January 24, 2023 Board Meeting Minutes

THE HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA
REGULAR BOARD MEETING MINUTES
501 Alonzo Watson Drive
South Bend IN 46601
January 24, 2023 @ 9 a.m.

CALL TO ORDER:
Commissioner Calvin called the meeting to order 9:00 a.m.
ROLL CALL: (All via zoom)
Commissioner Virginia Calvin, Commissioner Stephen Luecke, Commissioner Chamblee, Commissioner Daniel, Commissioner McNally.
HASB STAFF:
Dr. Catherine Lamberg, Mrs. Deborah Mobley, Director of Public Housing; Mr. Andy Delaney, CFO; Ms. Pamela Rogers, Administrative Assistant to Executive Director/Board Secretary
OTHERS:
Attorney J. Harris Jr
PUBLIC COMMENTS:
None
NEW BUSINESS:
Commissioner Calvin introduced the new board member, Myrnetta Daniel who gave an introduction of herself and her passion to serve, not only to the homeless community but to all.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT:
Dr Lamberg stated she was giving a comparative report to look over the last year to see how the housing authority faired. She started with the Rabbi Shulman and Monroe Circle relocation of residents. We have all of the tenant protection vouchers from HUD and have reached out to the former residents of Rabbi Shulman to offer them another relocation option (if they have not taken a voucher already) which are those who chose to continue to move into other public housing.

Commissioner Luecke asked If they choose not to accept those, does those vouchers then go into our voucher pool or do we lose them?

Dr Lamberg said there is a certain percentage of vouchers that is considered sunset vouchers that will not be retained by the Housing Authority and those are for relocation voucher, however the majority are replacement vouchers which will stay in our program. So, we received a combination of replacement vouchers and relocation vouchers. Therefore, we will be reaching out to the old tenants that qualify.
RESIDENT INITIATIVES:
Dr. Lamberg stated we have partnered with the communities. Resident services worked with Food for the Hungry to provide a Christmas pantry food resource that supported 153 families of the HASB and countless other residents of the general community. The food pantry was set up at LaSalle Landing on December 14 and the HASB partnered with the City of South Bend, Good Will Industries, Gentlemen and Scholars and Work One to provide food, winter coats and other needed resources. The HASB has an incredible and on-going partnership with the Kroc Center to provide scholarships for after school programming for the residents of Laurel Court. The HASB partnered with the City of South Bend and Real Services to allow resources for utility assistance to be rendered to residents of South Bend and some surrounding areas. In total, we assisted over 173 families in both Public Housing and the HCV Program to receive information and apply for utility assistance.
FSS PROGRAM PARTICIPATES:
Dr Lamberg stated in January 2022 we started with 36 participants enrolled and in December 2022 we ended with 65 participants. Our plan for this year is to continue to grow the program.
ADMINISTRATION REPORT:

BENEFITS

Open Enrollment
We have completed the open enrollment for benefits and are in the process of implementing the updates from each broker that we partner with. The Housing Authority has changed from United Health to Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield. The HASB has also incorporated a "gap" incentive deductible plan to go along with the main health plan. This measure was done in order to minimize the price of providing health care to our employees, allowing for a lower deductible that employees have to pay as well as gaining better health care coverage for the employees. The changes have allowed the HASB to provider better coverage at a lesser price then last year which reflects savings for the agency. We have completed our annual employee reviews. Each department head submitted their reviews. We will continue to staff as needed. Also, we have partnered with summit insurance company whom offer the housing authority access to more than 70 training video that we will be utilizing.

Commissioner Chamblee said he knows that staffing for maintenance is ongoing, but outside of maintenance do we have to staff the same.

Pamela stated we do have to staff as needed periodically, but maintenance is the greatest need. Dr Lamberg said we do have a couple of vacancies but not critical vacancies.

Commissioner Chamblee asked was the wages for maintenance lower than average.

Dr Lamberg said our starting salaries is very competitive with the opportunity to go up with experience, we are just not finding good qualified employees ready to do the job right away.

Commissioner Calvin said that is pretty much south bend, no matter the agency across the board. Do we have many women in maintenance?

Dr, Lamberg said yes, we do.
IT AND SYSTEMS:
Dr Lamberg said Chris is not here today but has been working on the implementation of the new webpage. He continues to work with HCV and PH to have a paperless process for those department which will allow us saving when we can go to electronic files.

Commissioner Luecke asked in the past we tried to go paperless, are you confident that what you are doing will be acceptable with HUD for record keeping purposes.

Dr Lamberg said yes, if an audit is done, we could always convert and print to paper.
LOW-INCOME PUBLIC HOUSING (LIPH):
Mrs. Mobley showed for percentage of utilization the comparison of the year we did drop but that was still dealing with the pandemic. We have had to go through the court system to evict those tenants that haven't paid their rent and have substantial balances. We don't have as many emergency work orders, maintenance and management is getting into the units and reporting what is needed to be worked on. TARS are getting better; tenants are understanding that they must pay the rent

Commissioner McNally asked for a report that would show the percentage of rent that is past due for the current month.

Dr. Lamberg stated that those tenants that has had assistance and many agencies has helped and paid the rent in advance. We will represent the information at your request.

Commissioner Calvin said while collecting this data is good, I want to know about going paperless. This report is going to anywhere besides Indianapolis. Dr Lamberg said yes HUD does care, and they review our report, and we meet with them monthly. We are still considered a trouble agency and they haven't come out and given us a rating yet, but they do comment on the progress we have made in those meeting. We also give a copy of the report to the city of South Bend.
HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHER PROGRAM (HCVP):
In Ms. Wallace absence, Dr Lamberg HUD is transitioning from HQS for section 8 and UPCS for Public Housing to a new format called NSPIRE which is a new inspection protocol. Although HUD acknowledge it is not completer, they are still rolling it out this year, and every housing authority is subject to the new protocol of NSPIRE

Commissioner Chamblee asked are the inspection standards for PH and HCV the same as far as what they are looking for.

Dr Lamberg said no, but NSPIRE will help to bring them closer together in similar standards.

Last year the wait list was open in February and within three days we had over 5000 applicants, and it has dropped down to 296. We are in the process of reopening the wait list. But because we have been very successful in pulling people from the wait list, allowed us to open up the wait sooner than we thought we would.

Commissioner Luecke asked when the NSPIRE inspection goes into effect, do we have to go back and reinspect those units that has already been inspected.

Dr Lamberg said they rolled it out about 4 years ago as a demonstration and put housing authority on alert that it is corning. REACT will be using this standard this year, and they are very tough standards which means the very many of the Housing Authority will not pass the inspections.

Commissioner Luecke asked will the 3rd party vender get training on this new standard. Dr Lamberg said yes.
FINANCIAL REPORT:
Mr. Delaney stated that normally we give you the income statement for all the programs and talk about the expense's vs the budgeted amounts but just for today we will talk a some of the accomplishments for 2022.

Successfully submitted the HASE 2022 unaudited FDS to HUD in a timely manner.

The 2022 HUD FDS is currently in the review status. Successfully submitted the HASE 2021 audited FDS to HUD in a timely manner. Procured and successfully completed the 2021 independent audit. Reorganized the department and defined roles of the staff and provided training for staff in their new roles. Refined policies and procedures and presented them to the Board for adoption. We timely and successfully responded to the QAD review and are awaiting their reply. Prepared a balanced budget and submitted to the Board for Resolution timely and it was adoption.

Commissioner Calvin said last year things was done in a timely fashion, and that is an accomplishment to us.

Commissioner Luecke asked were we caught up on the QUAD reviews.

Mr. Delaney said yes, since he has been here there was two reviews, and all information has been given to them and hopefully this will be over soon.

Commissioner McNally asked when will the external auditor come and are they the same auditors. Mr. Delaney said around March 27, 2023, and yes same auditors and we should have the results as of June 30, 2023.
DEVELOPMENT AND PROCUREMENT ACTIVITIES:
Dr. Lamberg said we had been focusing on our vacancy reduction. We got a safety and security grant from HUD, and we were changing the locks which was sufficient from a safety perspective, and we are about 90% done. We are granted a grant for this year for carbon myxoid detectors. We continue to plan for the demolition of Monroe Circle.
BOARD COMMENTS:
Commissioner Luecke said appreciate the continued work and moving forward with the CNI grant.

Commissioner Daniel said she was glad to be a part of the process in helping the community. Commissioner Chamblee agreed.

Commissioner Calvin also said she agreed.

Pamela said next meeting will be February 28th, 2023.