I trusty Shalty here. Trusty Jeepson here. Trusty Meisner here. Uh we're all here and I apologize I said chair will take the role. I meant clerk will take the role. U but if you want to be if you want to be elevated it's open. Um okay. Um item number three is the um let me get back here. Approval of minutes from the AC board meeting of February 25th, 2025. Do I have moved by Trusty Schulty? Second. Second by trustee Jeepson. Uh many changes seeing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Hearing none. It passes unanimously. Um chair's remarks. I do not have any chair remarks today. We'll move down to the ACR um management committee report and um open it up. Tanya. Yeah. So, this is just to go over your um the management committee meeting. Okay. Um so, the first thing was um sorry, I'm on the wrong page. Um to recommend a budget amendment um was the first item in in the management committee um which you guys um said um to put through for approval is the first thing. Got it. So the item number one is the we recommend the board of trustees approve a budget amendment to add funds from a closed out program and activate them for 2025 activities not included in the AC budget process of 2025. Um that was has was H was allowed to retain $150,000 in loan payments. That's the one we're talking about. Yep. Uh generated through the Minnesota investment fund grant. The myth funds were used to for a revolving loan program but the program is inactive and was closed out. The funds can be used on similar economic development activities and the funds will were put in account in an account um to be identified economic um activity activities um later on. Um so we've got the economic development activities of 125,000 and then 25,000 to an NOA technical college equipment purchase. Yeah, that's the equipment purchase that you guys last time. Been moved by Trusty Schulty. Do I have a second? Second by Trusty Reiner. Um, any questions? I believe this is a roll call vote. Trusty Brazed. I. Trusty Reinert. Hi. Trusty Gamash. Hi. Trusty Schulty. Hi. Trusty Jeepson. Hi. Trusty Meisner. I. Trusty Hinrich. Hi. And that passes unanimously. And that was the only item we had for that. Yep. And Yep. And then you just approve doing the public hearing, which is the next item. We'll move down to item six, which is the public hearing notice, and we'll turn it over to the attorney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, I will open the public hearing portion of the meeting. The time is now 10:24 a.m. I would ask that the minutes reflect that the notice of this public hearing was published on February 21st, 2025 in the Enoka County Union, informing the public that a hearing would occur during the regular meeting of the HA board on March 21st to allow public comment on the needs and priorities stated in the AC's 2025 to 2029 5-year consolidated plan and the projected uses of program year 2025 CDBG and home funds. Before we receive public comments, Renee Sandy, the community development manager, will address the board with an overview of the proposed funding activity. Thank you. Welcome, Renee. Uh, good morning, trustees. Um, attached is a a packet outlining basically our funding recommendations for PY25. This is unique. Every five years, we do a five-year plan. So, it also includes our five-year plan that we anticipate bringing back to the board on the county board on May 13th for final approval. Um before we do our the next item, we'll go through line by line our staffing recommendations, but first we'll go through the public hearing portion of this. Um so go ahead, David, and then we'll continue. Uh thanks. We will now begin the public comment portion of the hearing. But before we do, did we receive any comments in writing before? Uh yes, I received one comment in writing. Um I will read that aloud if if so determined here. Thank you. Um, it's from the city of Blaine. Uh, dear Anoka County Commissioners, the city of Blaine offers this comment letter in relation to the preparation of the 2025 2029 consolidated plan. The city requests the consolidated plans and policies and procedures specifically recognize manufactured homes located in manufactured home parks to be part of the permanent p housing stock in Enoka County. Furthermore, we request the rehabilitation of manufactured homes within the county to be identified as a high priority housing need in the con plan. The city of Blaine called for the the preservation of manufactured housing as an important source of affordable housing in our 2040 comprehensive plan and is deciding dedicating significant staff and financial resources to improving the quality of life for residents of the six parks located in Blaine. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, has identified manufacturer housing as a key element of promoting affordable housing and issued a new notice governing community development block grant use, specifically to expand the eligible uses of CDBG for manufacturing housing. The city of Blaine is home to over 2,300 manufactured home units and Anoka County is home to over 4600 manufacturing home units. Anoka County has both the largest number of manufactured home units and the largest portion of housing units as manufactured homes of all of the counties within the 7ount metro area. Manufactured home residents make up 8% of Blaine households and 3% of Anoka County households. The cost to move a manufactured home is 7 to10,000 according to Fanny May and 8% of manufactured homes located in the parks are moved out of parks each year according to HUD. Only 1 to 7% of manufactured home units are ever moved after initial installation. Also, according to HUD, post 1994 homes are equally or more resilient to environmental conditions than sightuilt homes. The city of Blaine has undertaken several community engagement activities in manufactured home communities over the last two years and residents speak highly of the sense of community within their park and clearly view their home as part of the permanent housing stock. Manufactured home park residents make up a sign substantial portion of low and moderate income populations of Anoka County and the consolidated plan should reflect their role as members of the Anoka County community. Additionally, the city requests the county consider the expansion of the CDBG home improvement loan program to finance repairs on manufactured homes. The city's EDA allocated $135,000 for this use on deferred and forgivable loans for manufactured homes in 2024 through 2026 as matching funds for a grant from the Minnesota Home Ownership Impact Fund and has operated interestbearing and deferred loan programs for well over a decade. We would be happy to discuss our experience navigating loan origination and management for loans secured against personal property. Um, as I'm going to put in a side note, manufactured homes are titled as personal property rather than um a more like a traditional home. Um, and this is from Elizabeth Shaw Walter from Community Development Specialist from the city of Blaine. That was the only written comment received. All right. Thank you. Uh it's my understanding that we do have several members of the public who wish to address the board. So now is your opportunity. Please take turns stepping forward to the podium and state your name and the agency or program that you represent. Before addressing the board of trustees, I would ask that out of respect to everyone at the hearing today, we limit our comments to two minutes I believe is the period that we have assigned. And pre please provide statements rather than questions to the board. If the trustees have any questions about the material, they may inquire. And as mentioned, written comments to the board are welcome if you wish to submit those after the hearing. Uh, are there any members of the public who wish to step forward at this time? Thank you. Hi, my name is David Wyatt. I'm the housing program manager at Mediation Restorative Services. Bernardet Cafo apologizes. She meant to be here this morning and had a conflict at the state, so she asked me uh to come last minute. I just want to say thank you to the board uh for what you've done from a CDBG standpoint at mediation restorative services or MARS. I started as a housing resource navigator through Americanore's heading homec court program as a volunteer for two years were there in housing court. Uh last year we were able to add another housing resource navigator through the funding from CDBG and for contacts we were as an HSS provider we were able to access funds in the rent help MN uh program uh during that period of time that one FTE for six months that you provided generated over $800,000 worth of rental assistance in Inoka County that literally if we had not had that other person we could not have done. So, we did over $2 million worth of rental assistance in an Oka County direct payments to landlords through their rent help program and uh this helped. So, thanks for your consideration. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address the board at this time? Are there any other members of the public who wish to address the board? I will call one final time since I know we had a couple of people on the list. But is there anyone else who would like to step forward to address the board hearing? No further comments, I will close the public hearing portion of the meeting and turn the meeting back to Chairman Gamash. Thank you. Um and um regarding the letter from Blaine that we received um they're they're asking us specifically for an expansion of the definition of a home to include mobile homes is or manufactured homes. Is that what they wish? Is that something we need to change or There's two parts to their ask. The first is to consider manufactured housing as part of our permanent housing stock um within our consolidated plan and that's an easy ask for us. The second part of their ask was to be able to use CDBG. We currently can use Minnesota housing funds for manufactured homes within an NOA County, but that's for very lowincome persons through the state of Minnesota. Um the second portion of that, the ask to be able to use CDBG would involve us expanding our policies and procedures to incorporate that and that's something we can certainly do moving forward, but that would involve changing our policies and procedures to have a process for manufactured housing. Currently, we just do Minnesota housing as uh for manufactured homes. Okay. I was wondering if we should have that discussion. um on a board meeting here or is that something we do at a workshop um down the road um and and go if we want to make that change? It sounds like the first change is easy. The first change is a given. We we'll incorporate their public comment in our our five-year plan. Um and then second, we had already had internally discussed including and expanding the definition to include them as part of our permanent housing stock, manufactured housing. And then the second would be updating policies and procedures to um incorporate their ask if we so choose to desire internally. Uh uh trustee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And then so for the ask with the funds, the CDBG, but that that would be for the the home for the capital, not for program services. Correct. Correct. That would not be for us to individually fund the city of Blaine. That would be to open up our current single family rehabilitate CDBG funded home single family home rehabilitation loan program to include manufacturing manufactured homes throughout in noa county at the same level of funding. Currently it's $2499 that we would include um manufactured homes as well as single family brick and stick. Okay. And then uh forgive me, humor me because I know that there's a lot of different um programming within within HUD. I just want to make sure because I'm getting I think I'm getting it confused with the like the the home um grants versus what you're talking about, right? Because we've got like the program services that are always much in demand for our county. We never have um enough money in that bucket and then we have like the capital projects that we're always looking for because we have the opposite problem. we have the funds and we're looking for projects, but that's not what what this is talking about. I don't think that's what I No, this would be our traditional capital fund here. And that a no, this would be included as part of a NOA county's ask for single family rehabilitation loan funds, which is a line item that we'll get to in the second portion of this. And this would expand the definition of single family homes to include manufactured homes as well. Thank you. So, I appreciate that uh that time to just walk me through that. I I get it. Thank you, De. Hinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is um as far as the Blaine letter, would would you say that MMHA is in support of support of this as well? So, the the conundrum is currently the Minnesota housing currently only serves very lowincome persons. And so the catch 22 with this is if you have a family that doesn't income qualify at that very low income level, we currently do not repair manufactured homes with CDBG funds. So this would expand the definition. So then persons could if they don't meet the income limits, the very low income limits because Minnesota housing income limits are very low for manufactured homes. This would expand the cap on that where they could use CDBG which would run through our CDBG single family home program and they would need to meet those requirements as far as income which serves more of a 80% AMI versus Minnesota housing is significantly lower than that area median income. Trusty Jeepson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I I there's a lot to unpack here. There's a lot more to learn. There's a lot more like what what does the federal government say? I I would highly recommend this go to the HA uh next workshop so we can dig a little deeper in that. Um I think there is significant like I said more information to learn but even if we've made a decision which we can't right now because I mean I have way more questions right um it doesn't impact what's in front of us today. Correct. It does not. No. And and again, the essence of the letter is to include it as part of our five-year con plan. And then furthermore is requesting that we take a look at our current structure and expand the definition of single family homes to include manufactured homes. Okay. So, we'll um I think officially have this move to the next meeting um that we'll hold over in 772. That's okay. It'll go through. That'll give you some time to go through all these things. All right. So, back to Renee. Did you have any more on the regular stuff in front of us today because we're done with the public hearing part? Yeah. Yes. So, not at this point. We are ready, I think, to move to item seven. Okay. Um, Trusty Schulty. Mr. Chair, I'll move staff recommendation for program year 2025 action plan. You have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Moved by Trusty Schulty, seconded by Trustee Meisner. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. Just a sec. I'm sorry. I do have a question. So, are we on item number seven? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, I do have something for item seven. We're going to do that as a two-part vote. First, we're going to vote on everything except Elevate Hope House. Um, Commissioner Heinrich's um Trustee Hinrich um has a conflict with that. So, I'm going to have everyone vote on everything but the Elevate Hope House funding recommendation and then we'll do a separate vote for Elevate Hope House. So, a two-party I would like to uh modify my motion to withdraw Elevate Hope House from my motion and take that separately. Okay. Trusty um Jeepson, does that second hold for you? Absolutely. Thank you. Um so, we've got that in front of us and uh this does not need a roll call, does it? It does. Okay. Roll call vote. Trusty Reiner. Hi. Trusty Gomesh. Hi. Trusty Schulty. Hi. Trusty Jeepson. Hi. Trusty Meisner. Hi. Trusty Hinrich. Hi. Trusty Braided. I. That passes unanimously. And then Renee, we have the second part with uh the hope. Mr. Chair. Trusty Schulty. I would like to move that we authorize Elevate Hope House $16,000 through the CDBG program. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Trusty Schulty, second by Trusty um Jeepson. Um and we had that before us. Uh Trusty Hinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um I I do have a family member that uh was volunteering at Elevate and and now isn't a part-time employee. Um and so I will recuse myself from this vote, a one uh process question. Uh when my name comes up, do I say pass or do I just not say anything? Okay. Well, thank you for that. Okay. Um, any other questions? Seeing none, this a roll call vote. Trusty Gamash, I. Trusty Schulty, I. Trusty Jeepson, I. Trusty Meisner, I. Trusty Hinrich, abstain. Trusty Brazed. Hi, Trusty Reiner. Hi. And that passes with one abstension. Um, next we move down to the um So that was item seven, financial. Okay. Summary of applications. Um, we don't need to go through that. Okay. And then we're down to Ellers and Associates contract worksheet. Thank you, trustees. Um, this is just to approve I'm looking for your approval to for a contract with Ellers and Associates to be our HA's financial adviser um for the next couple of years. Um and they've typically we've done two-year um contracts each time with um some additional um able to to um approve additional agreements um in the future. So, it's a two-year contract um not to exceed $25,000. They don't do a lot a lot for us during this the year, but just enough that we need to put a contract in place. All right. Do I have a motion? And Mr. Chair, I'd like to move the board to approve the contract with Ellers and Associates uh for a two-year period not to exceed $25,000. Been moved by um Trustee Riner. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Trustee Meisner. Any discussion, questions? Hearing none. That's a roll call vote. Trusty Schulty. Hi. Trusty Jeepson. Hi. Trustee Meisner. I. Trusty Hinrich. Hi. Trusty Braid. Hi. Trusty Reiner. Hi. Trusty Gomesh. I. And that passes unanimously. Is there anything else to come before the H board today? Thank you for everybody for coming. We're adjourned.