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Concerns about vacancies in supportive housing units
1:39:39
ยท
3 min
Council Member Brewer raises concerns about a high number of vacancies in supportive housing units, citing one nonprofit with 100 vacancies. Commissioner Tigani discusses efforts to address the issue, including changes to rental policies and technological improvements.
- One nonprofit reportedly has 100 vacancies in supportive housing
- HPD is working on improving the re-rental process and Housing Connect system
- A new dashboard is being developed to track vacancies across agencies
- The exact number of total vacancies is not known by HPD, but is tracked by HRA
Gale A. Brewer
1:39:39
They're putting people in who do not meet the criteria.
1:39:42
Okay.
1:39:43
Supportive housing, same problem.
1:39:45
And maybe that this is more of a, not occupying the apartment quickly enough.
1:39:52
I mentioned before, and I don't wanna mention the nonprofit, and there may be others, that one nonprofit has a hundred vacancies right now in support of housing.
1:40:01
A hundred.
1:40:01
And I just I guess my question is, do you know if that's normal?
1:40:06
I mean, you keep track of how many vacancies?
1:40:08
And then, of course, I know you're trying to speed up the, you know, occupying the unit, but that's a lot.
Ahmed Tigani
1:40:16
Yes.
Gale A. Brewer
1:40:16
So how are we I'm just saying there are so many, you know, units out there that are available.
1:40:22
And so I'm trying to do you have any sense of how fast it takes to get into a supportive unit?
1:40:27
How are you changing the way in which we're occupying them, if at all?
1:40:32
But 100 is available right now with one nonprofit.
Ahmed Tigani
1:40:35
So if knowing any specific information is good, just in general we have heard a lot about the re rental policies.
1:40:44
And in the past what we've done, had two exceptions that we were using before.
1:40:48
One was that if a building opted to commit 15% of the total units of the building to formerly homeless set aside, we would be able to find a way to use open market solutions as well as long as the units were eligible.
1:41:03
Part of it had to do with the system that we built.
1:41:08
Housing Connect has gone through two iterations so far, 2016 and 2020.
1:41:12
We are, you know, having a centralized system where people have optics in and be able to see clearly what's available is great and is good.
1:41:20
And this is more general, not the supportive.
1:41:23
But sometimes the tech doesn't work the way we need it to work.
1:41:26
We've got a contract in place now that we're updating that technology.
1:41:31
But in the interim, we have units that are available and people who are not getting access to those units.
1:41:37
So we had put in two solutions recently.
1:41:41
We don't think that we're solving all the problems, so we're actually working in the next couple weeks to roll out more, more short term, interim ideas while we work on a long term solution on the tech.
Gale A. Brewer
1:41:53
Okay.
1:41:53
I guess my question would also be to call the supportive housing from FIPS to Volunteers of America, blah blah blah, how many vacancies do you have?
Ahmed Tigani
1:42:01
So HR partners and HRA are the ones who
Gale A. Brewer
1:42:04
track They're supposed to do that?
Ahmed Tigani
1:42:06
Well, actually supportive housing is a multi agency.
Gale A. Brewer
1:42:09
I understand that.
Ahmed Tigani
1:42:09
Right?
1:42:10
So HRA tracks that.
1:42:12
However, we are working on a new dashboard.
1:42:16
We're using home ARP funds right now to build a dashboard so that instead of passing spreadsheets and going through sort of a really bad connectivity on information, we're building a single dashboard so that HPD, DSS, HRA will be able to see it in real time.
1:42:33
It was one of the innovations we identified last year and we should be in procurement fairly soon.
Gale A. Brewer
1:42:38
When do you think that dashboard might be completed?
Ahmed Tigani
1:42:40
So we're in procurement this year, and then we're gonna figure out with the vendor how quickly we can develop a scope.
1:42:46
We'll probably use
Gale A. Brewer
1:42:46
In the interim, I'm just suggesting an intern can call everybody and say how many vacancies do you have?
Ahmed Tigani
1:42:51
We can get that information.
Gale A. Brewer
1:42:52
And then you can work together, maybe, with other agencies to put somebody in that unit.
1:42:57
I mean, you're talk am I guessing I hate to say this, but you're probably talking 600 or more vacant supportive housing units right here.
Ahmed Tigani
1:43:05
So, councilmember, I don't know what the number is, but I know that HRA
Gale A. Brewer
1:43:07
I know it's a hundred at one.
Ahmed Tigani
1:43:09
So I know that HRA knows the number today.
1:43:11
We can make sure we can
Gale A. Brewer
1:43:12
I bugged Molly about it?
1:43:13
She didn't want to hear about it.
Ahmed Tigani
1:43:14
I I we will follow-up with you, but this
Gale A. Brewer
1:43:17
is Okay.
Ahmed Tigani
1:43:17
This is one of the things we're working on.
Gale A. Brewer
1:43:19
Okay.