Meeting Notices and Minutes

• Introductions
• Updates on Ongoing Projects: HUD and Better Living Together

Decatur Task Force – held organizing meetings, charged with report by end of calendar year. Created subcommittees.

DeKalb – Thanks to everyone’s persistence with letter writing, email sending and phone calls, we persuaded the commissioners to increase the stated goal in the HUD Consolidated Plan from 400 to 600 units of affordable housing built in the next 5 years. They also confirmed their commitment to reestablishing the DeKalb land bank.

Guest Speaker: Ms. Bambi Hayes-Brown of Georgia ACT (georgiaact.org) spoke about 2019 federal and Georgia state housing policy

• ACT is a statewide membership organization representing non-profit housing and community development organizations. Advocate for more favorable policy, represent non-profit housing and community development organizations. Information resource for public.
• Georgia housing facts – should be earning almost $40K per year to afford 2 bedroom apartment. Minimum wage does not meet need. 24% of rental housing (336,000) is extremely low income households. Shortage of 204,000 units. In DeKalb need $44K annual income; extremely low income households can afford rent that is one half of average DeKalb rent.
• Hosts Housing Day at capitol with other organizations
• Federal legislative summary – monitor National Housing Trust Fund, increase resources for programs serving extremely low income families, ensure Federal disaster relief
• State budget – increase for state housing vouchers for supportive housing; state match for HUD HomeFirst partnership; State Housing Trust Fund
• Goals – encourage cities and counties to establish housing trust fund; maximize GA access to federal funding; enable local communities to use incentives; establish fair housing center in SW GA; support disaster relief
• Training – census; get out the vote; partner with NeighborWorks Training Institute
• Conference – October 15, Atlanta

Stephe Koontz- City Council of Doraville – one action that we can take immediately is to pass a non-discrimination housing polity; no state-wide protection – only at Federal and local; need to write elected officials to ask them to pass this

Policy and Advocacy Strategy: Decatur & Dekalb

• • 600 units in the HUD Consolidated Plan- how we can help make this happen (Panke thanked group for advocating) – county needs to build capacity, Immergluck (GSU) and Dr. Rich (Emory) allows us to use academic studies, will meet with him about additional analysis, CDD is speculating that community development department is based on one funding source, but there are several other funding sources available – how to get comm dev department to understand there are other options;
  • Reinstating the land bank – reinstating land bank (in consolidated plan), help with IDing properties;
  • Creation of a housing trust fund – Housing Trust Fund – need funding to preserve current properties, how can we help DeKalb implement this? Critical for DeKalb to utilize this funding; Talking to Commission about incentives to developers – what works and what doesn’t, how to reinforce them;
  • Affordable housing position in the county – County proposed housing ombudsman – we would like to have someone to hold developers accountable, market to developers to build in the county and provide education to communities on affordable housing, needs to be cross-program, CDD would like to influence process, maybe suggest outside funding for position or someone on loan (possibly a member of Decide DeKalb ?); Enterprise can provide info on properties to target – looking at South DeKalb, but can expand;
  • Larry Johnson’s housing ordinance from 2009– Larry Johnson wants to re-propose ordinance from 2009 – we should take advantage of his interest, focuses on workforce housing, home ownership, targeted zones for inclusionary zoning – may already have reticence from other commissioners – may need to look at alternative options to inclusionary zoning, like incentives, housing trust fund, etc.
  • Advisory council objectives/task groups – proposed advisory council at last meeting – pursuing this with some Sarah Haas, Lisa Wise, Sara Torring, Bambi Hayes-Brown. Panke thinks we need task groups to focus on land bank, trust fund, ombudsman position, etc. Hope to have advisory group in place this fall.
  • Kathy Gannon wants to have a housing summit; Melvia said it may be added to homelessness summit
  • 17 minute film referenced in last CDD email. Would like to have screening at Banjo Coffee – have community discussion about housing; Second Thought on 88.5 had author on which film was based.

Summarize Action Items and Next Steps