REALTIME FILE AHA-TENANT MEETING APRIL 21, 2020 CART PROVIDED BY: ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC www.CaptionFamily.com ***** Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. **** >> Hello. Welcome. Who just joined us? >> Hello. >> Hi. >> How do you doing? >> Can I ask who just joined us? If I can ask -- hi, if I can ask everyone to mute their phones except for the person that just joined us. >> Yes. I'm a tenant. I just joined in. >> Hi. Can I have your name? >> Rosalyn Green. Live at 1 Lincoln Square. Thank you for joining us. >> No problem. I'm interested to see what's going on. Just like everybody else. >> I see Mr. Wilson joined us? >> My name is Lamont Green. >> Welcome, Lamont. >> How you doing? >> You're also 1 Lincoln? >> I'm in 3. >> 3 Lincoln. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. >> Yes, yes. >> I'm going to do my best to capture everyone who is on the call. Time is now 1:01, so we will begin our presentation. I want to welcome everyone for joining us today to discuss Lincoln Square Homes proposed disposition residents meeting. I thank you for your interest, and, again, joining us. We do have -- >> Hello?
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Transcript
REALTIME FILE
AHA-TENANT MEETING
APRIL 21, 2020
CART PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC
www.CaptionFamily.com
*****
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in
order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a
totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
****
>> Hello. Welcome. Who just joined us?
>> Hello.
>> Hi.
>> How do you doing?
>> Can I ask who just joined us? If I can ask -- hi, if I can
ask everyone to mute their phones except for the person that just
joined us.
>> Yes. I'm a tenant. I just joined in.
>> Hi. Can I have your name?
>> Rosalyn Green. Live at 1 Lincoln Square. Thank you for
joining us.
>> No problem. I'm interested to see what's going on. Just
like everybody else.
>> I see Mr. Wilson joined us?
>> My name is Lamont Green.
>> Welcome, Lamont.
>> How you doing?
>> You're also 1 Lincoln?
>> I'm in 3.
>> 3 Lincoln. Welcome. Thank you for joining us.
>> Yes, yes.
>> I'm going to do my best to capture everyone who is on the
call. Time is now 1:01, so we will begin our presentation.
I want to welcome everyone for joining us today to discuss
Lincoln Square Homes proposed disposition residents meeting. I
thank you for your interest, and, again, joining us.
We do have --
>> Hello?
>> Hi. Thank you for joining us.
>> How you doing?
>> I'm well, thank you.
>> Hi.
>> What I am going to do to control the conversation at the
moment, I am going to have to mute everyone. Everyone is welcome
to join, but I just need to mute everyone for the moment so that I
can complete my introduction, and then we'll -- there will be a few
instructions, and then we'll go forward.
And again, I want to capture everyone who is on the call. Right
now it's showing 16 people, but bear with me as I go through this.
Thank you all.
>> Okay.
>> So, again, I want to thank everyone for joining us, for our
Lincoln Square Homes proposed disposition. We do have several team
members on this call. We have -- my name is Chiquita D'Arbeau. We
also have Laura Moody, she is our in-house architect for the Albany
Housing Authority. We have Steve, our senior asset manager. We
have Tina Noguera. We have Dara Sims, who is our -- the executive
assistant to Mr. Longo and our executive team.
We also have Brian Heeger, who is a partner. And Segun, I know
I'm going to butcher your last name. We have Segun, who is a partner
of ours. I need him to pronounce his last name, because I do not
want to butcher it.
>> Hello. It's Obasanjo.
>> Again, can everyone please mute their phones? Thank you.
Repeat your last name for me?
>> It's Obasanjo. O-B-A-S-A-N-J-O.
>> Obasanjo. Now I will never mispronounce it again. Thank
you so much for that clarification. And last but not least, we have
our executive director, Steven Longo, who will be presenting the
presentation, as I will act as the moderator. At the moment, he is
going to start the presentation. There will be times -- moments
where you can ask questions.
I do ask that you all mute your phones during his presentation.
At some point, we will take a break and ask if there are any questions.
If you have the ability, you can ask your questions in the chat room.
You will see on the upper right-hand corner next to the number of
attendees there is a little -- I guess a bubble.
If you click on that, you can type in any questions. I will
be looking for those questions, and at some point, will address them
as well.
When you do speak, please identify yourself and where you live.
Again, I want to thank you for joining us, and we will get started.
Mr. Longo?
>> Yes. Thank you, Chiquita. I greatly appreciate that. Can
everybody hear me? Can you hear me?
>> Yes.
>> Great. So, as she mentioned, I'm the executive director of
the Albany Housing Authority, and I'm coming to you today from the
headquarters building at 200 South Merle Street. We are still open
for business during this health crisis. The majority of our office
workers are all working remotely. They have the ability to use the
computer at home, and a phone at home, as if they were at their desk.
So all of our caseworkers are still interacting with all of their
clients in public housing and Section 8. Our maintenance
department, down to 50%. And the maintenance folks are doing
emergency-only work orders right now. And keeping the interior of
the building as clean and trying to sanitize any areas that people
touch. I truly hope that everyone on the call today is healthy. I
implore you to stay safe. I ask that you abide by the social
distancing wherever possible in the buildings, and that you wear a
mask.
We are working on trying to get masks for those residents that
don't have them. And we will keep everybody posted on that.
So, with all that's going on today, the last thing I want to
do is to give you another thing to worry about. So I ask that
everybody take a deep breath and let it out and relax, and understand
that nothing -- the Housing Authority is not going to do
anything -- but we do want to keep you all informed, and we want to
be open and transparent.
For some 15 years now, the housing authority's strategy and
long-range plan was to replace the Lincoln Towers that are stacked
on top of each other with lower density apartments, or apartments
scattered throughout the south end. So we have produced many of
those apartments, but we didn't move families out of the towers,
because we didn't have the funds to take the towers down.
And because we have so many people on the wait list. However,
because we have not replaced the elevators and the electrical gear
switches and the boilers and the other things, we're not able to keep
Lincoln online. And so, over the next year to year and a half, we
will be working with each family in Lincoln, starting at 3 Lincoln,
and offering another public housing apartment, and/or a sectioning
8 voucher, along with any out-of-pocket expenses that you would incur
in moving.
So, at this point in time, those of you that are able to join
us with a visual on your computers or smartphones, there is a slide
presentation. And I'm going to be going through the slides you can
use the chat function. It's the circle in the top right-hand corner
to type any comments that you might have, or if you want to ask a
question. And she can handle interrupting me.
Otherwise, we're going to have a question session at the end
of the slide presentation.
So the first slide that we want to cover, incidentally, we are
asking everybody to identify themselves with their apartment numbers
to Chiquita, because not only are we recording the presentation along
with the questions, but we also are going to be taking a record of
everybody who joined us today and letting the United States
department of housing and urban department follow along with this
procedure that we're following in order to decommission the Lincoln
Towers.
So I'm just going to go through the slides. You can indicate
that you have a question using the chat bubble.
Lincoln Square was built in 1967. It was substantially
rehabilitated in the mid 1980s. There were four buildings. One
was -- all three were renovated. The systems are breaking down.
[Indiscernible]
>> If I can ask you to pause the meeting. Whoever just joined
us, please mute your phone.
>> Again, a vacant high-rise was demolished in 2004. That was
4 Lincoln Square. The Albany housing authority, when someone moves
out and we canvas people off the waiting list, it is difficult to
find residents or applicants on the waiting list that want to move
to Lincoln Square.
In 2019, an analysis by an independent consultant has gone
through the requirements to meet the HUD obsolescence test, or
determine that the physical conditions of the building are beyond
what can be rehabilitated reasonably.
HA in the past 15 years has built 156 low-rise apartments in
the neighborhood. That are available to be used for relocation units
for Lincoln.
Let's see. Other things we wanted to mention on this site. The
city of Albany, working with the housing authority and our other
partners, have come up with a neighborhood plan. It's over 15 years
now old. It's called Capital South, and a copy of that plan is on
our website.
The city has recently announced that due to the age of the plan,
they are going to be working with a new urban planning consultant
to update the plan. And we're looking forward to the Housing
Authority and its residents participating in that plan.
[Indiscernible]
[Background noise]
Step one, is to over the next year, to year and a half move the
folks out of Lincoln and then determine what will be coming.
The immediate plan. AHA administrative transfers. The Albany
housing authority has the authority to make administrative
transfers. So, in our annual plan and our statement of policy for
public housing, there's three or four criteria to meet for transfers.
So we have many people now that are on the transfer list at
Lincoln. And we're going to begin or we have already begun to contact
people that are on the transfer list asking if they would like to
leave now, and that policy is outlined in ACOP, Admissions and
Continuing Occupancy Policy.
[Indiscernible] requested a transfer, and then we're going to
be contacting [indiscernible] -- [background noise]
In the poorest condition. Our goals are to take the stress off
the major building systems. So, for instance, 1 and 3 Lincoln, the
electrical equipment and the boiler is located in 2 Lincoln. Each
unit that we empty is going to take the stress off of the building
system.
[Hearing background noise from unmuted participants]
To keep the 1 and 3 running until all those families or
individuals are out.
Okay. So next, we have a schedule. It's subject to change,
but it's based upon the best available information.
So, we are planning on submitting the paperwork and the final
plan to HUD next month, in May of 2020. And we're hoping that the
HUD folks, they too are affected by COVID-19, and are largely working
remotely. But we're hoping that we will get approval by the plan,
of the plan by August.
We then will be working to give all residents a 90-day notice
and in September we will be starting interviews with residents,
starting in 3 Lincoln, moving on to 1 Lincoln, and finally to 2
Lincoln, meeting with residents and coming up with an individual
tailored relocation plan for each resident.
There are some residents that may wish to wait and try to get
another public housing apartment as they become available. Others
may want to avail themselves of a Section 8 voucher. That will be
going on starting in September. We're going to start the required
portion of the resident relocation in December.
We have some commercial tenants in the building that in 2021
at 3 Lincoln will begin to move them out. The resident relocation
priority is number 1 Lincoln, number 2, 3 Lincoln, and the third
priority, 2 Lincoln. With the approval, residents will get a
permanent relocation. There won't be any right to return, because
the Lincoln Square apartments will be no longer available.
So once you move, you will be leaving Lincoln Square and not
returning.
There is a possibility, if you have time, and you review the
capital South Segue to the Future Plan, you'll notice that the plan
does say that there is the possibility of leaving 2 Lincoln after
everyone has been moved out and the units restored or rehabilitated.
But that is just one of the many options available.
So we're going to go over the relocation. Notification and
support features based upon HUD and New York State relocation
guidelines.
There will be no required move without a 90-day notice. So you
cannot be required to leave until the plan is approved by HUD, which
we talked about in August, and then you have the right to have a 90-day
period before you are required to move. We will be starting
voluntary transfers now or told older and disabled that voluntarily
want to move.
There will be ongoing communication with the residents all
during this process, and we're open to suggestions on how we can be
open and transparent and how we can keep the line of communication
open at all times. There will be physical movers and expenses.
Financial assistance to offset any out-of-pocket expense a resident
may have. For instance, if you're moving and the cable requires
additional moneys to shut the cable or the phone off and turn it on
in a new apartment, those are available out-of-pocket expenses, along
with the security deposit needs to be increased, those would be
out-of-pocket expenses.
The relocation plan and staffing. The Housing Authority will
have a staff designated to assist the residents and implement their
individual relocation strategies. HA staff will periodically be
available for evening meetings and weekend meetings for those that
cannot meet during the week.
Staff will additionally -- now, again, this is -- if the COVID
ordinance is expired, and things are somewhat back to normal, we will
be able to make home visits if that's more convenient for the
residents, but not during this time.
The staff will provide case management and link families and
individuals up to other not for profits providing support services
that may be needed.
There will also be a policy in place where if you disagree with
the housing authority and you want to file a grievance that you'll
have the opportunity to file a grievance. You'll have a hearing and
there will be a claims procedure.
Relocation orientation is another slide for today's
presentation. We'll be conducting an interview with each household
to determine relocation needs and preferences.
At the interview, we will provide you with both written and
verbal explanations that are available of all the different housing
options that will be available.
We'll also review with each household, both in writing and
verbally, all the laws pertaining to discrimination and fair housing.
Anticipated housing options. I'm going to have to move because
my slide is cut off. Hold an just a minute here.
Going to actually use the slide on the screen. So, vacant
housing. The authority managed units at other sites. And Section
8 tenants. Vouchers. So I guess what we're saying here, Albany
Housing Authority manages 2,400 apartments around the city. Once
the plan is approved, Albany Housing Authority will stop leasing
those other units so we can come up with as many vacant apartments
in our inventory as possible to offer them to Lincoln residents during
the relocation stage.
We also will be provided with Section 8 vouchers from HUD that
will be used for those tenants that want to or need to move to other
neighborhoods in the city or outside of the city, and use the Section
8 voucher to pay rent.
The housing authority will also work with private landlords who
have apartments available, and so those Lincoln residents
relocating, their caseworker, their relocation specialist will
provide you with available apartments in the private sector that you
may use your Section 8 voucher with.
Tenant paid rents. Tenant rents for public paid housing units
are typically 30% of the gross total household income. And there's
allowance for adjustments. If you move to another public housing
unit, your rent will not be affected by the relocation. If you move
to Section 8, if you move to a Section 8 project-based unit, your
rent should remain the same as well.
If you move using a Section 8 tenant-based voucher, your rent
should remain the same unless you choose a unit that rents at above
HA's payment standard. Then you may have to pay up to 40% of your
income if you move into an apartment that has a rent beyond the HA
rent payments standard.
Rent you pay with a voucher will also depend on the bedroom size
of the unit. Size of the unit must be appropriate for the family
size. So in other words, if you were a single individual, your
Section 8 voucher would be a one-bedroom. And the one-bedroom Albany
Housing Authority voucher payment standard is less than a
two-bedroom, so that you would not be able to move into a Section
8 or a private two-bedroom unit because the Section 8 rent would not
cover it. It would only cover the one bedroom that meets the housing