Peoria Standard

City of Peoria Housing Commission met Nov. 4.

Here are the minutes provided by the commission:

I. CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by Staff Liaison Nicole Morrow at 11:03 AM.

II. ROLL CALL

Present: Commissioner Peterson, Vice Chair Boswell, Commissioner Hayes, and Commissioner La Rue. Commissioner Morgan, Chair Shah, Commissioner Genzel, and Commissioner Sanders via virtual attendance.

Staff Present: Liaison Nicole Morrow.

A quorum was established with those present at the start time of the meeting.

III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: September 9th, 2024

There was a slight typo in the September minutes that will be adjusted. Motion to approve the minutes made by Vice Chair Boswell. Seconded by Commissioner La Rue. All in Favor.

IV. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

There were no members from the public that wished to comment at this time.

V. REGULAR BUSINESS

A. Planning and Zoning Monthly Summary Report

Commissioner Genzel asked Staff Liaison if there was any resistance to The Children’s Home or the National Youth Advocacy Program. Staff Liaison said that The Children’s Home application to Planning and Zoning is on the existing property they already have. The Children’s Home submitted multiple letters of support from both their Board of Directors as well as the Community, so there’s no anticipated issue there. The property that the National Youth Advocate Program has on Missouri already has three residents and they’re just looking to double that to six and utilize two occupants per bedroom instead of just one per bedroom. This property is staffed 24/7 and there have been no issues within the Community with the property.

B. City Council Update

The biggest thing that’s coming up for Council, in relation to what the Housing Commission does, is the camping ban ordinance. The proposed ordinance first reading happened in August, and staff has been actively gathering community feedback. There was a community stakeholders meeting to learn more from community agencies that are doing the work. City staff has been looking at affordable housing complexes in the area and what their availability looks like. The Street Outreach team has been providing reports with some updated numbers about the people that are experiencing unsheltered homelessness right now and some of the barriers that these people are facing. This is helping staff illustrate to Council the complexities of housing individuals with barriers and existing resources. From the stakeholder meeting was a stakeholder feedback form. Staff Liaison would like the Commission to go through the feedback form to then provide feedback from the Commission.

With the proposed ordinance right now, when there is an encampment identified that needs to be closed down, it’s a multi-day process. The City is involving the Street Outreach team, providing public notice, and notice to the tenants of the encampment that it’s going to be closed down. This ultimately takes about five business days and then all items for the individuals at the camps are going to be stored for 30 days where there would be access to those items. The notice will be posted at the camp site as well as given to the tenants of the camp with a 72-hour notice. These 72 hours will be used specifically with the Street Outreach team to provide them time to connect with the individuals that are residing there. The site where the belongings would be stored hasn’t been determined yet.

Commissioner La Rue asked if there were any concerns about more people trying to stay less visible if they don’t want access to resources and potentially dying from the cold. Staff Liaison said that the Commission can raise that concern with Council. La Rue asked when the belongings of the individuals are being stored, how is it decided what is a belonging and what is trash. Staff Liaison said things such as backpacks, legal documents, anything that can’t be visibly determined as unsafe to store. La Rue asked how accessible this facility will be and if it’ll be 24 hours. Staff Liaison said these individuals would be reaching out to staff so it would be between the hours of 8AM-5PM, which La Rue voiced doesn’t seem very accessible.

Commissioner Peterson asked how many of these individuals that are on the streets actually have jobs and how these individuals get to and from work. Staff Liaison said that the Street Outreach team plugs into a system called HMIS, which is as software system allowing any member of the Continuum providing housing services to see who has engaged with any individual at any given time within the care system. It would indicate employment or other income, additional barriers or concerns, family composition, and the length of time experiencing homelessness.

Commissioner Genzel brought up that a couple of years ago there was an encampment under the 74 bridge and the Street Outreach team got rid of it. Genzel asks why that case is different than what the Street Outreach team do on a day-to-day basis. Genzel doesn’t quite understand how the ordinance is going to work and how the Street Outreach team will operate differently than they currently are. Genzel also asked if there is money available for rent through programs to house these individuals for a year to 18 months to then be able to figure out what’s next. Staff Liaison confirmed that there is money available through the American Rescue Plan and it has been designated for projects related to this camping ban.

Commissioner Hayes stated that if there’s only 60 people that are experiencing homelessness, we should be able to find housing for these people for the next year, the only issue is that there would be some people that don’t want housing. With those that don’t want housing, Hayes suggested that there be designated campground sites that these individuals can go to. Commissioner Genzel voiced that she thinks it’s a great idea, but that she doesn’t think that’s an option that Council would consider. Commissioner Sanders was in agreement that there should be a designated spot for encampments, but then there would be the issue with moving these individuals to other campgrounds. Sanders stated that the biggest thing is that everyone needs to work together to find a solution and to work with the City to find an appropriate place of land that these individuals can stay that gives them some dignity. Commissioner La Rue mentioned that one of her concerns with having only one designated safe camping place is that some people might not feel comfortable staying at the same location as someone else and could essentially become dangerous to those living at the encampment. La Rue stated that the safe camping place would need to be accessible to other resources such as being near transit, near services, etc.

Commissioner La Rue stated that she would love to see the City supporting the creation of more housing because she thinks that there is a housing supply issue as is the affordability. Staff Liaison Nicole stated that Director Joe Dulin of Community Development and Kate Green CEO of the Continuum of Care provided some context prior to the stakeholders meeting. One of the things that Dulin and Green talked about was that there are projects in the pipeline. The old Methodist College is being redeveloped and will provide permanent supportive housing units for both individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Additional opportunities are infill housing with Habitat for Humanity and Churchill Gardens. Most of the projects that are in the pipeline right now are still one to two years down the road before they will be fully online. The funding for these projects has been nearly or entirely secured.

The service providers were able to paint a picture of what happens on the day-to-day and the barriers that the providers are fixing. The feedback that is being gathered from the service providers is that they’re understaffed. The Street Outreach team only has two full-time and one part time staff who cover a three-county area. Commissioner Genzel then posed the question on whether our Community problem is more about staffing than anything else. Genzel suggested that the ARPA money be used for staffing, and although it’s temporary, it could help take care of the issue for a year and could result in fewer people living in encampments. This would show a sign to the City that the issue is about staffing, and we need to find more money for staffing and without more money for staffing, there will be more people living on the streets. Genzel asked if the City has looked at other communities and if these other communities have gotten rid of this issue and if so, how did they do it. Staff Liaison Nicole shared that this information will be included in the policy session, but the City has been looking at other cities and different things that have been tried.

C. Staff Department Update

The Community Development Department did present at the Housing Action Conference in Bloomington, Il in October regarding the flexible rent program. This was very well received, and City staff provided materials and some draft processes to those that were in attendance. City staff will be doing a similar presentation to the Board of Health at their November Board meeting. The Board of Health is the funder of the Flexible Rent Program, so this is more of a report back, whereas Housing Action was an information session for the pilot project.

The City did hold a Community feedback session regarding the camping ban that was held in October and member of the continuum of care were invited to attend that. There were 19 different representatives from about 13 different organizations in attendance. On 11/19/2024 at 6PM, there will be a special session of the City Council, and it is specifically going to be a policy session related to the proposed camping ban.

For the flexible rent program, City staff will be sending out reminders for that program with the rental registration. City staff is looking at an opt-out format versus an opt-in. Last year when the flyers were sent out with the registration, the flyers said, “if you’re interested, there’s a quick little survey link to fill out”. This year, staff is looking at making it an opt-out that way the City staff can actively reach out to registered landlords to do more promotion of the program.

VI. NEW BUSINESS

A. Presentation: Melodi Green; Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer

The Equal Opportunity Office is an office of two staff, Melodi and then a DEI Generalist. Since May, the DEI Generalist has been the acting program director for a program that is housed under the EOO department, which is called Peoria Corps. The Peoria Corps is being staffed with all new staff right now, so hopefully the DEI Generalist will be back in the office soon. The Equal Opportunity Office is tasked with protecting Community members, internal and external staff from discrimination. The three main focuses that the office takes complaints on are housing, public accommodations, and employment complaints. In terms of the housing complaints, Melodi doesn’t receive a lot of traffic in this area. Melodi sees the office as a place where people are looking to come when they feel like they’re in a crisis, whatever is a crisis to them. A lot of times, Melodi finds herself finding other resources or directing them to the proper person to speak to. Melodi has received next to no public accommodation complaints. By far, employment complaints are the most calls that Melodi receives, external employment in particular. The City does have an ordinance in chapter 17 that deals with internal processes for employees who are having issues as well, but it’s a different process than the external. Melodi receives calls all the time from people who feel that they’re being discriminated against or that they were wrongfully terminated by their employers. The City does have jurisdictional limitations on what the EOO can actually investigate or initiate as a complaint on behalf of the City of Peoria. Some of the jurisdictional limitations are if the business is not within the City limits, then Melodi has no jurisdiction; if the business has over 14 employees, then we lose jurisdiction and it goes onto the Illinois Department of Human Rights or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal agency. If Melodi doesn’t have jurisdiction, she will spend time referring them to those agencies or helping with complaint information and follow-up with those agencies.

The major focus of the Equal Opportunity Office has been procurement equity. The City has goals for minority and women-owned businesses. For minority businesses on the City contracts, so predominantly Public Works and the larger infrastructure contracts, the City has a 10% goal for minority business utilization and a 5% goal for women-owned business enterprise utilization. There are also workforce goals, being 18% workforce goals for minorities and then 3% workforce goals for women. Outside of construction and contracting, the City has no goals for procurement. Mayor Ali has made it her mission to figure out how the City can actually tackle minority and women-owned business utilization, at least in the City business. Melodi developed a program called the Peoria Equity and Accountability Program in August of 2022. This program is a free minority and women owned business listing that is housed on the Equal Opportunity page of the City website. This is publicly accessible nationwide and anybody who is a certified MBE or WBE can sign up to join that free listing. Additionally, the City implemented the City’s first minority and women-owned business certification program so that the City can certify women and minority-owned businesses and then they can take that reciprocal certification to other jurisdictions. The hope is that the City can help grow this utilization with these particular protected classes, not just in the City, but also with those that we do business with, and those nationally the City just wants to push the word out because it’s not just a Peoria problem.

The City did have a minority procurement expo last year, which was largely successful. There was a lot of business departments and other government agencies that could potentially give contracts to minority and women-owned businesses, depending on what they have posted and what those businesses can bid on. The EOO has found that a lot of time education is an impediment to smaller businesses. Most minority-owned businesses are smaller businesses. These groups were brought together to help enhance education and awareness. The State came down to talk about their business enterprise program for minorities and women.

Commissioner La Rue questioned whether the 10% goal for minority business utilization was for contracts or the amount of money. Melodi stated that it’s a 10% subcontractor utilization, primarily subcontracts because it’s rarely found that these minority businesses are able to become bonded or have the education on how to bid on these prime contracts. Melodi gave an example of how each Public Works contract that has to deal with construction, if they have not met that 10% and 5% subcontractor utilization goal, then Public Works will have to fill out a good faith efforts waiver. With this waiver form, Melodi can see each minority or women-owned subcontractor that they intended to contact, and then follow up and say, “did this business actually contact you”. Melodi can ask for documentation so she can compare the non-MBE or WBE that was chosen against the MBE or WBE that wasn’t chosen. The EOO had a meeting with the City’s Finance Department to try and start talking about how the City can better monitor ongoing projects, keep those documents updated, and then actually dig in and say, “you said you were going to have this percent of a workforce by May, it’s April. How do you plan to rectify that?”. This way the EOO Office can assess what the City can do to hold people accountable.

Mayor Ali recommended Melodi for the Bloomberg Harper Program. Melodi did two weeks of this program, the first week was leading for diverse organizations and the second week was managing city talent within a government organization. The Fire Chief, Assistant City Manager, the incoming HR Director and Melodi came together and had to present a challenge. The challenge they chose is centered around recruitment and retention of minorities and women, particularly within the fire service where there have been issues. There have also been issues in protected classes altogether, including the Police Department as well as other areas of the City. This past year, Melodi had an affirmative action plan done which showed where the significant harm areas were. What this showed was that the City had one area where the City is deficient in terms of the workforce mirroring the Community or the availability of workers within our Community, and that area was protected classes of police and fire.

B. Presentation: Nick Hall and Folanda James; Racial Justice Equity- Housing Quality Subcommittee

Since Nick joined the RJE Housing Quality Subcommittee, there has been a focus on projects that can be implemented based on the data that was collected by the previous committee members and research that was done by them to identify what problems might be addressed. The data that was collected shows that there is a disparity between black renters and white renters as well as black homeowners and white homeowners, meaning that more often you’re going to be a renter if you are identifying as black in these data collections. Some of the feedback that they got was about the quality of the homes that are owned and operated by landlords. One of the things that the Housing Quality Subcommittee is looking into is a dashboard maintained and operated through the City that is similar to a tool that was developed in Albany, similar to a report card. Nick thinks of this more as framing it as a landlord transparency and code enforcement transparency tool. That data is already being collected by code enforcement, but it is difficult to find. It is important to make this more accessible to the Community. This would include things like the number of police preferred contacts at the property, the number of code enforcements and whether it was voluntarily or involuntarily resolved, and the number of evictions. Nick is hoping that the Subcommittee can meet with the courts to help get the information for the Community regarding the court services around eviction. Without this information, tenants don’t know how their landlord might react if the tenant is facing an economic crisis, such as a lost job. This also makes it harder for the community activists to address problematic eviction numbers and zone in on which landlords may be needing the alternative resources that exist to keep people in their home instead of proceeding through the eviction process.

Another project that is in the works is model leasing, including within those leases notice to tenants of their rights as a renter. This would require landlords to provide notice to tenants about their rights and responsibilities as provided by the Attorney General’s office in Illinois. This can be found online, but most people don’t know that they have it. One of the benefits of this is that there was a tenant group that actually found out that their rights were being violated, and they were able to inform one another. There were then more than 40 tenants with a case against a landlord to address the problem of that landlord violating their rights as tenants.

Commissioner La Rue had some questions regarding the database that Nick is pursuing. Commissioner La Rue asked Nick to define police preferred contacts. Nick stated that this is what was collected and there has been discussion about whether or not it needs to be included. This would just show the number of times the police were called out to the property; it doesn’t give any additional detail. Commissioner La Rue voiced some concern because police are often called to properties that are no fault of the tenant themselves and have no reflection on the safety of the property itself. Commissioner La Rue also had some concerns about evictions or unlawful detainers and that data. La Rue stated that in properties where the property manager or landlord is requesting really high income, there may be fewer evictions because there’s less economic instability. La Rue thinks that this could result in property managers or landlords being extra stringent in their screening requirements in a way to avoid the possibility of an eviction. With evictions, it might tell you if a property manager or a landlord is a little bit more litigious, however, there’s a lot of ways to get evicted without going through courts. This wouldn’t tell the full story about the landlord’s propensity to work with the tenant.

VII. OLD BUSINESS

A. Affordable Housing Plan Updates and Next Steps

There were no updates at this time.

B. Additional Community Comments

Teresa Schell is a homeowner and investor in the area. Teresa posed the question of how the RJE Housing Quality Subcommittee could go about listing landlords in a way that they stay away from prejudice. The data should be concrete. Going off of a lease, the landlord is required to pay the mortgage so that the tenant can stay in the house and not get evicted, to give the tenants working appliances, hot water, and things that are on the lease. Teresa said she would be open to the thought of having City inspectors coming through the property every three-to-four years and making sure that everything is functional. There are times that the tenants won’t notify the landlords of any issues, so this could help with those issues. Teresa also thinks that this might even help get landlords more involved with Section 8 housing. Teresa stated that she has avoided Section 8 housing because it seems like there’s a lot of hoops to jump through and seems like it’s a timely process.

VIII. ADJOURNMENT

Commissioner La Rue made a motion to adjourn at 1:09 PM and this was seconded by Commissioner Peterson. All in Favor, meeting adjourned.

https://il-peoria.civicplus.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_12022024-772