Recap: March 29 Strategic Advisory Group Meeting
Attendees:
Nicholas Abrahams, EVP, Strategic Partnerships, OEP
Vivian Bryant, President, OHA
Cecelia Davis, Lorna Doone Apartments Resident
Joe DeJesus, Orlando Housing Authority
Steve Hogan, Florida Citrus Sports
Sandy Hostetter, VP of Asset Development, Lift Orlando
Macene Isom, Member, Washington Shores HOA
Natalie Lovero, Choice Project Manager, Lift Orlando
Sherry Magee, Senior Director, KPMG, Chair of SAG
Michelle Matthews, EVP, Purpose Built Communities
Stephanie Neves, Housing Development Project Manager, City of Orlando
Ronnie Pagan, Orlando Housing Authority
Clay Rivers, President, Greater Washington Shores HOA
Eligio Santana, Lake Mann Homes Resident
Bettye Williams, President, Lake Mann Estates HOA
Dr. Bridget Williams, Deputy Superintendent, Executive Services, Orange County Public
Schools
Welcome - Sherry Magee, Chair of the advisory group welcomes everyone to the meeting and hopes we can all learn from each other and work together in order to make great recommendations to the Executive Committee.
Introductions - Attendees introduced themselves
Choice Overview - Kathy Carton provides a Choice Overview (see attached presentation) Choice is a HUD program that builds on the HOPE VI program but includes the broader community and not just the public housing sites. There are two types of grants, planning and implementation grants. Planning provides up to $500,000 to support the development of a Transformation Plan which is what we’re doing now. The partnership would like to be competitive for an implementation grant.
There are three core goals: Housing, People and Neighborhoods. This must redevelop the public housing sites, develop supportive services strategies for the people in the housing sites to have better outcomes. This is a place based program and looks at the neighborhood to position the neighborhood as a place where people would choose to live. There are 3 plans within the Transformation Plan, a housing plan that replaces all units 1 for 1 so there is a home for everyone who lives there now, also must introduce a range of affordability to create mixed income housing. This also must be implementable and respond to resident needs and market reality. The People Plan must support residents to improve outcomes in employment, income, health and wellness and education. The Neighborhood Improvement Plan will address the surrounding Neighborhood.
The Choice Neighborhoods Boundary Map was shown. Details were shared on Lake Mann Homes, 210 units, was constructed in 1951 and is a family site that is almost fully occupied. Our plan will need to support families at this site. Lorna Doone Apartments for Seniors, constructed in 1970 has 104 units almost fully occupied.
Role of Strategic Advisory Group - Sandy Hostetter presented the Governance and Decision Making Structure organizational chart. Dr. Bridget Williams has agreed to chair the People working group. Clay Rivers and Macene Isom will be chairing the Neighborhood Working Group. We have identified someone for the Housing group but are waiting for confirmation. The working groups will ramp up in July once we receive the results from the surveys. The word resident on this committee means the residents of Lorna Doone apartments or Lake Mann Homes. This process includes resident engagement and community feedback. Our role as the strategic advisory group is to listen to everything the community and residents are saying and make recommendations to the executive committee. The final decision makers are the Executive Committee, consisting of Lift Orlando, Orlando Housing Authority and City of Orlando.
Work to Date - Sandy Hostetter reported on the work that has been done thus far: We were awarded the grant in September and sent out a press release immediately, executive committee began meeting, formed at communications committee and finance committee, formatted our required quarterly report to HUD. We had an official HUD visit in February, and began our survey. We were able to invite a very small group of residents to have lunch with HUD that went well and raised several issues that we need to address and overall was a successful day.
Resident Surveys - Vivian Bryant described the resident survey. The survey is meant to get the residents input on what they see as strengths, weaknesses and desires for the transformation. The UCF Institute for Social and Behavioral Science headed by Dr. Amy Donley has masters level candidates conducting the surveys. The school of social work has a methodology for getting the information and analyzing the data. The surveys are anonymous in that the Housing Authority won’t know what residents said directly. Kick-off meetings were held where residents could learn about what we are doing and ask questions directly. One of the common questions was residents wondering if they had to move which was expected. The UCF team started the survey immediately after the kick-off meeting and the OHA staff coordinated the interview schedule. Of the 90 occupied units we got 83% participation. Then we moved to Lake Mann, which is a little more challenging because many of the families work and go to school making it more difficult to find time to complete the survey. We had the kick-off meetings and the surveys are happening now, on-site and will be completed in the next couple weeks. We want to provide better housing for the residents, OHA scores high on HUDs standards for our properties, they all score in the 90s, but there are issues with the properties that make them obsolete. OHA completed 2 HOPE VI, on Bumby where you can’t tell the difference between the public housing and the home ownership units. Carver Park is also half HOPE VI, and were able to build the home ownership because of the City providing funding. Dr. Bridget Williams said the percentage of those who completed the survey is impressive. There was additional discussion between Macene Isom and Vivian Bryant about Carver Park and which units are public housing and homeownership.
Community Surveys - Mark Shamley discussed the surveying of the broader community. Lift Orlando has a history of engaging the community from the beginning to learn what the community wants. This comes through surveys, community meetings and focus groups. For this project we’ve been able to offer something new called the Flourishing Neighborhood Index (FNI) which is an 18 month survey project that Lift was invited to participate in by Purpose Built Communities (PBC) with another 12-15 PBC network members. We were able to link it to the work with Choice and UCF. It contains a parcel survey, to identify all parcels in the whole Choice boundaries map. The parcels on the map that are purple have been assessed. The second part is the community survey and we have launched a team of 7 who are conducting the survey about 2 weeks ago. The survey is about 45 minutes and very comprehensive. The survey will be completed by June and will give us feedback from West Lakes and Washington Shores to give us data from both communities.
Macene Isom asked what streets were considered Washington Shores. Clay Rivers asked if West Lakes was expanding West Lakes west into Washington Shores and Lake Mann and Natalie Lovero responded that no names of neighborhoods will be changed but it is just the name of the map. There will also be a branding session that will help name the initiative so that we could potentially use to discuss the map that just outlines the boundaries of the planning grant. Macene Isom explained that there is only one Washington Shores but neighboring neighborhoods were included in the Greater Washington Shores Area because they needed larger numbers for political meetings. Sandy Hostetter clarified that we can’t move the map boundaries. Mark Shamley mentioned that the map always sparks a big reaction and we would like to find a better way to find a way to present it. Clay Rivers explained that it causes a big reaction because they don’t want to see their history erased which has happened over the years with some of the decisions that have been made for Washington Shores that they were left out of. People are wary because of that. The group will continue the discussion to find a way that works for everyone to describe the map and how to discuss the neighborhoods within the boundaries.
Timeline - Sandy Hostetter explained the Choice Planning Grant timeline (see slide 21). We are waiting for the parcel survey to understand the size and zoning of every parcel so we can identify other potential sites for development. We’re interviewing stakeholders, collecting data and completing the market study. Our overall planning period goes from Oct 1 2023 - Sept 30, 2025 a two-year process. Phase 2 will consist of analyzing the survey data, launching our working groups, holding a community meeting to validate the data found from the survey, and identifying sites that could be an opportunity for us. $100,000 will be used for an early action activity that must go towards some community based project that addresses an issue that comes from the survey. It’s a bit of a challenge since we have 2 sites. In phase 3, the working groups will be meeting and we’ll develop strategies and how we’re going to implement our early action activity. In March 2025, we will present a draft plan to HUD. The last phase will consist of tweaking the plan, developing a budget and metrics to track progress and success, and will still be engaging the community and residents.
Close - Sherry Magee led the group in an activity called “I like, I wonder”:
Sherry Magee: I like that we had an amazing discussion and learned more about our history, and I wonder how we could work on some other maps that make everyone feel more comfortable.
Macene Isom: I like that you brought us here and you can hear what we’re thinking and what our neighborhood is questioning. I was in Minnesota and got a call that someone in the Washington Shores Area was doing some choice surveying which was concerning. We call the police on people who shouldn’t be in the neighborhood.
Clay Rivers: Giving a heads up to the HOA leaders would enable us to let everyone know what is going on which would dispel fear or suspicions. But now the perceptions that we’re already there are compounded because there are activities in the neighborhood that people don’t know about. You have to keep us in the loop. I wonder if you’re really hearing what we're saying in our concerns about erasure and gentrification. We’re not off to a good start, I wonder if we’re going to get in sync.
Stephanie Neves: I like the collaboration to enhance the neighborhood and residents. I wonder how we will do it all. A lot of the funding goes towards the housing. How do we find funding for the neighborhood component.
Cecilia Davis: I like what’s going on and that you’ve brought us all here but I wonder if our input is really worth us coming and telling you because you can still do what you want.
Eligio Santana: It pleases me a lot to be here today and I like the issues that were addressed today. There’s always space to improve. It would be better to have all the materials translated into Spanish so that the residents at Lake Mann can be involved. There are children playing in the street and park areas that are locked and there could be an accident.
Dr. Bridget WIlliams: I like hearing the different voices in the room, and I think it’s going to work. I was born and raised right here and I just want to hear what the community is saying, so we can do something great here and help people understand that this community is like no other.
Bettye Williams: Lake Mann Estate was left out when West Lakes was formed and I was happy that Lift expanded their boundaries to include Lake Mann Estates has but I wonder what’s in it for Lake Mann Estates.
Steve Hogan: I have been happy to be invited into many conversations like this in my 30 years in the community. There are many local leaders from the community that have advised me over the years and I wonder if we’ll have the opportunity to look in deep into ourselves and see what can we do together for the community. If the residents and legacy thrive then the kids will thrive.
Vivian Bryant: I’m happy that we are listening to each other. We have many opportunities for public housing residents to say what they want and we do whatever we can do. I hope that we are hearing what the community is saying.
Macene Isom requested that a future meeting will be at L Claudia Allen in Washington Shores.
A few group members requested that the next meeting time be moved to 9:00 AM.
End of Meeting
Upcoming Events:
Choice Community Update Meeting - April 16, 2024, 5:30 PM, location TBD
Next Strategic Advisory Group Meeting - June 14, 2023, 9:00 AM, Heart of West Lakes Wellness Center