09:31:03 >> Good morning everybody, thank you and welcome to our bond oversight committee.
09:31:08 It is the 1st of October, 2020 if you can believe it.
09:31:10 We are in the 1st quarter of the year.
09:31:16 I'm Dr. Stephen Holt and I have the privilege of facilitating our meeting.
09:31:25 What I'd like to do in view of the fact that our year hasn't been what our year has been in a way that we've been
09:31:31 introduced to 2020 in a way that we had not anticipated.
09:31:40 And there's been intensity on so many sides that it would be inappropriate, I dare would say irresponsible to just\
09:31:47 jump into the meeting a if we're now where the world has been impacted.
09:31:53 I do not presume nor assume to know all that's happening in your world or in your life.
09:32:00 What changes have transpired, some unexpected in positive ways, and others unexpected in ways that have stressed you.
09:32:30 hearts, calm our minds.What I'd like to do just in light of that so that we can do our work today is give a moment for us just to breathe.
09:32:32 I want to thank you to everyone who stepped into this space.
09:32:37 It's the current normal, the way we're doing business together.
09:32:39 Thank you for your continued commitment to the work.
09:32:43 Thank you for your investment in these processes and this project.
09:32:55 For the committee itself, thank you for your volunteerism continuing to prioritize what we know is so necessary and that's solidifying families at times like this.
09:33:00 For the staff of PHB, I appreciate your work and leadership to get us to this space.
09:33:04 Again recognizing we're in the midst of this time of intensity.
09:33:08 And to all others who are joining us in this meeting, we appreciate your presence.
09:33:22 So if you would right now just kind of relax into your seat and join me with a deep breath.
09:33:24 And now release.
09:33:37 Let's take another one.
09:33:37 [Breathing]
09:33:39 >> I appreciate it.
09:33:44 One of the realities of stress is that we forget to breathe.
09:33:48 One of the realities of pressure is that we shorten our breath.
09:33:56 And in the midst of intensity, I just want to remind you, pause for a moment, take a deep breath.
09:34:03 Recenter so we can keep functioning.
09:34:04 I appreciate it.
09:34:13 So we will get rolling now.
09:34:15 I believe there was a reminder.
09:34:18 So thanks everybody for joining us today.
09:34:25 And I want to remind everyone especially those who are on screen that the meeting is being recorded.
09:34:27 Important for you to know.
09:34:33 What you have in front of you is kind of our online meeting protocols.
09:34:40 We're asking you to be patient and respectful, to make sure that you check your speakers and microphone.
09:34:47 To mute your microphone, keep yourself muted while you're not speaking and then introduce yourself before speaking.
09:35:01 The chat is open for public testimony, so that is available for individuals to type in your thoughts, your feedback, and your interaction.
09:35:04 All right next slide, please.
09:35:09 Let me do roll call and we will get going for today's outline.
09:35:13 There's our agenda as you can see.
09:35:18 So for those who are the bond oversight committee members, I'm just going to identify you.
09:35:30 And then I will give PHB staff the opportunity to identify themselves as they present.
09:35:45 The reason why you see me twice is so that I'm on my iPad so that you can see and hear me and then I'm also on my tower so that I can see everyone else.
09:35:51 So there are two of me, it's just me twice.
09:35:54 Bond oversight committee members.
09:35:54 Susan.
09:35:59 >> Susan Emmons, bond oversight committee member.
09:35:59 Good morning.
09:36:10 >> Good morning, Susan.
09:36:11 Anneliese.
09:36:11 >> Good morning everyone.
09:36:15 >> Good morning, Anneliese.
09:36:15 Alan.
09:36:18 >> Good morning everyone.
09:36:22 I'm Alan and a member of the bond oversight committee.
09:36:24 >> Good morning, Alan.
09:36:27 And then Todd.
09:36:28 >> Good morning everyone.
09:36:30 Todd, bond oversight committee.
09:36:32 >> Welcome.
09:36:33 Glad you are here.
09:36:46 We have on the agenda a space for public testimony and that was for I believe for those who had presigned up who indicated that they wanted to share.
09:36:53 Is that correct, Tonya?
09:36:54 >> That is correct.
09:37:07 I think before we go into public testimony or give people a chance to submit to sign up for that, we can review the minutes from the last July meeting and get those approved.
09:37:09 >> Absolutely.
09:37:15 Hopefully you've had a chance already bond oversight committee members to review the minutes.
09:37:20 And if you would need a moment to do so I can actually see you which is awesome.
09:37:30 You can indicate so by just raising your hand if you need a moment or if we're ready to approve we can go ahead with that.
09:37:32 >> I'm ready to approve.
09:37:34 I read them and they look accurate.
09:37:35 >> Excellent.
09:37:37 You want to make a motion, Susan?
09:37:38 >> Yes.
09:37:45 I make a motion that we approve the minutes as included in our packets and electronically.
09:37:48 >> I'll second the motion.
09:37:50 >> All right, it's been moved and seconded.
09:37:55 So by way of agreement if you will just say yes.
09:37:56 >> Yes.
09:37:59 >> Yes.
09:38:00 >> Yes.
09:38:05 >> This is Todd, I'll abstain just because I was not present.
09:38:07 But I have read them.
09:38:10 >> Excellent.
09:38:11 Minutes are carried.
09:38:14 And we can go into our time of public testimony.
09:38:18 Tanya, I will defer to you.
09:38:20 >> Thank you, Dr. Holt.
09:38:23 This is Tanya again.
09:38:28 I don't see anyone on that has submitted anything in the chat.
09:38:30 So we can give it another few moments.
09:38:49 I know that it takes me a minute to type in here my thoughts.
09:38:55 >> Just to be clear, are you asking that people just submit their testimony during the chat during this time period?
09:39:00 Or that they indicate in the chat that they would like to testify for two minutes?
09:39:02 I was unclear myself.
09:39:06 >> They can indicate in the chat and yes that's fine.
09:39:27 Thank you for that clarification.
09:39:31 All right I'm not seeing anyone raising their hands or throwing their name in the hat so to speak.
09:39:36 So if everyone is good, Dr. Holt, I think we can proceed.
09:39:36 >> Excellent.
09:39:40 Next item on the agenda then are the updates.
09:39:45 So I will move to the Portland Housing Bureau staff.
09:39:48 >> Again this is Tanya Wolfersperger.
09:39:55 I work for the Portland Housing Bureau as a housing coordinator for the housing bond.
09:40:09 So I just wanted to take a moment to really as part of our updates for this meeting to reflect on the work and the progress that's been made over the last 12 months.
09:40:19 So if we start by looking back to last September when we announced the funding awards for nine new projects from the bond opportunity solicitation.
09:40:34 It was a really exciting time and it also showed that those nine projects joined by three existing bond projects together met and exceeded three of the four production goals of the bond measure.
09:40:42 So it's easy to kind of conjure up the feelings that we had just a year ago today.
09:40:53 Or not today but last month since it's October in our accomplishments that we made just after that first bond opportunity solicitation.
09:40:59 And since then our development partners have been hard at work successfully receiving predevelopment loans and
09:41:05 securing tax credits and other financing.
09:41:28 And in particular we know from past presentations that two projects in particular have gone ahead and increased their total units and furthering our goals towards total units and our goals towards households serving 30% AMI units and family-size units.
09:41:39 We're excited again to see our projects reaching goals and even pushing past those goals.
09:41:50 If you follow those two projects in particular were 3,000 southeast Powell who came and presented this past April.
09:41:58 And the team that presented in July.
09:42:07 Now we've exceeded our production goals in all four of the bond categories measure.
09:42:09 I'm extremely excited and proud of that fact.
09:42:15 And for the 12 total bond funded projects to date.
09:42:25 Now all of this work has also been accompanied by PHB staff, city attorney, and many others who have been hard at work
09:42:31 behind the scenes moving the implementation processes forward.
09:42:39 That includes two audits that were conducted: a performance audit and a financial audit.
09:42:42 Both resulted in positive findings and recommendations.
09:42:56 We've also been, staff and others have been working really hard behind the scene to create new templates that have been drafted for financial and regulatory documents for all of the bond funded projects.
09:43:06 A huge body of work and lastly we've also entered into a partnership with Prosper Portland to
09:43:17 help our contractors and subcontractors increase the representation of DMWSB contractors on those projects.
09:43:30 So furthering our goals towards equity in contracting.
09:43:38 Finally we have received some positive press recognition including a recent article in the Portland Tribune that went over our
09:43:42 article in great detail and then some.
09:43:49 So we are very pleased to see this article and be recognized nor all of the hard work that our whole community has helped to accomplish.
09:43:57 So before I hand it over to Jill for more project specific updates, I just want to pause here and see if there are
09:44:02 any questions or comments from the committee.
09:44:08 >> I had a question about the Portland Tribune article.
09:44:13 I was out of town at the time but two community members clipped it and sent it to me.
09:44:15 They wanted to be sure I saw it.
09:44:23 And I think the kind of detail that you were able to give the reporter, people said they had never seen this kind of a thorough report.
09:44:32 I think it's just commendable the staff that you could give that kind of information.
09:44:44 And I think it was very, at least by the people I talked to it was really well received and they were very impressed by the level of information.
09:44:45 I was really proud.
09:44:51 I wasn't part of it but I was proud to hear about it after the fact.
09:44:53 I just thought it was great.
09:45:08 >> Thank you, Susan.
09:45:09 All right, Jill, are you ready?
09:45:12 I'm ready for you.
09:45:13 >> Okay, great.
09:45:15 Thank you so much.
09:45:16 My name is Jill Chen.
09:45:27 I'm the housing investment portport -- portfolio investment manager.
09:45:28 It's nice to see you.
09:45:33 I'm going to go through some of the project sort of dashboard updates.
09:45:54  
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09:45:54 >> Caption test.
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09:46:02 In addition to what Tanya mentioned, we're very excited because actually the big news was yesterday we went to city council and city council approved the first bond invested project which is now renamed as Division Street apartments.
09:46:07 That was a milestone for all of us to have the first bond approved and it will actually be in construction.
09:46:12 It will be closing the end of this month and construction will start at the end of this month.
09:46:24 But it's a tremendous shout out to the Division Street project team that is northwest and Central City concern.
09:46:37 In addition to that particular project being closed, I just wanted to update you all that we had an all developer meeting back on September 9th where we all talked about
09:46:41 other issues that developers were looking at.
09:46:44 We also went through the documentation, the templates.
09:46:51 And those were I think good feedback from us as staff members to hear from the development team.
09:46:59 And they themselves to hear from each other about commonalities across all of the projects.
09:47:06 The good news is I think all of the projects are on target.
09:47:07 They have very tight closings.
09:47:12 We've got a lot of work over the next 6, 7 months.
09:47:22 And just wanted to make sure that even though we just sort of gave you the highlights on the success and the number of units.
09:47:33 As projects move towards closing and land use and design review and all of that, there may be some changes up and down maybe in the unit count.
09:47:38 And of course when there is a change in the unit count, it will come back to us for approval.
09:47:49 The second thing that will happen is there will probably be changes in requested subsidies.
09:47:56 For example I know there are a project or two I think one in particular we've been in deep discussion about.
09:48:04 And it's been on a PHB owned site in which they had you can call it extraordinary site costs.
09:48:07 Way beyond what we anticipated and way beyond what they anticipated.
09:48:08 So they'll be coming in.
09:48:14 And when we have those changes of course we'll bring them also to the bond oversight committee.
09:48:25 In terms of the risk for all of the projects, what we've heard from our developer meetings is that there are some things
09:48:37 on, I would put it in three buckets; the first is straight up COVID-19 related.
09:48:40 These are to do with the construction timelines.
09:48:50 We have already had projects in our pipeline which had incidents in which the whole team had to be quarantined.
09:48:55 So we're already building in construction contingencies.
09:49:04 The second thing we're finding is that construction costs have increased actually despite corona.
09:49:06 Yes, everybody is doing home improvement plans.
09:49:11 Cost of timber have gone I think 70% increases.
09:49:12 It was pretty high.
09:49:16 That of course has impacted things.
09:49:17 Drywall has changed.
09:49:20 So those are things that are changing.
09:49:32 The third area that we're finding is financing costs have changed, mainly in the area of low income housing tax credits.
09:49:33 That is softening.
09:49:43 And across our board the projects first came in on an average low income housing tax credit of about $0.95 to the dollar.
09:49:46 The current market condition is that they're in the low 80s.
09:49:55 So if that trend continues and if we're not able to nail down sort of the anticipated pricing that we originally thought,
09:49:59 some of these projects will have larger gaps.
09:50:03 So I wanted to make sure you all are aware.
09:50:12 And we as PHB are working closely with our development partners looking and scrubbing the numbers and all that.
09:50:16 But these are the risks we're looking at.
09:50:21 So right now everything is on pace.
09:50:28 And I'm so pleased that we've got beautiful renderings for all of you to see.
09:50:31 Next slide, please.
09:50:31 Tanya?
09:50:32 There you go.
09:50:43 So looking ahead in the next six months, we have some aggressive project closings.
09:50:47 Eight, actually Division has already closed, not closed it will close next month.
09:50:55 So we have eight project closings which means all of the financing is going to come.
09:50:57 They're all going to start construction.
09:51:01 So our project developers are extremely, extremely busy.
09:51:13 We've got Cathedral Village and Las Adelitas.
09:51:15 They'll both be presenting today.
09:51:23 And Hayu Tilixam, and westwind is closing in February.
09:51:39 And Stark Street, Anna Mann, and Susan Emmons are all going to close in April but we think it will be pretty quickly in the next six months.
09:51:47 But this is very exciting and we are extremely excited to present to you these projects.
09:52:01 With Cathedral Village, Stef Kondor is here.
09:52:11 Las Adelitas Kevin Kellogg and Traci Manning are here to present.
09:52:19 So without further ado I'm going to turn it over to Mike Johnson to talk about the next slides expenditure report.
09:52:21 Thank you.
09:52:22 Oh any questions first?
09:52:24 >> Actually, Jill, I did have a question.
09:52:34 So it sounded to me like to sum it up basically costs are going up and less money is possibly available at the federal level.
09:52:43 And I know it sounds like you're working with folks to scrub financials to see where cost savings
09:52:47 can be had and how we can be creative.
09:52:55 Short of being able to solve for that gap, what's the plan or what are thoughts about different strategies
09:53:01 around, I know we have some money still left that was very strategic.
09:53:07 That was part of the goal I think was this possible concern.
09:53:12 And then also just like other pots of funding, what's the thinking, less units?
09:53:15 >> We're hoping not less units.
09:53:19 And we have been working with our development partners.
09:53:42 So in addition to value engineering and getting the cost as much nailed down as possible, one of the reasons you see this fast closing is for those projects that have the low income housing tax credits already signed through an executed
09:53:48 letter of intent, we're trying to make sure we do not have any slippage.
09:54:00 The moment you open up these extended times, the investor might come back and say the $0.95 I was going to give you I just dropped it down to $0.90 and you sit there and go why.
09:54:09 Also we're working with our development partners to help them think about what are some other gap funding sources.
09:54:15 So a number of our development partners already receive some.
09:54:26 For example Start Straight received gap funding from Lyft with Oregon Housing and Community Services.
09:54:31 And Las Adelitas received funding through their gap.
09:54:37 So we are working with them as much as possible to see where else can they go.
09:54:50 We've been talking with different folks also about the PCEF funds, this is Portland Clean Energy Funds.
09:54:53 They just came out with $8 million in solicitation.
09:54:59 They've indicated, our colleagues at BDS have indicated interest in supporting affordable housing.
09:55:02 So this is where there may be a possibility to collaborate.
09:55:06 Does that answer your question?
09:55:10 >> Yes, it does.
09:55:21 I will also say and this is not under my purview as a bond oversight committee advisory member.
09:55:27 I was glad we were not having to go to additional sources.
09:55:37 And knowing how competitive Lyft funding is, so just wanting to reiterate my excitement about the ability to do this without going elsewhere.
09:55:40 >> I agree.
09:55:49 And that was one of the critical components for us is we didn't want them to have to try to bundle it together.
09:55:50 Any other questions?
09:55:53 >> Hey Jill, this maybe will come up later.
09:55:56 I know Mike is going to talk about the finance piece.
09:56:03 Is there any, I guess the root of the question is, is the bond funds solely on the hook for gaps?
09:56:13 Or is PHB talking about other sources especially within PHB if there are other shortfalls?
09:56:23 So that might be a question that goes out to other PHB advisory bureaus like PHAC.
09:56:32 Is that a discussion or is it solely the bond funds and then let some of these other gap funds that folks might pursue?
09:56:39 >> At this time, Allan, we have not received requests for gap funds yet.
09:56:45 Except for the two that have already been presented.
09:56:52 And in I think our last I think it was two oversight committee sessions ago, we presented a process
09:57:05 by which if there's any changes in the request, the process by which the developers need to come to PHB to request additional bond funds.
09:57:15 Our goal is of course to try to work with them as much as possible instead of coming to PHB every time there is a hundred thousand dollar gap.
09:57:20 We all know it's the big ones we're worried about.
09:57:24 The hundred thousand most of the developers can figure out themselves.
09:57:26 Does that answer your question?
09:57:30 >> If I may interject for a moment, Allan.
09:57:37 There is not a lot of other available funds from PHB's budget for a large majority of these projects.
09:57:44 Primarily because we haven't had a city wide source of funds in the past other than construction excise tax and bonds.
09:57:53 And frankly our construction excise tax funds are being used to pay for the predevelopment of all of these projects and for Metro.
09:58:02 And then because construction excise tax is a result of market activity, our projections unfortunately for construction
09:58:12 excise tax have also been dramatically reduced because of the economic downturn that we are experiencing and expect to experience.
09:58:25 But part of the reality is that the city wide funds, if we do need to look at increasing amounts, we will probably most likely look to the bond funds.
09:58:28 Because there really isn't another source within our own budget.
09:58:31 I wanted to be candid with everybody about that.
09:58:33 >> Thanks, I appreciate that.
09:58:39 I think that level of information and transparency definitely plays into how we think about the remaining dollars.
09:58:48 So I think that's helpful for us to transition to Mike too.
09:58:48 Thanks.
09:58:49 >> Excellent.
09:58:51 Thanks, Jill, for your presentation.
09:58:54 We are going to move to Mike just to try to stay on time.
09:58:57 We've got a full agenda for the day.
09:59:00 So Mike, we are all ears.
09:59:00 >> All right.
09:59:02 Thank you, Dr. Holt.
09:59:02 Mike Johnson.
09:59:07 I'm the finance and accounting manager for the Portland Housing Bureau.
09:59:16 I have a fairly short presentation today because we're only a couple of months since the last report.
09:59:31 So I'll point out really the one significant change is that you'll notice that our interest/credits amount has now jumped up to a larger percentage.
09:59:44 And as I mentioned at the last meeting because we sold $164 million in bonds recently, that is generating some significant interesting earnings.
09:59:50 Just to review the fourth bond chunk that we have sold, there was three previous ones.
09:59:55 We have a couple thousand dollars still remaining.
10:00:02 A few hundred thousand dollars left in the third one in addition to the 364 million.
10:00:09 So we will be moving through those first sets of bond proceeds remaining first before we draw on the 164 million.
10:00:11 So that interest will continue to increase.
10:00:24 But as Jill noted with eight projects closing here in the next 6 to 8 months, we will start seeing some significant draws on the bond funds.
10:00:27 A little more spending of course on bond delivery.
10:00:30 A couple more months of that.
10:00:36 But that's really the significant change from the previous one.
10:00:39 So I'm happy to answer any questions.
10:00:51 >> Questions of the bond oversight committee?
10:00:56 >> I think the important piece is that bottom line, the total funds remaining as far as the conversations go.
10:01:03 So that's the piece that's going to be there for contingencies or is it the project reserves that are listed here?
10:01:13 >> Yeah the project reserves were what we intentionally put aside to deal both with construction costs increases and changes.
10:01:28 So as we were sizing this the last bond issue and a lot of analysis was done by Jill and her team on what we might potentially need due to those code relating packs that she went over.
10:01:29 >> Okay.
10:01:33 So that's the 10% of the total project cost.
10:01:36 So there's an additional 24 that's remaining.
10:01:48 So that's roughly what 39?
10:01:48 Okay.
10:01:52 >> There's a fair amount of funds not yet committed.
10:01:54 And we're earning interest on the funds in place.
10:01:56 That would be the third bucket we could go to.
10:01:57 >> That's good.
10:02:04 It's surprising that the finance guy gets to be the good news guy in this scenario in this.
10:02:06 >> I'll take what I can get.
10:02:09 >> Maybe y'all set it up that way?
10:02:14 Jill come in with the doom and gloom and Mike with the good news.
10:02:17 >> I'll go with that too.
10:02:23 >> Any other questions from the bond oversight committee?
10:02:24 Excellent.
10:02:25 Thanks, Mike, for your presentation.
10:02:28 We appreciate it.
10:02:32 We are going to go then, oh did you have something?
10:02:38 Okay, we're going to go then to the presentations.
10:02:47 And I would indicate if we are going to stay on time with our meeting today, you have about 40 minutes for both.
10:02:59 So about 20 minutes for your presentation and a space for questions so that we've got room for our mayor to interact with us today.
10:03:04 Cathedral Village, it is in your hands.
10:03:07 >> I guess I'll just go ahead and start in.
10:03:19 Hi, I'm Stef Kondor with Related Northwest.
10:03:25 I have Travis Phillips here with Catholic Charities of Oregon.
10:03:40 We also have a partner called vibe PDX which is a north Portland local youth service and arts enrichment program we're bringing into the community as well.
10:03:46 I'll talk about it a little bit later what the service is and some of the enrichment things that we're doing.
10:03:57 And just kind of the creativity that goes into this project which I think is really note worthy.
10:03:59 Next slide.
10:04:08 So the project is located in north Portland which was a priority location for the Portland passing on funding.
10:04:14 It's located over by Cathedral Park kind of right under the St.
10:04:15 John's bridge.
10:04:16 It has a great view.
10:04:19 We're really excited about the location.
10:04:23 It's along Crawford street and Salem.
10:04:25 It's four story wood construction.
10:04:30 110 units of which over 50% are dedicated to family units.
10:04:34 We've got 1/3 at 30% and the remaining at 60%.
10:04:45 We did not take project based vouchers at this property because we were trying to do cost containment and not trigger.
10:04:49 We have integrated permanent supported housing, eight units.
10:04:59 And that as I mentioned Catholic Charities will be providing the services for those eight units for case management.
10:05:12 We are targeting families, low income families, communities of color, immigrants and refugees, and households experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
10:05:24 I think one of the things that made me very excited about working with Catholic Charities is their long established histories in the city of Portland working with these populations and their deep experience in serving these families.
10:05:31 We think it's going to be a real benefit to this community and having this synergy of having the resident
10:05:47 service provider also be the case manager really gives us a lot of ability for good communication and really be on the same page.
10:05:50 We think this will house approximately 250 to 300 people.
10:05:56 I think that's being conservative.
10:06:04 We have 11 three bedroom units and 45 two bedroom units.
10:06:05 And next slide.
10:06:19 We spent a lot of time in the design to make sure that we had it just right because we believed that livability is very important for retaining the residents and also just keeping
10:06:25 residents feeling like they are at a home.
10:06:26 We are currently in plan check.
10:06:28 We're looking pretty good.
10:06:29 MWA is our architect.
10:06:33 They've done a great job in the details of their plan.
10:06:36 The aesthetics are coming out really nicely.
10:06:42 We have a ground floor community center, like a multipurpose room that looks out to the
10:06:52 amazing view out to Forest Heights and Cathedral Bridge.
10:06:56 All of our services and property management are colocated on the ground floor.
10:07:03 We are also offering a team room because we know there will be a good amount of families as well as a music technology room.
10:07:08 And the reason we provided a music technology room, I don't know if folks are acquainted with the St. John's
10:07:15 area, but they have the longest standing jazz festival west of the Mississippi.
10:07:17 It's actually the 40th year running.
10:07:26 So we were trying to take a nod of look at the culture and how it's so interwoven with music and arts in the St. John's neighborhood.
10:07:31 So we're doing this recording room for kids to be able to mix and do their own beats.
10:07:44 And then Vibe PDX which does arts and music comes in and helps train them on the equipment but also supplements with other kind of extra enrichment programs.
10:07:46 They are located in the St. John neighborhood.
10:07:51 The executive director, her kids go to the public school there.
10:07:54 We feel like it is a fantastic fit.
10:08:03 We're also working on getting placemaking grants to do some murals on the front to intertwine arts with this community.
10:08:11 And as you go down the building, there's these panels that we want to have different artists that are multicultural that come in.
10:08:13 So that's some of the softer features.
10:08:30 But I think they're really important features that connect the residents and the kids of this community to feel like this is something that they can identify with and that they have opportunities for enriched programs that they may not otherwise have.
10:08:35 There's a lot of budget cuts going on, music and arts we all know is one of the first things to go.
10:08:41 So we are trying to maintain that in this community.
10:08:52 We were fortunate enough to be issued 16.3 million through Portland housing bureau through the bond solicitation.
10:08:53 50,000 for the weatherization.
10:08:57 We had initially thought we were going to get more.
10:09:03 When we came on to this site we planned on doing heat tax which are the heat pumps and air-conditioning.
10:09:10 But because it is located close to a railroad we wanted to be very mindful of sound transmission.
10:09:23 So we had to change our heating system, our HVAC system to we have kind of a roof mounted gas powered system which takes us out of
10:09:29 getting some of the funding.
10:09:31 It has to be electrical to get the funding.
10:09:33 So that was a pot of money that went away.
10:09:44 And it was something that was unforeseeable.
10:09:47 8.5 million in Lytek.
10:09:50 The debt side looks good, the equity is not looking as good.
10:09:55 As they were discussing as Jill was mentioning, that's something we're seeing in the marketplace.
10:09:59 We feel fortunate that we did get some offers.
10:10:01 But they're all sub $0.90.
10:10:14 And I think if you were to go out in March and get your funding or prior to that, prior to that you're probably somewhere in the mid to upper 90s.
10:10:18 At March it was below $0.95 right around lower 90s.
10:10:23 And now we're seeing things below $0.90 now that we're further in.
10:10:24 Shannon, do you have a question?
10:10:26 >> I just wanted to comment.
10:10:29 I know you went really quickly through it.
10:10:35 You used the terminology equity, and I know you mean financial equity.
10:10:40 But if people are hearing on the call they might think you're talking about participation rates which I know you're not.
10:10:48 So I just wanted to clarify that statement that you made for a broader audience.
10:10:53 >> Finance gal and me, yeah.
10:10:56 So Litek equity.
10:10:57 That's a note.
10:11:01 We're deferring about 2.4, almost 2.5 million.
10:11:04 We have a current debt of 7 million.
10:11:08 We have a gap we estimated about 500,000.
10:11:17 We think there is some value engineering, a little bit of trying to make this layman.
10:11:29 So value engineering is where you're taking different maybe design steps or different finishes or fixtures or methods to be able to facilitate cost savings in the project.
10:11:35 So we think there's about 200,000 that we can bring into this deal to bring that cost down.
10:11:41 And then the remainder, I mean Travis can attest to this.
10:11:43 We have went under every rock.
10:11:46 I can't even tell you the list.
10:11:50 I had actually forgotten some of them.
10:11:54 We have been shaking every tree to be able to get funding.
10:11:58 We recently just interviewed with Collin, so we're hopeful for that.
10:12:05 We're working with ETO, and we did put in for the federal home loan AHP grant.
10:12:19 So there's a multitude of ways we're trying to work to bring this project back in line with the original budget.
10:12:21 Next slide.
10:12:28 I think this kind of leads to things that have occurred to why we have that overage.
10:12:30 Some of it is a function of the pandemic.
10:12:42 We're seeing as Jill had mentioned the longer packages went up astronomically.
10:12:47 And it's probably the biggest trade in our budget, a wood constructed building.
10:12:49 So we definitely get more impacted by that.
10:12:51 So I would say that.
10:13:00 We're also seeing that the insurance market has really increased with all of the forest fires and then with the rioting.
10:13:05 Underwriters are being much more conservative so our premiums for builders risk and such have been going up.
10:13:13 And we're seeing that in realtime with our large Division project that's underway that's going to be closing at the end of this month.
10:13:20 So we have some very good numbers.
10:13:27 We also because 1 Of The Streets is not completely improved, they want us to actually go in in a cul-de-sac
10:13:34 which was unknown to us at the time, a half a cul-de-sac.
10:13:38 And we lad to flip our driveway entrance to a different road.
10:13:42 This lengthened the building, we had to put in a second trash room.
10:13:46 We also found that there was a fiber optic vault that we had to move.
10:13:49 So these were all kind of unforeseen conditions at the time.
10:13:54 We thought we had done a good amount of due diligence which we did.
10:13:58 We knew that the site was going to need an upgraded foundation system.
10:14:01 We had had that in our budget.
10:14:03 We were really trying to be proactive.
10:14:13 But there were some things unbeknownst to us by virtue of the railroad and PBOT that really gave us some cost grief.
10:14:20 Also for sound mitigation we ended up having to go with a full brick platting to mitigate some noise.
10:14:27 And as I had mentioned the DOAS system, the mechanical system, all of those things were done to be able to make sure
10:14:38 that the residents had a home that didn't have sound transmission issues, that were really comfortable.
10:14:49 We want to make sure that they're getting return air that's really tempered and making sure that this building is going to be very durable with the brick platting.
10:14:59 But it was also a function of the acoustical and also we're using community design standards for commercial and
10:15:06 that requires, they don't allow for a significant amount of hardy board.
10:15:11 So these are all of those kind of millions of things that gets you why are you here.
10:15:14 And I'm trying to give you the back story of how our decision making went.
10:15:18 But it is also one of the reasons we were able to get to close quickly.
10:15:30 This is the second project that we'll close for this bond solicitation and going through community design standards helped facilitate that for us to be more expeditious.
10:15:33 And we're finding that that's a good move.
10:15:37 We're able to stick to our closing dates.
10:15:38 Next slide.
10:15:40 >> Hey, Stef.
10:15:41 I hate to interrupt you.
10:15:42 You've got five minutes.
10:15:43 >> Okay.
10:15:50 So here's some of the costs associated with the things that I just detailed.
10:15:53 So in general it's about a million dollars over.
10:16:01 We've been able to solve for that somewhat through value engineering and we were fairly conservative in our underwriting.
10:16:09 But like I said we have about 500,000 that we see as a gap.
10:16:12 We're working on the other 300.
10:16:14 Next slide, please.
10:16:18 As mentioned these are the challenges.
10:16:23 We can keep going.
10:16:24 Next slide.
10:16:28 Yep.
10:16:31 We went through this twice, but that's the gist of it.
10:16:42 Portland Housing Bureau funds, we've been able to leverage basically over two times with debt, LIHTC,
10:16:50 equity, deferred developer fee and our ask I think was up at the higher end.
10:16:57 And I think one thing to note is North Portland and especially the St. John's community land pricing are very high in this neighborhood.
10:17:09 And if you want to get affordable housing into neighborhoods like this that are super gentrified, it's just a little bit more expensive to develop.
10:17:10 Next slide.
10:17:15 So community engagement, I think I will turn it over to Travis to talk about.
10:17:16 >> Yeah.
10:17:18 I know we only have limited time.
10:17:24 So I'll breeze through this but happy to answer any questions too.
10:17:30 And I think the point here is we've done a lot of outreach.
10:17:34 Perhaps not completely specific to this development.
10:17:39 There's a unique tension between doing outreach and getting feedback about design.
10:17:46 And at the same time saying but we can't guarantee you an apartment in this building at this time and also it's
10:17:50 going to be two years before before it's built.
10:18:03 So we learned that lesson in some outreach events that we did with African family health system a year ago as well as the Iraqi society here in Portland.
10:18:19 So followed on with that with some conversations with APANO, and Familias En Accion for some ways to
10:18:27 ensure that our strategy reaches the intended folks.
10:18:34 And public charities for urban and regional planning earlier this year for their workshop project that really dove deep
10:18:41 into amenities, both in the property and near the property.
10:18:47 And different things we can plan for to make sure residents are successful and what they want and need in their units.
10:18:54 >> I wanted to add one thing is we did do neighborhood association meetings inviting the whole community.
10:19:06 And then also I did attend the mayor held and I think Shannon was there in the University of
10:19:15 Portland with that whole neighborhood I think there was probably over 100 people in attendance talking about the housing needs intrinsic to that community.
10:19:27 So we have done a lot of footwork and meeting in round tables with different constituencies to make sure we're getting it right.
10:19:36 That's why we brought in VIBE PDX because we feel those are the right partners to serve the communities we're intending to serve.
10:19:45 >> I'll note and then we can move on from here as well, one of the things that our recent discussion we prioritized
10:19:53 is making sure that there is internet access and wifi particularly in our community spaces.
10:20:02 One of the things we found in other properties due to Covid is making sure that our residence service
10:20:11 coordinators can work with seniors or others who are not necessarily going in to the doctor but we want to make sure they're
10:20:14 having that health care coordination is now more important than ever.
10:20:19 And we want to make sure kids can connect to the internet to actually do their schoolwork.
10:20:26 That's one of the things I wanted to call out specifically that the feedback that we've got from existing residents and
10:20:31 that engagement was really informed relative to our current pandemic.
10:20:32 >> Excellent.
10:20:33 Well done.
10:20:35 Thank you very much, Travis.
10:20:37 Good to see you always.
10:20:41 It's been a little bit.
10:20:44 Questions from the bond oversight committee?
10:20:47 Any questions for Stef or Travis?
10:20:49 >> I had a question.
10:20:54 Susan Emmons, bond oversight committee member.
10:21:01 In terms of the supportive housing serving eight people, will you have an office on site for those services?
10:21:05 >> Yes.
10:21:21 So we have our property management area but then right around the corner and we did this very deliberately to be sectioned off from property management so it really felt like you could have privacy and integrity to not involve property management.
10:21:24 So we have a resident services office.
10:21:26 We also have a private conference room too.
10:21:38 So there's a seating area outside and a place for the residents to be able to have resident-specific case management services on
10:21:44 site, ground floor.
10:21:45 >> Any other questions?
10:21:47 >> I wanted to offer a comment if I could.
10:21:54 I really appreciate having these bond teams come and provide these updates around your projects.
10:21:56 It's so great to hear all that's going on.
10:22:01 And I think this project hits so many of the priorities that we have.
10:22:04 I just really appreciate you folks coming and talking about it today.
10:22:13 And Travis, I really appreciate your comment about the community engagement and the learning around, because we know that the need is so great out there at this time
10:22:19 that that's really what people are coming, great, when can I move in?
10:22:33 I think that's a great understanding of how do you talk to community folks and engage them with we're talking about something down the line.
10:22:41 >> I forgot you were at that outreach and helped us out with some materials for the Iraqi society too.
10:22:44 That was a slightly awkward lesson learned.
10:22:47 But we got very valuable feedback from the folks who participated too.
10:22:51 >> I got a call from somebody that said I want dibs.
10:22:54 I want dibs on one of those units.
10:23:02 And I was like dibs, I'm not sure that's with fair housing, let me think about that.
10:23:06 >> Any comment, question?
10:23:15 >> I have a question just echoing, I appreciate the detail and yeah just thankful to learn more about the projects.
10:23:16 >> Likewise.
10:23:21 It's been really beneficial to learn all of this and really dive in at this level.
10:23:21 Thank you.
10:23:22 >> Thank you very much.
10:23:26 We will move on then to the next project team.
10:23:32 And again I hate to come across forceful but our time is our time.
10:23:35 So you will have 17 minutes presentation if you want to take it that way.
10:23:38 I will identify, I should have said this to the first group.
10:23:40 I will identify the closure of your moments.
10:23:45 I will call it out at five minutes so that you are aware.
10:23:49 All right, next team.
10:23:50 It is your opportunity.
10:23:59 >> Hi, I'm Kevin Kellogg, director of real estate, Haciend a CDC.
10:24:06 And I'm joined by Traci Manning who's a senior development consultant who's been working on this almost full-time.
10:24:14 Our project is Las Adelitas.
10:24:21 Here's a renderings of one of the courtyards in this project.
10:24:32 This project started more than five years ago when the notorious sugar shack came up for sale in Northeast Portland.
10:24:46 And a coalition that included Hacienda, habitat for humanity, got together and scraped together the money to buy this site.
10:24:54 That partnership started a long process of community engagement because at the time no one knew it would become a housing project.
10:24:57 The question was what should it become.
10:25:06 And there were extensive meetings for years getting to the point of this even being housing.
10:25:14 So a few years ago Hacienda after it was concluded it should be housing, Hacienda bought
10:25:24 out the partnership and began to pursue this project assort of I think what everyone would recognize as the standard 4% tax credit project.
10:25:30 Although our funding is not really typical of that.
10:25:43 The name Las Adelitas if anyone is familiar with that, the Las Adelitas were the female soldiers in the Mexican revolution.
10:25:47 It's an amazing real story and also mythical story.
10:26:05 The renaming of this flips the narrative from a location that had been used for all kinds of things that were not positive reflections, especially on women to reflect
10:26:14 the warrior spirit in this community.
10:26:17 With that we've been soldiering on with this process.
10:26:20 The site is a brownfield site.
10:26:23 It's located right on the edge of civilization here in Portland.
10:26:29 Right at the edge where the slew begins.
10:26:32 And we have very thriving Cully neighborhood to the south of us.
10:26:35 And to the north we have industrial parts and then the airport.
10:26:47 So it's really on sort of a crossroads and the edge of geological Portland and cultural Portland.
10:26:49 We have designed a beautiful building here.
10:26:51 It's designed by Salazar Architects.
10:26:56 It's really a super sustainable building.
10:27:05 If you build to PHB's bond standards, you will have a super sustainable building.
10:27:12 And there was much more community engagement that started with Salazar, they're experts in this.
10:27:23 And virtually every aspect of the building had community input and was driven by community desires and aspirations.
10:27:41 We have almost 7,000 square feet of common area on the first floor which includes private areas for residents very similar to Cathedral Village with resident services, property management.
10:27:43 Our community's just residents common room.
10:27:46 Our room for our ninos program.
10:27:53 And a large event space that's open for community organizations in Cully and really anyone.
10:28:02 And it's all purely noncommercial space.
10:28:08 Next slide.
10:28:10 Hacienda we provide our own resident services here on site.
10:28:31 And our partners for our 18 permanent supportive housing units are Cascadia Behavioral Health and Familias En Accion.
10:28:40 Our priority communities are formerly homeless, low income, and LatinX and BIPOC.
10:28:44 We owned a majority of the property, piece by piece it's been built up.
10:28:48 It includes our offices, a number of other tax credit deals.
10:29:03 And we have found with our community right now is about 20% Somali and 75% Latino and a mix of the rest.
10:29:09 So the focus it's not really one cultural driven.
10:29:12 It's a very multicultural area.
10:29:15 And it's an extension of a community that's already here.
10:29:23 So some of our residents are already asking about being on the waiting list for the new building and so forth.
10:29:32 So we understand people wanting dibs on the projects ahead of time.
10:29:50 We have a lot of studios and one bedrooms, a few two bedrooms or I'm sorry you have 71 two bedrooms, 26 three bedrooms, 29 one bedrooms and 15 studios.
10:29:56 And our permanent supportive housing units will be all of the studios and some in the 2 and 3 bedroom range as well.
10:30:11 So having our two partners there allows us to serve our folks that are coming in from homelessness as well as families that need permanent supported help as well.
10:30:28 We imagine somewhere between 400 and 450 residents will eventually live here.
10:30:40 The Living Cully coalition, the four partners that are partners with it are also joined by the Cully associated of neighbors, the 42nd avenue association, and others.
10:30:53 So we have seven very active community associations that will be using our event space on regular basis.
10:31:00 I was really happy to hear about Cathedral Village's focus on the arts.
10:31:12 In our space like for example right now I kept my phone muted because Oregon Ballet Theater has a recital camp happening in our parking lot right now.
10:31:19 So the piano music is loud and we have violin lessons here on our site as well.
10:31:27 These functions will move over into the indoor space in the event center.
10:31:41 And we also have a plan for a competition for our murals that we have located on some of the spaces as well.
10:31:45 Sorry, energy saving light feature, sorry.
10:31:51 Okay, you can go to the next slide.
10:31:53 We are very close to getting our building permit.
10:32:00 Very close for our bids to be finalized.
10:32:17 We have heard while we're talking to the contractor as they finalize their bids that they are looking at over 30% MWBE sub contractors.
10:32:21 We had a very high percentage of minority contractors in the predevelopment.
10:32:27 And we'll extend that same effort into the supply chain and the operations as well.
10:32:33 So our commitment to that has been working out very well.
10:32:36 We plan to close January 14th.
10:32:45 And our construction will start soon after that and extend on into 2022.
10:32:50 This has been going on for a while.
10:32:58 So prior to the bond we worked through a lot of the issues that we might have gotten hit with if we had been going a little faster.
10:33:15 But really the only material changes that we did was to reduce, we actually reduced our project based vouchers to come in under the trigger point for having prevailing wages.
10:33:19 It ended up really helping to produce the vouchers.
10:33:25 We're looking for other ways to help with the rental assistance for our permanent supportive housing.
10:33:29 The main issues we've faced, sounds like we've heard it all before.
10:33:32 There's a supply chain disruption, that happens pretty randomly.
10:33:39 One day it's sheetrock, the next day you can't get engineering to the site.
10:33:40 Things are happening.
10:33:46 And so we have a lot of things coming out of the blue.
10:33:52 Insurance and lumber cost spikes, I think Stef really explained that situation very well.
10:33:53 I appreciate that.
10:34:04 We had a lottery bond allocation and because of I guess people aren't playing video poker, no
10:34:08 money came out of the lottery bonds.
10:34:13 And the state reallocated this and we were still able to capture that funding.
10:34:16 But that was complicated.
10:34:29 And the debt and equity markets are extremely tight as described by Shannon and Stef also.
10:34:38 We watched it drop from exactly what you described 98 to 95 to 93 and then under 90 just within a matter of a few months.
10:34:47 And the same thing, underwriting criteria, tightening up and Wall Street a little bit all over the place.
10:35:03 All of this has made for a lot more work on our part and on the part of our equity providers and our lenders to pull this together.
10:35:06 Next slide, please.
10:35:08 Here's our capital stack.
10:35:21 I think what's kind of interesting about this is first of all the number of sources and a couple of these are bundled together.
10:35:26 I had to add a few numbers together just to fit it on the page.
10:35:29 There's a lot of grant funding in here.
10:35:38 Our energy trust and family energy program and metro TOD grant all are adding up to well over $1 million.
10:35:44 We have the state allocation in there.
10:35:59 We have a LIFT allocation as well as our $17.3 million from PHB's bond.
10:36:06 So we have a 3.2X leverage on Portland Housing Bureau money.
10:36:10 I'm not saying I would recommend this approach as a general measure.
10:36:11 It's very complicated.
10:36:17 However we are fully funded and we're going full steam ahead here to the finish line.
10:36:24 Again we faced the challenge of things are just taking a lot longer.
10:36:34 Just getting something notarized is a big deal compared to the before times.
10:36:36 Next slide, please.
10:36:52 I talked a little bit about this at the beginning with the partnership of the four community organizations and the deep involvement of the community and leadership
10:36:57 in this project to get to where we are now.
10:37:03 The joint office of homeless services, cascadia and Familias teamed up.
10:37:12 They really created this program for the permanent supportive housing which we really need.
10:37:19 And I think it's a fun fact, we have ten EV charging stations.
10:37:27 Pacific Power has given us funding to pay for those installations and the additional wire and so forth that you need.
10:37:41 And this is also prewired and designed for a 300 kilowatt array and a battery storage back up system.
10:37:50 So that emergency spaces in our common areas can be made available to the community in times of a grid shutdown or so forth.
10:38:06 It's not an official emergency center but an informal place to be able to go to get power and our residents will be also supported by that.
10:38:09 And I think just given the time I'm going to close there.
10:38:17 If there's any questions, I think Traci and I are happy to answer.
10:38:19 >> Thanks, Kevin.
10:38:26 I will just kind of go through each of the bond oversight committee members.
10:38:30 Susan, any comment or question?
10:38:32 >> Just thank you for such a thorough presentation.
10:38:43 I think it's exciting the number of units, the number of people you're going to serve and the number of units for people 30% median or less.
10:38:47 I'll be really interested to follow the project.
10:38:52 I don't have specific questions but thanks for your presentation.
10:38:53 >> Thank you.
10:38:53 Todd.
10:39:11 >> Also just want to appreciate the story of like the location that I think has been in the I don't know Portland mind set, it's such an infamous sight.
10:39:15 And the process to take it from where it was at to a community asset.
10:39:22 And the extensive community engagement process that you've gone through, I think I'm really looking forward to seeing what the end result is.
10:39:30 And also any lessons learned from the community engagement process and the collaboration between so many
10:39:34 different organizations I think is something that is to be commended.
10:39:43 And we'll look to that as inspiration and yeah looking forward to seeing the results.
10:39:48 >> Thanks, Todd.
10:39:48 Allan.
10:39:50 >> Thanks, Dr. Holt.
10:39:55 I'll just echo what other folks say, appreciation for the project.
10:39:58 I actually live in the neighborhood next to this.
10:40:06 I live in the Roseway neighborhood so I've been following this project since five years ago when the sugar shack went up for sale.
10:40:09 And I thought this was such an amazing evolution at this point.
10:40:13 I think it's so encouraging to see the number of family units that are here.
10:40:18 So again this project hits so many of the priorities of the bond that it's great to have you here.
10:40:31 The one thing that I think both you and the previous project talked about was the impact of project based vouchers on the cost of the project which isn't something I've heard about before and it sounds like it's tied to prevailing wage.
10:40:35 So it's not really a question, but it's not something that I heard or considered before.
10:40:37 So thanks for bringing that forward.
10:40:51 I think it's something I want to learn more about and so I can understand what the impact of that is both on projects and the folks that you're all trying to serve.
10:40:59 >> I think everyone has said it.
10:40:59 Ditto.
10:41:03 Thank you so much for coming and presenting.
10:41:07 It's wonderful to hear.
10:41:12 Like others have said this has been a long time coming and it's so exciting to see it come to fruition.
10:41:15 >> Thank you, bond oversight committee.
10:41:17 Thanks, Kevin, for your presentation.
10:41:21 Traci, we didn't get a chance to hear your voice.
10:41:24 It's always good to see your face.
10:41:24 Hello.
10:41:26 >> Thank you, Dr. Holt.
10:41:27 >> Thank you, Dr. Holt.
10:41:38 I'm going to interject myself because I know we have a couple of minutes just to thank Dr. Holt and the committee for your persistence over the years and your service.
10:41:41 The whole city owes you a debt of gratitude.
10:41:48 I was very lucky to jump onto this project after a ton of work was done.
10:41:50 And it's really inspiring to get to see it through.
10:41:52 And thank you to Shannon and her team.
10:42:03 I am blown away by the amount of work that they crank out and really good communication with the project team.
10:42:10 So the committee should know they've been doing really great work to keep all of these things on track in really difficult times.
10:42:13 So just my thanks and hello.
10:42:18 I'm sorry I'm sad I can't stand around and talk to you afterward.
10:42:19 >> Thanks.
10:42:21 Thanks everybody, appreciate it.
10:42:27 Mr. Mayor, appreciate you being here in the midst of all that's going on in our city.
10:42:29 We can only imagine what your workload is these days.
10:42:33 But it's great to see you as always.
10:42:36 And you sir, have the floor.
10:42:38 >> Thank you very much, Dr. Holt.
10:42:40 I appreciate it.
10:42:43 Good morning and thank you everyone for letting me join you all today.
10:42:44 It's always an honor to be here.
10:43:02 And I want to express my sincere appreciation to all of you for committing your time, your talent, just all of your ingenuity to this
10:43:08 process as we roll out this city's first ever affordable housing bond.
10:43:14 The word unprecedented comes to mind, and I'm sure you're hearing it a lot as of late.
10:43:20 We're hearing unprecedented in regards to the challenges facing our community so frequently that I have decided
10:43:25 to call unprecedented the new status quo.
10:43:30 We're obviously facing new challenges in cities including Portland as well as across the nation.
10:43:39 One thing seems to hold true; safe, affordable housing remains very, very critical for a healthy, resilient community.
10:43:42 Portlanders have known this for a long time.
10:43:51 And it's thanks to our shared values that are rooted in the well being of our neighbors and our responsibility to
10:43:56 each other that you stepped forward to support this issue.
10:44:00 This is the first general obligation bond for affordable housing.
10:44:02 You're completely aware of that.
10:44:08 We now after several years we have ten new bond projects underway.
10:44:15 The foresight of creating stable and dedicated funding for affordable housing is definitely paying off for the people in this city.
10:44:20 And you are the ones making sure that it's successful and that it's accountable.
10:44:30 The units that we've added to development plans this year means that there are now 1,494 units upon
10:44:34 housing open or in development throughout our city.
10:44:38 That's enough housing I'm told for just over 3,000 people.
10:44:41 In fact I'm told it's 3,076 people.
10:44:42 That's a huge accomplishment.
10:44:51 That's one that's been completed in a very short period of time and we could not have done it without your guidance and your expertise.
10:44:58 And I say this not only as the mayor but as just a resident of this city, I'm really impressed with the work
10:45:03 of this group and the staff of the Portland Housing Bureau.
10:45:14 Shannon, thank you for your great leadership not only in keeping the goals in front of us but exceeding the goals that we promised to the taxpayers in this jurisdiction.
10:45:23 I'm looking at the projects that are currently funded and I can honestly say that we are delivering the best and highest use of these funds.
10:45:29 And the public believes that because we know that we have this accountability mechanism with you.
10:45:36 The Portland housing bond reminds us what we can accomplish when we work together and when we
10:45:41 imagine a better future for our fellow residents throughout the city.
10:45:46 We are all thinking about our neighbors, we're thinking about the community, we're thinking about the city that we love.
10:45:53 And I just want to thank you for your partnership and your commitment to this work.
10:45:56 And I look forward in the many more things we're going to accomplish together.
10:46:04 So I really just wanted to give you a shout out, pat on the back, a deep thank you from me to you for the
10:46:11 great work that you've done on behalf of all of us in this community.
10:46:15 Thank you again.
10:46:24 >> Thank you Mr. Mayor.
10:46:28 Anyone on the bond oversight committee want to respond to the mayor?
10:46:29 We'll do free flow.
10:46:31 I'll let you respond as you choose.
10:47:00 >> I'd like to say, Susan Emmons, bond oversight committee member, in acknowledging the staff I would say we've all been so impressed by the professionalism of the staff, the transparency and the information they give us and even when we're very persistent in the early stage about questions, they always respond and I just think we've got the brightest and the best right now, the Portland Housing Bureau.
10:47:04 And I just want to say that because many of us have observed public officials for years.
10:47:07 And this is a really sharp and hot team.
10:47:09 So just wanted to say that.
10:47:12 >> Susan, if I could also just say thank you for saying that.
10:47:20 Because right now public employees at all levels of government are absolutely under attack.
10:47:36 They are under attack and I really appreciate your acknowledgment because you recognize that the people we have working in the housing bureau and frankly in other bureaus of our city, they can be working anywhere they want and they wouldn't get the late night calls, they would be
10:47:42 getting paid more than probably cheapskate boss Ted is paying them.
10:47:45 And they don't always get the thanks that they deserve.
10:47:49 So thank you for that acknowledgment and I know they're on the call and they're hearing you.
10:47:55 And I'll just tell you I'm grateful to hear that.
10:48:00 Thank you.
10:48:02 >> This is Todd.
10:48:05 I just wanted to echo that appreciation for staff.
10:48:11 I want to go back to when I joined the oversight committee and this bond was just getting off of the ground.
10:48:21 And I want to acknowledge the mayor's role in slowing down the process at the very beginning to make sure that there was an equitable thought process and
10:48:27 guidelines created for this bond despite the time pressure.
10:48:53 And to see that now a few years later that we've been able to deliver on the bond goals in a relatively fast time despite taking that extra time to do the engagement and listen to the community, I just want to yeah again I appreciate the staff and the time invested in doing the process correctly and well in my opinion.
10:48:53 Thank you.
10:48:54 >> Thank you, Todd.
10:49:01 And you did a much better job of making your bed today than I did making mine.
10:49:03 >> Yeah, I'm in the process of moving.
10:49:11 >> Truly, Todd, I'm impressed.
10:49:12 >> Thank you.
10:49:16 >> Allan.
10:49:20 >> Sure.
10:49:21 Good morning, mayor.
10:49:25 I just want to echo what Todd said.
10:49:30 I'm really glad that Todd brought that up because I do remember that process kind of distinctly and how much
10:49:36 sort of turmoil there was around slowing that process down and being so meaningful.
10:49:44 But I think just what we heard today in these presentations is the direct result of having the opportunity for those communities to engage in that process.
10:49:48 So I agree, I'm so glad that Todd brought that forward.
10:49:54 I also want to appreciate, mayor, the point you made about the resiliency of this community and how rooted it is in this work.
10:50:02 I think for all of us that live in this community and drive around right now and see the impact of
10:50:09 folks sleeping in tents on the streets that we know how important getting this work done is for the next crisis, right?
10:50:17 We know what these two crises, three crises in front of us have created in our community and we have to
10:50:20 and we are doing better in getting ready for the next one.
10:50:23 That's what makes this work so vitally important.
10:50:29 So thank you so much to the PHB team for the commitments you've made to do this work and do it right.
10:50:31 >> Thanks, Allan.
10:50:39 >> I will echo a lot of what everyone has been saying about how wonderful PHB staff has been.
10:50:46 And I came a little bit later on to this committee so know less about some of the history, but
10:50:50 have been really impressed in the last year and a half or so on this.
10:50:59 And also just in terms of the projects that have come before us and it has been particularly in the last year
10:51:10 such a moment of hope and excitement in the midst of what has been a tough 2020 in many ways.
10:51:20 And just knowing how much more investment is coming down the pipeline from the metro housing bond and other sources of funding and being able to really
10:51:28 see this one on the ground starting to really get running is so exciting with that look to the future as well.
10:51:29 >> Thank you.
10:51:31 Thanks, bond oversight committee.
10:51:34 Members, I think it will be appropriate to again express our appreciation.
10:51:39 Thanks so much, mayor, for spending some time today and coming in.
10:51:44 Director Callahan, did you have any comments?
10:51:46 >> Oh, thank you.
10:51:54 That was so lovely to hear on behalf of all of the staff of the Housing Bureau.
10:51:56 We greatly enjoy working with this committee.
10:51:57 And it is a bright spot.
10:52:03 We are fortunate all of us to be part of something that makes you feel good in a time when it's really difficult.
10:52:11 And seeing how hard all of our partners and contractors are working under just extraordinary circumstances.
10:52:19 I mean as Kevin said even getting things notarized can be a challenge, let alone getting lumber or securing the right kind of pricing.
10:52:26 And you know the housing bureau doesn't do this work without our partners and without our other bureau partners at the city.
10:52:38 And I just wanted to say especially while the mayor is on the call, how much the Bureau of Development Services has been supporting our Housing Bureau and our partners.
10:52:44 And I know how difficult it is for them.
10:52:48 Just gratitude, we have an amazing team at the Housing Bureau.
10:52:51 As you know directors sometimes come and go from bureaus.
10:52:58 But it's really the folks who do this work day in and day out that are the heart of our bureau and deserve all of the credit in the world.
10:53:02 So thank you for the acknowledgment of the great team at the bureau.
10:53:08 >> Shannon, thanks everybody for your work today and all of the presenters who stepped into the space to do so.
10:53:12 Our next meeting is scheduled for the 4th of February.
10:53:17 It will be at this time and we will be I presume in this platform.
10:53:25 Hopefully by the following meeting in April we will be able to step into a space where we can see one another.
10:53:30 And I'm going to borrow your word, mayor, unprecedented.
10:53:40 And I'm going to say that what happens in unprecedented times are unprecedented responses which you find out in a crisis is what you're made of.
10:53:44 And there's nothing like the truth of pressure and the product that comes out of it.
10:53:50 So I appreciate the product and how everyone is pressed in to the pressure to keep this vital work at the center.
10:53:52 Thank you so much for your time.
10:53:58 Look forward to seeing you on another.
10:54:02 Take care everybody and have a great Thursday.
10:54:02 Bye-bye.
10:54:05 >> Thank you, everybody.