Angela Walker: So the owner is Bangor, Housing Development Corporation, right? So let's just say that, let's just say that year one, project assesses at 3 million, right? So we as a city agreed on a CEA based on 75% of that 3 million. year two the project assessments had five million and so whatever that difference is we agreed to three anything additional over that would be a cause for banger housing development corporation [31:39] Carollynn Lear: Okay so [31:42] Susan Deane: chances are it's not over the years, so we would probably be getting more than what we're, we're looking at right here at the cap. We're getting more taxes. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. [32:00] Michael Beck: Question about the other 25%. It's earmarked for affordable housing. What does that process look like for deciding when to use that money and how? [32:11] Angela Walker: So, Anne, do you want to speak about that in terms of being able to use TIF money for additional improvements? Yeah. The rest [32:18] Susan Deane: rest of that value, you could dedicate to, you know, improvements to that area around the business park, infrastructure improvements, marketing for that, you know, there's other lots, I mean, it can be used as long as it's serving that area. And for that, for that property, but also the property around it. And that's an appropriate use of those. So what would happen is, we would bring to you just like we did this budget year with the downtown tiff we would bring you a tip budget every year as part of your budget process that you would review so you would know exactly and that where it would [32:59] Michael Beck: be dedicated well sure and because my i guess my question right here with portal housing i'm thinking additional units more another project right could you fill out the possibility with this [33:11] Susan Deane: Yes, absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Actions right now. Okay. [33:20] Angela Walker: Second recommendation, long term affordability. So the property must remain affordable housing for the required affordability period. If the affordability requirement is no longer met, the city may suspend or terminate CEA reimbursements. And so again, another caveat by saying that then main housing, and this home for good program is extremely diverse. It's already regulated, right? We're going to place our own kind of regulation to protect us as a city. But please know that those the program is regulated in that it must be affordable housing for at least 30 years. And that's why the TIF is 30 years. And that's why the CEA is for 30 years. Any questions? Okay. Home for good compliance, as I just spoke about the project must remain in compliance and good standing with Maine housing, 's home for good program requirements throughout the term of the CEA. Supportive services, supportive services required under the home for good program. So again, we're making sure that we're compliant to the program that's important to us. But the good news for us is that program is regulated. And so anytime that anything thing comes out of the program so affordable housing is not met or whatever the other affordability is not met that is going to be reported to us notice to the city number five the owner must notify the city of any significant or unresolved findings by main housing involving affordability home for good compliance or required supportive services i'm [35:03] Wayne Mallar: not sure where i should ask i'm concerned about it says main housing home for good program requirements to the program are the program requirements part of i understand it's a low barrier shelter to get in right but is there any conditions on drug use or alcohol use once they're in the facility and i'm going to [35:25] Angela Walker: defer to jennifer gunderman or mike myatt as far as actual drug use [35:36] Carollynn Lear: you can have my seat i'm [35:45] Speaker J (unidentified): glad you asked because i want to be able to finish my answer from last time yeah if someone's if someone's using in the building in their unit then i don't know that we would know that they were doing that but if someone's using in the building an illegal substance and they're causing disruption to the other tenants that's going to cause a problem with our lease and that whole person would ultimately be evicted if that behavior continues so if someone for example just to make just to be crystal clear with you someone's having a beer in their apartment that's not against the law that's something that someone could do might do but if they're openly drunk in common areas they're causing disruptions with their neighbors they're being aggressive towards staff they're doing things that are not good behavior, the police will be called. Preble Street will reach out to our property management team. That'll be a lease violation. We'll continue to follow up with that tenant, work through that if we can. Preble Street's gonna be onsite and is gonna wanna work through those as much as possible. But if it gets to the point where that is not a safe situation, we're gonna move to eviction. [36:49] Wayne Mallar: I guess the question I had is, what is the point when you do eviction? I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I'm not really sold on the idea. I have no problem with someone coming into a low barrier [37:04] Speaker J (unidentified): shelter that has an alcohol. This is not a shelter, this is permanent housing. Fine, permanent housing. [37:09] Wayne Mallar: It's low barrier though, right? Coming in, they can be an addiction, they could, yeah, it's okay. My problem is it's an idea, if you're, if you, if you're housing people that have drug addictions, it's an ideal spot for a drug dealer, and I'm concerned that we're promoting the use of [37:31] Speaker J (unidentified): drugs. Happy to answer that question for you. We'll answer it, please. I will. So you, we're, we've all talked about how folks get selected to go in. It's based on the scoring criteria, the 0 to 16. The 15, 16 folks are the highest need. If through the hub and Preble Street and us, if we know that someone is a 16, we're going to talk to that person. But if we know they have a severe drug addiction and would be a disruption, we're not going to move them in. We're going to want to move people in that will be a good fit for living inside. Just because someone's a 16 doesn't mean you'd ever want to move them inside. If they're a severe drug addict, that would cause unsafe situations for [38:14] Wayne Mallar: staff. But if that's the case, aren't you going against your rules when you say we're going to look at 15 and 16? Is this, isn't it's not going, yeah, if this is an additional rule, I think I have to be made aware of it up front. I, and we don't do any urine tests, we do nothing for the people that are in the building after they've moved in, is that correct? That's correct. So we [38:37] Speaker J (unidentified): really don't have any control over drug use in the building. We do, based on my previous statement, [38:44] Wayne Mallar: only if they're disruptive. But that's not helping the public if they're not destructive. I just have major issues with allowing drug use in that type of setting, and I think it's [38:57] Speaker J (unidentified): inappropriate. We're saying, if I can ask, elaborate on that, we're saying if someone's doing drugs that will not be tolerated, if those drugs are illegal drugs, that's not going to be tolerated in the facility. [39:11] Wayne Mallar: And how do you control your knowledge of them using illegal drugs? Drugs. That's if someone rags on them or you've catch the guy that's selling the drugs. I think this is, I like the specifics. So what you're telling me, maybe I'm misinterpreting, that you're going to say it's a low barrier entrance and they cannot use illegal drugs in the facility. If they do, they're going to be asked to leave. [39:41] Speaker J (unidentified): Potentially will lead to eviction. Potentially. Ideally, because we have wraparound on services, Purple Street will be on site and say, hey, that's a, that's not a good choice. Remember, you're here, you were able to come out of the woods and off the street. You need to make better choices. And a lot of folks knowing that they've got a safe place over their head will make better choices. That was clearly elaborated in the Logan Place report that was previously in the package. People will make better choices. If those people continue to not make good choices, put people in unsafe situations, police will get involved, and ultimately that will go through a court process, ultimately through eviction. Purple Street will not collaring. You're going to have to go through court system to get an eviction. That's state law. I can't elaborate. I can't answer any more detail on that. 's a state law. The only reason I ask is I think we can't kick someone out of a house that has lease their breaks. I think we have shelters here that do drug testing and if [40:39] Wayne Mallar: If they fail the drug test, they just help. [40:42] Speaker J (unidentified): Again, this is not a shelter. It's a permanent supportive housing. So there are differences there. [40:46] Wayne Mallar: I think that's a confusion in the idea. [40:48] Speaker J (unidentified): I don't think it's confusing at all. Well, I'm sorry. [40:51] Wayne Mallar: I'm glad you're not confused, but I am. I want a facility for the people, but I don't want them to be allowed to use illegal drugs. I don't care if they're not disruptive. I don't want illegal drugs on the facility being authorized by the city of Bangor. [41:06] Speaker J (unidentified): I think we have a moral obligation to prevent the use of drugs. I'll just say we're not authorizing anyone to use illegal drugs. If we see them doing that, will be addressed as a violation in their lease and we'll move forward with that. How long will it take you? It could take 90 days. They talk to the court system about that, 60 days. It depends on the court picture. [41:35] Michael Beck: Is part of this, is there going to be like inspections periodically of their living court, like you know? Absolutely yes. So if someone were to be using a net use, was it caused them to behave badly to the property itself, but holds in walls or whatever violations, that's one of the ways you would be able to correct that. Okay yes, that's official observation. [42:01] Susan Deane: That you have common spaces. Yes we do. You're not having parties that are allowing alcohol and drugs to be used, not because you're trying to deal with their problems. The common spaces are more typically. [42:19] Speaker J (unidentified): For caseworkers, people providing supportive services by Preble Street internally, as well as caseworkers that might come in from other agencies. So we've got a large common area as you sort of would walk in, a gathering place, people can sort of walk around and feel comfortable around their neighbors, they can see Preble Street staff that will make them more comfortable. I don't, I've never dealt with this personally, but I got to imagine that living outside for 17 or 18 years and transitioning inside. Has got to be a very traumatic experience for folks. The community space is designed for medical professionals and caseworkers to meet with the tenants of the. [43:02] Susan Deane: Property. So this is a space where these service providers would be able to tell us almost in crisis or having an issue, of course we deal with it before it comes to the eviction. Furthermore. [43:14] Speaker J (unidentified): Because Pebble Street's there 24 hours a day, if we know someone's in crisis and we know someone's using, we're going to interact, they're going to interact with them in real time and be knocking on that door and say you need to make better choices, and if those choices continue to be bad ones, we're going to get the authorities involved or it's going to be a property management lease violation. So a lot of things will sometimes happen in the wee hours of the morning, so that's the you know the way. We've designed the building as an L. You've got from the center you've got line of sight down every hallway, and with the advanced security that we've had to do, Pebble Street from the center can see what's going on at all times, and it's a one-story building, so it's not like that's why we didn't want to do a two or three-story building, because we wanted to be able to see every door at all times. And we actually have set up the building so that it's a little higher off the ground so that people can't knock on windows from the outside. Not only are we trying, the goal is to protect the 30 that are inside and help them make the best choices that they can possibly make without interference from neighbors on the outside. [44:32] Carolyn Fish: In your vetting process where it's low barrier, is there a mechanism where there's some type of consideration for those tenants that acknowledge that they want to participate in the [44:51] Speaker K (unidentified): recovery? I mean, if you've got only 30, that would go a long way with the program for sure, [44:56] Carolyn Fish: but I know you can't force them, but in this vetting, you know, I know the more difficulties, the more problems, more issues they have, the higher they go, but I almost wonder, you know, if we don't take into consideration, are we leaving behind other people that might have one or two point less score but might have a greater success rate because they're now ready? So is that taken [45:21] Speaker K (unidentified): into, how is that taken into? Yeah, so with the resident selection criteria, just because [45:25] Speaker J (unidentified): and you know, Jen elaborate, but if someone's a 16 and they're just not fit to live inside or be around other people, we're not going to move them in. So maybe it's someone who's a 14 or maybe someone who's in that range, it's not going to be a one or two, but it's the people that are getting the most services in Bangalore right now and the highest scores possible. We're not going to move in anyone that has severe criminally violent backgrounds grounds. But you have to acknowledge that who we're dealing with is not going to have the best landlord references, if one at all, may have some stuff on their criminal record that will be there. So it's a little, that's my version of low barrier. It's not your typical person going into a one bedroom studio. It's you've got someone who's got some severe issues that we need to get off the street because of the burden they're putting on the general public from the police and fire and all those other calls. We need to get them inside and get them as much help as possible. But if there are high scoring people that just are going to be a danger to themselves or staff or their neighbors, we would not move them in. But they'll continue to be outside. [46:35] Carolyn Fish: Thank you. Appreciate your patience. Thank you very much. I just want to make sure I understand. So when people ask me, yes, I've got more accurate information. Again, back to vetting. I understand that it's going to go through the hub is it and that encounters Penobscot and Piscataquis and you know this is Bangor land this affects you know Bangor's given back the tax credit and I understand you know I didn't know until someone brought it to my attention recently this encompasses almost 80 towns and 8,000 square miles so and I know there's no guarantee and when we hear well they are Bangors but you know that's a little bit convoluted too does someone Just show up here and then they're here for 24 hour and they're Bangor so can you give us a little more clarity so that I can be a little more specific when people ask me questions about just how many of these 30 even if you just give me a percentage and I know you don't have a crystal ball yeah but if you could just give me something that I can have some reasonable explanation and tell people [47:42] Speaker J (unidentified): that ask me the way it's always been explained to me is that the people with the highest score are people that are receiving the most number the most amount of services and i have to believe that 90 of the folks receiving all those services have to be around here because this is where all the services are the services are not in hancock the services are not in newport or herman or glenburn all the services are in bangalore so i've my goal is 90 95 of folks are homeless they don't have an Address anyway but I'm hoping that the goal is up there and what I will pledge to do is I want to recreate the Logan Place study for Yell and Pines a year later so I will tell you when I do my annual report where folks are coming from and that's in you know on the annual reporting know we have to provide Main Housing and our investors a tremendous amount of stuff now the tax credit program is a very complicated compliance program that we have staff that specialize in this stuff so the annual report that we can provide you know whenever that is due we can tell you who the folks are we can block out the names but we can tell you previous address that we knew of and i don't think that would be violating anyone's you know as long as it's anonymous we could say on average this many people came from Penobscot or Piscataquist County these people were from Brewer these people were in Bangalore you know I think we can provide that stuff thank you I [49:19] Angela Walker: Just want to interject, do we want to have a condition around that? So for instance, year one we receive an annual report and we want to have a condition around a certain percentage should be from Bangalore. [49:32] Carollynn Lear: It's great now, we can't, I think you have to define that very clearly because from Bangor, I think we also want to give the opportunity to look at the program requirements to confirm that would comply with the Home for Good project requirements at the state level. [49:56] Michael Beck: All, I don't know how you, oh sorry, that's okay, I would just say yeah, please look at that very strongly because one of the reasons that was compelling to me was that there were going to be Bangor, from Bangor, this is Bangor resources going towards this, and yeah, anything we can do to make sure that it's people who are from Bangor living in Bangor, touching services and staying on the streets right now in Bangor, that's the condition I would want to see, that's. [50:25] Susan Deane: Okay, at the very least can we make a provision that states that we are not housing out of state people because technically they've been here for five years, even if they're from another state they're living in Bangor, but anyone from out of state probably hasn't been here more than a few months, so isn't that something that could possibly be written and we shouldn't be taking care of people. [50:48] Speaker J (unidentified): From other states, I think we'd have to look at fair housing rules related to that, I think you know with when we look at the Home for Good stuff we might be able to do a preference, so if you had two 16s you could maybe do a preference through the resident selection criteria for a Bangor person, so if you're a 16 and everyone here is a 16 but you're the only one here from Bangor we might be able to do a residency preference, but that's a, that's a call that's about, that's above our head in terms of. The project require main housing would have to really weigh in as well, our investors, but I think to say it's a requirement I think would be a fair housing violation potentially. [51:31] Joseph Leonard: And actually to that point I'm just going to piggyback off, so a preference like let's say you're dealing with like a 12, a 14 and a 16 and that 12 happens to be a Bangor resident, like with a preference, like for example if you're applying to a federal job, for example, and you're a veteran, you get a veteran's preference, which doesn't guarantee you a job, but it does guarantee that you will be more weighted in that consideration. Is there a way that we can implement something like that for Bangor residents so that it just tips their favor? Because obviously we do need to think about the resources that we put out to the individual that's having a huge amount of services, 911 calls going out to them. At the same time, though, I do understand that citizens do want to help their neighbors before others. And if there is some sort of way to get that preference in writing, even if it's like even something like just something that really does help get that person a little bit over the edge, I think that would go a long way to make people feel a lot more comfortable. I don't know what that conversation would look like. [52:55] Daniel Carson: I want to express in terms of the reporting, you know, where people are, you asked if we would like that to be, I would like that to be a condition. I think that 's a piece of data that we really struggle with here. As to the, from Bangor, and I have that, you know, the same, that's what I also want, you know, ideally helping people who are here, I think it would be really valuable for this council sometime to go through the exercise of who is from Bangor, actually trying to answer what we think that question means. And I say that because I stood outside a couple of weeks ago with some people. It was a nice crowd of people. We don't all agree on everything. And we tried to actually do that exercise at 11 p.m. So it wasn't really the right time to be thinking about that but at 11 p.m even those of us I mean it was very diverse we really couldn't actually come up with firm lines on anything right because somebody could be or was from Bangor and then they moved away and they got a job and they thought of a job but this is where support is or someone came here for a job that never existed or somebody you know moved away There are a lot of different, I think, things, but at the end of it, the concern that I have is we don't have data. And so we're thinking about a home, we have a homeless committee we've put together to develop a strategic plan. That's a game of numbers, right? If we said today we have 700 people outside, I don't know if that's a real number, I'm just throwing 700 out for this exercise. But if we said that today and we come up with, right, we have this, we're gonna house 30 people and we come up with a strategic plan, that's going to be based on all of our available data. And if the population keeps growing and we don't understand why it's growing, where people are coming from, we're going to ruin our own strategic plan before we even get out the door. And so I just think any time that we can grab data to help us understand movement, transients, any type of transients, that would that would help us. So that was a really long way explaining. I'd love to see that as a condition. Thank you. I will say [55:09] Angela Walker: though, if I may, Home for Good is a project that's constructed by Maine Housing, and Bangor Housing Development Corporation has been funded by Maine Health. We, the City of Bangor, are funding additional monies based on our criteria. The next step to this, once we get our conditions set and we create a cea agreement we have to submit that to main housing main housing ultimately so we're talking about a tiff we're talking about our ca cea main housing the state has to ultimately approve the tiff and one of the things that they want submitted is the cea agreement so they have to they don't have to approve our cea agreement but i do want to make it clear that those are separate, right? So once we submit our CEA agreement, and perhaps it's in there, it's including that we want, ideally, the individual to be from Bangor, Maine State Housing can weigh in on that, on whether or not that conflicts with their program. Does that make sense to you? [56:24] Speaker J (unidentified): I just, I think it's, I don't know how you really could define what it means to be from Bangor when you don't, you're living outside or on the street. It's not like you have a house or an apartment. I think there could be some obvious ones where a young mom just got evicted and her last residence was on Stillwater Avenue, obviously she's mostly from Bangor, but I don't know how you define that in a way that would allow us to follow that compliance. [56:53] Daniel Carson: I thought I heard a stat recently in one of these meetings, unless I'm imagining it, that the average 14 to 16 scorers have been outside over 1000 days. And in my brain, if I'm remembering that stat correctly, that would mostly be that the 14 to 16s would be from Bangor. That's a pretty long time to be outside here. [57:16] Speaker K (unidentified): here if that's, if we know there are people outside, we know, I think I understand that it's not [57:27] Carolyn Fish: Cut and dry, but I think that too often, and I don't mean to be rude, but I think too often we don't get a direct answer. And I think statistics would show, I can go out where I work and, you know, just when we had in camp and every day I was interacting and I would just, you know, ask how they're doing and where they're from, and they told me where they were from, and a lot of them weren't from Bangor. So I don't know really why we're being told we don't know. I mean, we could hire some people maybe. independently to go out and do a survey and i think that they would come in with you know wouldn't be precise but i think they could give us some data because now we have no data out because every time we ask because we want to take care of our own and even our neighbors but you know when we keep you know we only have so much time and resources and when you find out from the chief of police that 40 new arrivals come monthly well now they bang wars you know i think we only have so much resources And we want to prioritize our own, yeah. [58:31] Speaker J (unidentified): I think if we use the word preference first requirement, I think we can get through some. [58:36] Michael Beck: of the fair housing stuff okay yeah fair enough that's okay well i'm going to say the definition i like from our previous conversations was they're here touching bank or services at least we got that much i guess what i'm looking to avoid is to get the phone call like hey we've got this person from seven cities over we're going to ship your way for the first time and put here whereas if they're here they're here they're here you know and it's choices put in this program where the city is going to manage the chaos so i would prefer they would be in your program or in the yellow lines versus you know our streets you know having managed to chaos so to me i guess that would be the measurement for this purpose is they've they're already here touching bengal services that's that was the understanding i had from previous conversation that would be [59:22] Susan Faloon: Just. [59:26] Joseph Leonard: to piggyback off of counselor fish's comments on gathering the data and this i keep bringing up as this needs to be a conversation for us to have, but having an ambassador program, like a Bangor ambassador program, that's a way that we can collect that data far more easily because you can't purchase that type of data. We have to collect it ourselves. And with the, and don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful that we have Street Bus. That was a service that was not being provided, and they're doing work for the community that is very well received. We can make that in-house, and we can have those employees do data collection as well and work as ambassadors to give us that data that literally will not exist unless we go get it ourselves. So I'm more than happy to talk about how we create a program or a, an organization that we own that allows us to collect people-centric data, because you're right, there is no mechanism for that, and we can't rely on Hub 7, we can't rely on a lot of different organizations in the state. I think we have to create ourselves at this point. [1:00:42] Susan Faloon: thank you one of the things that you said was if they are not providing the required services then we could sorry I can't remember exactly could potentially terminate or yeah so and one of the concerns that i have heard is that some of these positions that provide these treatment services the you know the mental health services and the substance use disorder services and those kinds of things are hard to fill and i know that's not like our job to fill those it's pebble street but if they aren't able to fill those positions and provide that staffing for those services, then that could potentially put the project in jeopardy of losing the credit enhancement agreement. [1:01:36] Speaker J (unidentified): Ms. Germain. What I've always heard from Mark Swan, who's the CEO of Preble Street, was since taking over Hope House, where employees went from a PCHD employee to a Preble Street employee, that they've had really no issues filling spots and actually have a wait list of per diems. and one thing we liked about this site was that it's right next to hope house so you have sort of now like a purple street campus where you can have staff going between the two potentially i mean if purple street's unable to fill it you know they're going to have to answer the dhs as the program provider for home for good and then main housing is going to come knocking on our door and then we'll have to ultimately get to a conversation where how are they going to get more staff or do we have to find someone else to do it but purple street has been doing this work for over 20 years at logan place and i haven't heard of any issues staffing so far at hope house [1:02:33] Susan Faloon: which is good. I don't know if it's worth maybe putting something in there that we would be notified if there was a staffing issue, like within a certain period of time, or [1:02:46] Angela Walker: Are familiar with Main Housings regulation around staffing, like does it have to be 90% staff? Because if they're because what we have in these conditions already is that if the program is not abiding by Main Housings regulations, then we have the opportunity to revisit that CEA. But I don't I don't know, specifically if there's any type of expectation of hiring i [1:03:16] Speaker J (unidentified): Just was going to ask Joe Bethany who's our general counsel that I'm just wondering Joe could they put a provision in that if Main Housing issues a violation or something that they could provide notice to the city of Angkor through some of the docs I mean that way you [1:03:32] David Szewczyk: Would know or I can't I can't see you coming thank you I can't speak for Main Housing obviously, that would be a matter that would be up to,, their council and for Main Housing to decide, but I don't see why we couldn't ask that. [1:04:03] Carollynn Lear: You said about that, so lighten it up here, see what happens when you don't put it on [1:04:12] Susan Deane: Your shame. No,. Okay. We are good. Sorry about that. [1:04:16] David Szewczyk: But we could certainly ask that it be added to the extended use agreement that the owner would be signing with Main Housing that a notice would have to be provided to the city in the event that there's a breach of any of the restrictions that apply to the product oh so that's Main Housing directly we could ask me in housing yes yeah and we'll be working with Main Housing all through the closing process on what the documents look like so again I can't say that they would for sure Say yes we would request we could request it like it makes sense yeah and that's pretty standard you know if there's a bank that has a mortgage on a property then you know providing notice to other interest holders in a property is pretty standard that's [1:05:09] Speaker K (unidentified): Okay you must just hate me I don't hate you I don't I really don't I'm sorry I have [1:05:15] Carolyn Fish: So many questions it's okay how long would you suspect let's say you have you have 30 individuals that come in I know that everyone's going to be different but is I don't think you have the expectation that someone's going to come in and be there for five or ten years I mean what but could somebody come in and be there for 30 or 40 years? Could this be a lifestyle for them? I mean, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of trying to get as many people recovered and give them housing, give them wraparound services? So do you have a limit on, you know, someone might come in and just be pretty comfortable, [1:05:52] Susan Deane: Have a pretty good gig? It is permanent. [1:05:55] Speaker J (unidentified): So that, yes, if someone wanted to stay there, I don't think that they would last 30 years necessarily because of their age and what they've done to their bodies over the last probably 30 years. But they couldn't, is it considered permanent housing? You can't just kick someone out because for no reason. Essentially, our goal is, you know how active we are with resident services and Bangor housing, our goal is that a person comes in and this is just the typical example that I think about all the time. Individual comes in, younger man in his 30s, veteran, has just fallen on hard times and just has been out in the woods for a thousand days on average, comes in, gets the roof over his head, works with Preble Street, is able to get back on his VA benefits, is able to get his counseling wrestling or PTSD, really feel comfortable again for the first time and safe. And then ultimately is ready to then reach out to our resident services team, which is for us, it's all about back to work. That's what we do in Cape Park and putting people back to work. That's a goal that I have. That's why we decided to do Home for Good. Purple Street might say there are some people that are just, they might die there, but they're not going to die on a city street taking up other city critical services. But our goal would be to getting people towards self-sufficiency in every instance, whatever that means for them is different. HUD typically has a, you know, the family self-sufficiency program is a five-year program, so after your five years on the program you have to graduate, and we ideally would like to see our residents move out of public housing and generational poverty for them and for their kids. The trick now is that the housing market's just so tight, there's not a lot of places for people to go, which is why we're gonna buy mobile homes at Cedar Falls and do some different things. But my goal is that people will ultimately move toward bettering their lives and self-sufficiency. Maybe that means living on their own at some point, knowing that they'll want to give that unit to someone else that really needs it. But I can't say that there will be some people that will stay there until they die. That might be seven years, that might be eight years, but Purple Street said that is something that happens regularly because of the turmoil and just demolition they put on their body over the course of the years. Refresh. [1:08:43] Wayne Mallar: My memory, I believe that Purple Street mentioned that at Logan's place there are only four people that are working at. [1:08:52] Speaker J (unidentified): I don't recall you talking about Ali that was on the call, what she said, but I could. [1:08:59] Wayne Mallar: I could find that answer because that wouldn't mean, I mean, you're pushing jobs, but that's the same way, that's what they're supposed to have to get these people back to work on. [1:09:09] Speaker J (unidentified): Doing some type of work for their own, and everyone's goal is to progress people in a positive way. I just think there's going to be limitations on what that is for certain. [1:09:22] Wayne Mallar: People, well, granted, but I'm, if they're so successful for people working out of their facility, it's not a great number, it's. [1:09:32] Speaker J (unidentified): Not a great number. No, but I think the savings to the greater community has been documented, that because those people are no longer on the street using all kinds of city services, we're still generating cost savings for the community. That's one of the goals here, okay. [1:10:01] Angela Walker: annual reporting so we talked a little bit about that the owner will provide the city with an annual report confirming that affordability requirements home for good requirements supportive services and the conditions of the cea continue to be met i think it's even better idea to ask mean housing to directly provide us an annual report as well as we just discussed are we good with that sale of the property the cea would not automatically transfer if the property is sold continuation of the cea Would require city approval, and any new owner would be required to accept all existing CEA conditions. [1:10:46] David Szewczyk: Can I just clarify something on that issue? I don't, I don't want to get too far into the weeds needs here. But a few minutes ago, Mike mentioned that this is a tax credit project. And our tax credit investor and Maine Housing both have very specific compliance requirements that they have to meet and that we have to meet in order to get funding for the project. And one of those is that the property has to be owned by a limited partnership so that our investor is a limited partner who's basically supplying us the investment, and Bangor Housing Development Corporation has a for-profit entity that will act as the general partner of the property. So I just wanna be clear that Bangor Housing Development Corporation currently has the option agreement with the city that we intend to exercise size, and eventually purchased from the city. But at the loan closing, Bangor Housing Development Corporation would be transferring the property to the limited partnership that would own the property for the duration of the project. [1:12:01] Speaker J (unidentified): We just want to make sure that item number seven is we're allowed to close on the loan with Main Housing through the partnership, but that any subsequent sale would have to come back to the city. Maybe a sentence in there that would just, yeah. [1:12:19] David Szewczyk: And the limited partnership is BHDC all caps Home for Good One LP. So we could say something along the lines of [1:12:29] Angela Walker: except for a transfer to that entity. What is it, BHDC, yeah, One, okay, that's a limited partnership. [1:12:39] Speaker J (unidentified): Sure, it's a limited partnership, yes. And that's the same structure like a Penquist would have done for [1:12:44] Susan Deane: their types of tips. It's just how the taxpayer program works, very typical. Yeah, but we did not, [1:12:53] Carollynn Lear: we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page. Continue to use the property must [1:12:59] Angela Walker: continue to operate holistically as the project presented to and supported by the city, affordable permanent housing. As you can see, we're reiterating, right, like the fact that the project needs to be what it is when we accepted it and agreed to a CEA. So I might sound a little repetitive, but I just want to make sure we underscore that, right, the project has to continue to be what we approved [1:13:20] Speaker J (unidentified): it to be. That will be documented in an extended use agreement with Main Housing. That's a recorded document, so that'll go on title, okay. And [1:13:37] Angela Walker: then the last that we have here is failure to meet conditions. If the project fails to meet the agreed conditions, and the issues are not corrected, the city may withhold,, suspend or terminate future CEA reimbursements. Again, I want to make sure that everyone is aware of the process. So we are, imagine we're voting on conditions for the CEA agreement, will eventually get legal represent representation involved. But our next step is tiff is not created by us this tiff is ultimately approved by main state housing of which they will review our cea as well that's [1:14:28] Michael Beck: okay. A lot of the republicans asked to see the finalized CEA once it's agreed upon and executed. Is the public going to get a copy of the agreement once it's [1:14:37] Angela Walker: finalized for the credit answer agreement? I imagine so, I don't, yeah, it's a public document. However, I'm not clear as to what we're leaving with stay in terms of this workshop. Are we're going to leave with conditions that we would next step would be to create that CEA agreement. I think that would be most productive. [1:15:01] Speaker J (unidentified): And I'll just say, from our perspective, you know, I think these are certainly reasonable. I think it's something that we can work with and stand behind. I just, I just, I think if, we could, if we're going to do the local thing, I wish the language needs to say preference just so that we're complying with fair housing. Not, I just, I don't want to, that's going to require a review of expertise, legal expertise, that's, I don't have that ability, but I [1:15:30] David Szewczyk: think Joe does. Well, I like the things that I do, but as I sit here right now, I, that's not really an issue that I can address. I would need to see what the Home for Good requirements are and [1:15:45] Angela Walker: and wherever there has to be a way around that, and I think that's one of the reasons why they require us to submit the CEA agreement, because they want to make sure that they stand by it and that it makes sense, it's not in conflict or out of compliance with their program, right? [1:16:04] Wayne Mallar: Maybe I've overlooked it, but do we have a copy of Main Housing for Good program requirements? We can get it to you. It would be nice to know. We have to follow the requirements. [1:16:22] Angela Walker: We can send that over. [1:16:32] Speaker J (unidentified): I don't have anything else. Thank you all. [1:16:39] Angela Walker: Do you need anything else from us? I mean, does everyone agree that we're using this workshop to agree on conditions and then finalize those conditions in a CEA agreement, of which we'll put those in a CEA agreement, you guys can review it? But I think there should be some kind of vote to say, we agree on the conditions recommended, just so that we have our marching orders in terms of reaching out to our legal representation. [1:17:13] Susan Deane: Or do you wanna weigh in? [1:17:14] Carollynn Lear: I think what I heard was, but please correct me, that Council is in agreement with the nine recommendations made by you, Begida, with the addition of a condition that gives a preference for Bangor residents, provided that complies with the Home for Good program [1:17:34] Daniel Carson: requirements. Okay. I can think of most of them. Yeah. [1:17:43] Joseph Leonard: I just want to really quickly, is there a way that we can, before we have a discussion on that document, to make sure that we as a council have enough time to review it? And I know that's like comments, and I just want to make sure that we say that clearly. Because sometimes in the past we'll get a document and we just don't have enough time to review it. And I, for this, I want to make sure that we have a fruitful amount of times review before we have that. Absolutely. [1:18:14] Angela Walker: Mike, do you, are you guys working within a certain timeline? [1:18:21] Speaker J (unidentified): After this, our goal would be to push Main Housing toward a closing as soon as humanly possible. [1:18:26] Angela Walker: But you don't have a timeline around the CEA agreement, correct? Sooner the better for us, I [1:18:32] Speaker J (unidentified): mean we have timelines and triggers and all things we have to do, so the sooner things are, the sooner we've identified certain documents that can be finalized. We want to try to do all of those things as soon as possible. I'm not saying it's tomorrow, but we want to do things. I don't know if you want to add to that, Phil, but I'm sorry, go ahead. [1:18:53] David Szewczyk: I was just thinking that Bangor Housing Development Corporation has the option agreement with the city, which expires at the end of September. September. Once we exercise that, we would have to close on the sale within months after that. Our hope was to do the two closings simultaneously, if at all possible. So we're looking at, I guess, roughly a 60 day period or so. [1:19:22] Speaker J (unidentified): Matt, October, early November. [1:19:25] Angela Walker: I'm specifically speaking about the timeline around approving the TIF and approving the CEA, not necessarily the sale or closing of the [1:19:34] David Szewczyk: property. I said, well, I think they're all related, though. I mean, I think that they're all intertwined. [1:19:38] Angela Walker: Because what I, 'm trying to find out a time to make sure that you guys have enough time to review. So I know that there was I know we have council meetings that are rescheduled for the holiday. And I'm trying to find a time because what I will do is I'll reach out to our legal representation, send these conditions over, have a discussion and hopefully come up with the draft of which you guys can review. And then ultimately that package and all the other items associated with the TIP application will be submitted to Maine Housing. [1:20:14] David Szewczyk: Is that being prepared through the city solicitor's office? [1:20:20] Angela Walker: No comment at the moment, we have to discuss. [1:20:26] Daniel Carson: Madam Chair, I wanna move that the council accept the nine recommendation proposed line recommendations for the credit enhancement agreement proposed by staff and in addition adopt the agreements for adding a preference to Vanguard residents for housing and additionally we include in the annual reporting requirement the number of where people are from, rather. [1:20:56] Susan Deane: Second. One more question, then, that the inspectors all want to roll call. Council Member Allen. [1:21:09] Wayne Mallar: I still have reservations, so I won't now. [1:21:12] Susan Deane: Council Dean. Yes. Council Carson. Yes. [Carolyn Fish: Council Warren. Yes.] Council Manning. I just hope that's a motion or a motion. Yes. [1:21:32] Carolyn Fish: So we're voting on the conditions for the two. This is what this is, the conditions, okay, yes. [1:21:40] Susan Deane: And I will be a yes, so that has that passage, and you're going to get that document to us. [1:21:48] Angela Walker: As soon as you can, and I will also send you the main housing requirements. [1:21:52] Susan Deane: Right, is there anything else on this? Yes, thank you so much. Do you have anything? Thank you, I don't. [1:21:59] Carollynn Lear: Believe we're going to get to the last, I don't know, so we are, I'm bumping up against the time. [1:22:07] Susan Deane: For our council meeting, so we're going to return, so much.