The Fall River Community Development Agency (CDA) held a public hearing on June 2, 2022, to discuss the needs for the Home Investment Partnership Program (HOME-ARP) funding. Michael Dion, Director of Community Development, explained that the city is set to receive $3,813,993 in one-time HOME-ARP grant funding, part of the American Rescue Plan, which must be spent within ten years. The purpose of the hearing was to gather public input on how to best allocate these funds to address housing needs in Fall River. Dion detailed the eligible populations for the funding, including homeless individuals, those at risk of homelessness, victims of domestic violence, and veterans. He also outlined eligible uses for the funds, such as the production or preservation of affordable housing, tenant-based rental assistance, supportive services, and non-congregate shelters. A presentation by Mary Camaro from the CDA office highlighted Fall River's current housing inventory, including emergency shelters and permanent supportive housing units, and identified significant housing needs and gaps, noting 108 unsheltered homeless adults and a shortage of 3,255 housing units for households. The meeting concluded with an explanation of the next steps for public engagement. Residents were encouraged to complete an online survey on the city's website, submit written comments between June 27th and July 12th, and attend a second public hearing on June 29th at 6 PM in the City Council hearing room. A summary of the proposed allocation plan will be published on June 27th, with the final plan expected to be submitted around July 29th. No one spoke at this initial public hearing.
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City Officials
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okay for those of you who don't know me my name is michael dion i'm the director of community development for the city of fall river tonight we're here for a public hearing on the needs for the home investment partnership program tonight's public hearing is being held to provide residents of fall river and all interested parties the opportunity to express their views on housing needs in the city
0:23the city of borough is required to develop an allocation plan for the commitment of three million eight hundred and thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety three dollars of home art grant funding at this time i'd like to explain to you what home grant funding can be used for and who it can benefit from this funding frcd has put together a brief powerpoint presentation and you guys have hard
0:50copies at the table in the back when you walked in so uh on the powerpoint presentation uh home art money is part of the five billion dollar american rescue plan it is one-time funding uh again the city is going to receive uh it's already received three million eight hundred and thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety three dollars and there is uh they give you ten years to spend this money um
1:20who would benefit from home funding uh individuals and families from the following qualifying populations so this money is for the benefit of homeless people at risk of homelessness people fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence damning violence and sexual assault stalking or human trafficking other populations where providing assistance would prevent the family's homelessness so would serve those with
1:48the greatest risk of housing and stability and lastly veterans and families that include a veteran family member that meets one of the preceding criteria so this is who would benefit from home art funding we're required to stay to benefit those qualifying populations that you see what can home art funds be used for it can be used for the production or preservation of affordable housing tenant-based rental assistance
2:20supportive services including homeless prevention services and housing counseling purchase and development of non-congregate shelter for individuals and families experiencing homelessness and also you can use up to 15 of it for administration and planning of the grant and up to 5 for operating costs of community housing development organizations and other non-profit uh organizations including homeless
2:49providers so this is basically you know what the funding can be used for um housing set aside for homeless this is currently what we have as an inventory for the city of fall river mary camaro put this together for me from my office emergency shelter individuals our first step in has 20 year-round beds with additional 30 winter beds our overflow which is solomon's porch on bay street
3:21has 30 overflow beds and our sister's place has one emergency bed uh in it our sister's place is the domestic violence shelter in the city we have emergency shelters for families our sister's place has two units family uh fall river family center has six the house program has 39 and the focus program has nine the house and the focus program are scattered sites throughout the city also we have a series of permanent
3:52supportive housing we have five different programs cornerstone which has 25 units francis house which is three units home first consolidator is 12 stone residents 22 and next up home program is 40 and we have 11 dash vouchers veteran vultures four for families and 11 for individuals so that's basically what we have in the city as a housing inventory that helps the homeless and people who are at risk of homeless
4:27this next shot kind of uh has a lot of information on it um it basically has what our current inventory is and what our our needs and gaps are um we have 108 adult heads of households that are unsheltered homeless that are living on the streets we have eight veterans and five victims of domestic violence this was done using the point in time count that was done in february um so
5:03again this shows you what your current inventory is of what you have available and what you have uh determined for shelter and unsheltered homelessness sheltered you have um a hundred and five hundred and nine about 140 243 sheltered living that first step in at our sister's place other other shelters that are in the city so we got almost a hundred and uh a 121 um people living on the actual streets
5:43that did not have a place a roof over their head when the point in time count was done this next chart also shows the housing needs inventory and gap analysis it says that we have 25 000 rental units in the city it determines uh who is paying more than 30 percent of their income and who's paying more than 50 anybody that pays more than 30 percent is housing cost burden anybody that's
6:15paying over 50 percent is severely housing costs burglary um it shows the level of need that we have and also the gap so we're showing based on what we have as an inventory and a level of need uh we're short about 3255 uh units for households in the city that's what we're showing right now so um the big question and why we're here tonight is how should we invest this home our funding
6:49should we create additional affordable housing units should the funds be used for permanent long-lasting projects like affordable housing or for short-term benefit like tenant-based rental assistance should the funds be used for supportive services in the affordable housings and we should be developing non-congregate shelters so that's what this whole process is about this whole process of
7:11having the public hearing tonight and then having a comment period and then having another public hearing is so that we could find out how the community wants to invest this 3.8 million dollars the next steps in the development of the substantial amendment is we've we have a a small survey that we asked we're asking people to fill out it's at the cities on the city's website the first page you can't miss it it's up
7:39at the top uh www.forwardthema.org the survey has about maybe nine to nine to eleven questions i think it is and it will help us determine what people wanna see in the community we're gonna get everybody back to this hearing room on june 29th uh to go over how we're actually going to allocate this money and there's a public comment period that people can write in they can they can send
8:10written comments into the community development agency uh that's june 27th through july 12th and we're looking to submit the allocation plan and the substantial amendment sometime around july 29th okay testimony and statements letters and requests and petitions submitted at tonight's hearing will be used in the development of the allocation plan frcda also requests participants and
8:39city residents to complete the home op survey that i just discussed located on the main page of the city's website a summary of the proposed allocation plan is to be published on june 27 and on the city's website and it will also be made available at the community development agency on the sixth floor government system again another public hearing is scheduled for june 29th uh at six pm in in this room the city
9:07council hearing room to afford residents the opportunity to review and comment on the proposed plan and again residents have until july 12 to submit additional comments all statements received during the review period will be considered in the development of the city of port rivera's hop home arc allocation plan according to the submission timetable the allocation plan will be submitted
9:32sometime again around july 29th so the format of tonight's public hearing is to allow participants the opportunity to express their views on the city's housing needs persons willing to speak were called uh will be called to testify each person should state his or her name and address if the approve if appropriate and the agency or organization represented so we have about um five six uh participants here tonight uh
10:02we didn't have anybody sign up for for speaking um again uh you know the the timeline that we're looking at um so we we definitely would like to hear your comments have you come back at the next public hearing um to see how the money is going to be allocated uh we'd like to know your thoughts on how it's going to be allocated so speaking tonight doesn't doesn't stop anything i mean not
10:28speaking you can you can send in your comments to the community development agency anytime you want so if that's nobody wants to speak i'll conclude the public hearing tonight and we'll look forward to seeing you on the 29th of june for the next public hearing thank you