Exploring the Opportunities: Affordable, Accessible and Integrated Housing 101 -- Part Two. Presenters: Jay Klein and Steve Gold. >> SHARON: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the webcast and teleconference, Exploring the Opportunities for Affordable, Accessible and Integrated Housing for People with Disabilities, presented by Steve Gold and Jay Klein and Brenda Stinebuck will be joining us in the middle. I'm Sharon Finney with ILRU and I'll be your moderator today. I have a couple of technical things I need to go over with you before we get started. Our presenters will pause for questions at that time. If you could take yourself off of a speaker phone and speak directly into the hand or headset, that would be preferred. For those of you participating via the web, you can E-mail your questions directly by clicking on the link at the bottom of the RealOne Player or sending your questions directly to webcast@ilru.org. I'll forward those questions to the presenter at that time. And should you encounter any problems during today's presentation, you can call our technical support staff at (713)520-0232. Now I'd like to introduce Richard Petty, program director for the Community Living Exchange Collaborative at ILRU. Good afternoon, Richard. >> RICHARD: Thank you, Sharon. And welcome, again, to everyone who has joined us on our webcast today, which is exploring the opportunities of affordable, accessible and integrated housing. This webcast is sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Rehabilitation Services Administration and ILRU's Community Living Exchange, a partnership of ILRU and Rutgers University. We are pleased this afternoon to have two excellent presenters, in fact, as far as housing information is concerned, information about affordable, accessible, integrated housing, it doesn't get any better than what we have today. I am very pleased to introduce to you today Steve Gold, a civil rights attorney, whose practice involves exclusively people with disabilities and disability issues and Steve has done several webcasts for us in the past on housing, all of which have been very well received. and so, Steve, welcome to you and we're very pleased that you're here. >> STEVE: My pleasure. >> RICHARD: And we also have our partner in the Community Living Exchange Collaborative at ILRU, Jay Klein, who is also with CHANCE, an organization devoted to integrated housing for people with disabilities. And Jay has significant expertise in housing, including working with the Home of Your Own Alliance and in providing community services for community supports for people with disabilities. And we also have a guest today who is working on exemplary housing opportunities in Arkansas, Brenda Stinebuck, who is the director of the Spa Area Independent Living Services in Hot Springs, Arkansas. With no further introductions and with many people waiting and with a lot of information to be shared, I will pass the conference to Jay Klein. Jay, welcome and thank you. So glad you're here. >> JAY: Thank you, Richard. That was one of the best introductions I've had in long time, I don't know about you, Steve. >> STEVE: Absolutely. >> JAY: This is part two of a webcast that Steve and I did in October called Exploring the Opportunities for Affordable, Accessible and Integrated Housing 101. This particular conference is part two in the sense that it's not 101 and it's not going to be 201 or 202, and so that what we're going to do is talk about the basics of creating and pursuing the options and opportunities related to affordable, accessible and integrated housing. And for us, the issue of affordable, accessible housing is very important. And as we said on our last call, if we just look at affordable and accessible housing, there is possibilities that we can forget integration. And if we forget integration, the opposite of integration is segregation. And what we don't want to do is forget the word integration when we think about housing. And so Steve and I are committed to looking for opportunities, pursuing opportunities for affordable, accessible, and integrated housing and that's what we're going to dedicate this call to today and a continuation of that discussion. And so what we wanted to start with is just to say if this is the right call for you, if you're interested in the basics in that area, we really want you to be here and if you're on the wrong call, we hope to do other calls in the future. So we're hoping that the people who are staying on the line and staying on the web are the right people. Last call there were a number of -- one of the reasons why we went with part two was the last call there were a number of questions that were left unanswered and were sent to us by E-mail. Many of those questions we did respond to, but in preparing for this call, Steve and I discussed that we might want to start this call with those questions because many of the people on this particular call would not have heard those answers and might have been interested in those. So Steve is going to start with the questions. He'll read the question and then give an answer and if there is some input that I have to that, then I'll also give some input. >> STEVE: After which we're going to then talk about two or three very specific programs, federal programs to achieve the affordable, accessible, integrated housing. And after that we're going to open up the phones for the full range of questions and answers. A question that was sent October 30th is that -- the first one was who develops the public housing plan? If you remember correctly from October, we talked about how it was critical for each local community to become players in the housing process, and part of that we talked about two specific ways: One was through the consolidated plans that are done on a regular -- annual basis and they have two public hearings a year and there is another whole set of plans specifically related to public housing, and public housing plans, one year and three year plans. And the question this person asked is who develops it? Well, they're developed by the local housing authorities board of directors. They have to be approved by the board, probably they're actually developed by the Executive Director and staff, but the final approval is given by the board. Now, in terms of becoming active players, you guys have to be part of that process. You have to be going to the board meetings of your housing authorities and making them aware that accessibility is critical for people with disabilities. And integration of accessible units is critical, and that you want them in their housing plans for next year and for the three years to make sure that they are in fact doing that and it's part of the plan. And if it's not there, you really want to go to the regional HUD office and complain, and the part of becoming a player in this housing process, you've got to have your input into the housing plan at the level of the Board of Directors of the housing authority. Next question someone asked was -- >> JAY: Just one thing, Steve. >> STEVE: Sure, absolutely. >> JAY: You mention this, but it's very important not only going to the board meetings, but these plans require, by law, public hearings. >> STEVE: Yes. >> JAY: So people need to participate in those also. >> STEVE: and the public hearings are terrific opportunities to get disabled people organized and together and understanding that all of housing is politics with a small p, and you guys have to be there. A question someone asked October 30th is I have not heard mention of U.S. DA rural development programs. Are there programs there we should be looking at to support people with disabilities in rural areas? And the answer is absolutely yes, it is critical, and I'm going to give you a specific website that will list all the programs that are available on the rural development. And the website is -- get your pencils guys -- it's www.usda.gov. When you get on that web page, click on agencies and services, and you go down to the rural development. And then you have two options there to go to, single-family and the multi-family housing. Now, there are lots of very, very good programs under the rural development program from incredibly good 1 percent type loans for mortgage assistance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and they are all administered by the rural development USDA and your regional people should be gotten to. Next question: Regarding 811 being segregated, the person wrote, I believe 811 funds can be used now with tax credits, which should make it more integrated. Or am I thinking of another program? There is no question that tax credits -- the low income housing tax credits can be used for all sorts of programs, whether it be 811, but the tax credits in and of themselves would not make them integrated. The fact that they get a tax credit does not get the goal of integration for an 811 project. So it remains segregated. Next question someone asked is my understanding that recipients of tax credit do not have to comply with 504. Has this changed? The answer is -- I assume by that the questioner meant under Section 504 is this -- is a tax credit considered federal financial assistance. That's a quote-unquote federal financial assistance, triggering all the Section 504 duties and responsibilities. The answer to the question is that tax credits have not been considered federal financial assistance. This is not necessarily something that's logical, but it is the way it is, and, therefore, Section 504 duties do not directly trigger in. Later on in this telecast we will be talking specifically about low income housing tax credits again, and I'll tell you how you can play with them to get the 504 duties to trigger in through another source. A question was -- and this is a big city that is attempting to do some research onset aside for use for disability housing. The housing authority uses different definitions for disabled. Specifically they use elderly and consider them to be disabled. They don't like to use Section 8 for disabled because it violates their notion that Section 8 and all conventional public housing should be temporary. Therefore, the folks that can't be processed into jobs and training programs are shunned, especially folks with mental disabilities. And they wanted to know whether this was legal or not. Well, Section 8, which we did discuss last time, and I did it myself two telecasts ago, are administered by your local housing authorities that administers two programs. One program which we think of normally for public housing is the bricks and the mortars, sometimes we call them projects, sometimes we call them all different things, but the other program they administer is the Section 8 housing voucher. Now, for each program, part of the housing authority's plan, there is -- there are specific questions that HUD makes them answer in terms of preferences, in terms of whether people with disabilities are getting them, et cetera, et cetera. They cannot discriminate based on one type of disability versus another type of disability. That would not fly by 504 or the ADA, I think. And lumping together this question seems to -- seems to suggest is that you have to be -- you're disabled only if you sort of reach some magic age requirement is also one fly and not legal; but this question is a great one for understanding why you got to become a player. If this was on your -- either your public housing plan or part of a consolidated plan, et cetera, and the disabled community was at the table, they would be able to educate the writers of this as to why that's bad policy and it's illegal. But if you're not there, it's not going to happen. Next question -- bear with me. Previous fair share HUD voucher NOFA's to people in nursing homes and people with disabilities on waiting lists. The last HUD super NOFA did not include this. So this city asked their housing authority to do it locally and wanted to know whether the housing authority really has the authority to do this on their own. Let me explain what this meant. The NOFA was to get vouchers in the last few years. HUD has given extra points on the applications since these were by competition to receive the vouchers. And if you agreed that -- I don't remember by memory, but I think it's 15 percent of the vouchers go to people with disabilities, you would get a certain number of extra points on your application if you said another 3 percent would go to recipients of Medicaid's home and community-based waivers and you would get some more points. And that helps the local housing authority to do that. This person said -- and I don't know whether it's accurate or not -- whether the last NOFA did not include those extra points. But in any event, they wanted to know could the local housing authority set aside a certain number, whether it's 15 percent or 3, of their vouchers for persons with disabilities generally and for people getting out of the Medicaid how many and community-based waiver. The answer is absolutely yes. The local authority -- this would be in terms of their preferences and priorities, in terms of people who are going to get it. And again, I'm going to sound like a broken record today. You only get those preferences, you only become a priority if you're at the table when they're writing these plans F. you're meeting with you're elected officials to make them sensitized to how the disability community has been discriminated against for the last 16 years at least in terms of housing and they are not getting their fair share. Okay, I think that's it, Jay. >> JAY: Sounds good, Steve. And we're both going to sound like broken records today, aren't we. >> STEVE: Yes. >> JAY: There is a bumper sticker I really like and I bet a lot of people on the call have seen it. It says think globally, but act locally. And really, what we're talking about is so basic, we have to uncover what resources our community has and the only way we're going to uncover those resources, and the only way that we're going to know what's available is to get to know our community. We don't need to be housing experts, necessarily, to understand what resources may be available in our community. We just -- we need to uncover them by just knowing some real basics and we're going to talk about some basics right now and how you might be able to uncover some of those stones. The other part about it -- and we did mention this on our last call is that once we uncover some resources, we have to then say, okay, so what's our plan? If we're going to develop the relationships that are going to be necessary for us to pursue affordable, accessible, and integrated housing, what's the plan? And how are we going to pursue that? Who do we need to include? Who do we need to bring in? So what we're going to do now is talk about some specific resources, and we're going to kind of go back and forth in relation to these resources, and Steve, do you want to start with HOME? >> STEVE: Okay, the HOME program, call caps, who knows why. That's the way it's always done, so we live with it. This is a fascinating federal program that since 19 -- oh, 19 -- >> JAY: 1987. >> STEVE: but the data I have between 1992 and 2003, HUD allocated $13 billion for this program. It is in fact caused to result in 665,000 committed units and another 500,000 actually already finished units. They were talking about a big program that most disability advocates aren't fully aware of, of how it functions, how they can become players, where the vulnerable spots are for influencing decision-making. So let me just very briefly -- Jay and I agreed it's important to know it. We can't give it in the detail I want, but 60 percent -- 60 percent of the federal money to your state is allocated to specific locales by entitlement. The bigger counties, the bigger cities, et cetera, larger in terms of population, receive a certain amount of HOME money each year to directly from HUD. The other 40 percent to your state goes through your state housing finance agency, which immediately tells you the following, guys: There are at least two players you've got to be aware of. You've got to be aware of your housing finance agency and when they are deciding about the HOME money, and you have to be aware of your local housing recipient of the HOME money and what they're deciding. And the reason it is, is that HUD just gives the money. After that, there is an incredible amount of discretion that will be -- that determines how the money will be allocated. How that $13 billion -- and that's a B. I'm talking, 13 billion, would have been spent over these last ten years or so. And there are four different ways the money can be spent -- four maybe -- yeah, four. It can be done by -- it can be used for new construction. It can be used for rehabilitation. It can be used for acquisition of property, and -- and this is a brilliant point -- it can be used for something called tenant-based rental assistance, which is another way of saying vouchers, except it's not through the housing voucher program. It's through the HOME program. And the thing about how you decide -- in your locales about the spending and allocating this discretionary money that they're going to get every year, is through the consolidated plan that the state has to put out, that the local housing people that get their money have to put out. So you've got to be there and tell them what do you want. A fascinating thing when looking at the numbers for the last ten years, I think fascinating, is the percent of money that goes to people who are really the lowest income. For example, about 91 percent of -- well, I don't want to say it that way. The money has clearly, clearly been used primarily for low income -- for low income people, meaning people between the 0 and 30 percent of the median. Obviously for the home ownership part of the program for either new construction or rehab versus the rental, it increases from 30 to 50 percent of the median income in terms of people receiving those benefits. You guys have to decide what do you want. What do you want? What's the need? What's the greatest need? Where should the greatest need be focused? Is it on home ownership? Is it on rental units? Is it on vouchers? You guys have to decide this and get to the player -- the professionals who are making these decisions without you at the table. You've got to get there and you've got to tell them, look, we know how much money you've gotten in the past. We know approximately how you've spent it. And you can get all that from the consolidated plans. It's all on your local consolidated plans, and we want it to be changed in the future. And the reason we want it to be changed is because -- and make your argument. If you're not at the table, I promise you, the issue of accessibility, the issue of integration, et cetera, will not occur. Now, the thing about HOME money in terms of the three goals, accessible, affordable, integrated housing is that the accessibility, the afford built and the integration all must be done. This is clearly federal financial assistance and all the Section 504 requirements are triggered by this money. Obviously for Title II of the ADA that is also triggered, maybe even depending on how they are building the Fair Housing Act, the requirements would be in play. But clearly Section 504, which means certain percentages have to be accessible, and that's just a floor. 5 percent is a minimum. If you in your area need more, you've got to make sure they get more and you can easily do that. It's totally discretionary by the local recipients. Jay, what do you think? >> JAY: Do you want me to add a few things? >> STEVE: Yeah, please. >> JAY: or would you like to introduce our surprise guest? >> STEVE: Either way. >> JAY: Just a couple of things: In 2003 to even continue to go with some of your -- the statistics that you mentioned, there was $2 billion of HOME money allocated. 38 states acted as -- received HOME dollars and acted as the participating jurisdiction, which means they actually administered part of that or a portion of that allocation. >> STEVE: You mean the state housing finance people? >> JAY: the state housing finance people. And so why are those agencies important? Over 450 million of those dollars in 2002 were administered by housing finance agencies. So it's an agency that every state has, and 38 of them are administering them or a portion of them. And the reason that Congress created HOME dollars is they required a match. They required that each dollar of HOME dollars given to a state be matched with 25 cents. So 25 percent needed to be matched. States have actually -- in relation to affordable, accessible housing, the same population, Steve, that you've mentioned. Most states have actually accessed more than that 25-cents of public and private additional dollars. >> STEVE: Let's introduce our surprise guest. >> JAY: Okay, go for it. >> STEVE: I thought you were going to do it. >> JAY: Okay. One of us will do it for sure. The person that we're talking about, Brenda Stinebuck, is from Arkansas, from Hot Springs Arkansas and is the Executive Director of the independent living center in hot springs. Richard mentioned Brenda at the very beginning of the call, and Brenda mentioned to Steve and I some money that they have just recently accessed that some HOME money that they've recently accessed for affordable, accessible and integrated housing. And we asked Brenda to be on this call. Late notice and we really appreciate you being here to talk a little bit about the process that they used to access this funding and what the funding is all about. Brenda. >> STEVE: Take it a way. >> BRENDA: Thanks a lot. I'm real honored to be asked to be on here today and the first thing I want to say is that everything I'm going to say is true because it's going to sound like I'm a plant to make Steve and Jay look good because everything they've said up until now is exactly what we've done. A year ago -- well, last June actually, I went to the going home transition workshop that ILRU had down in Houston. That was the first time I had ever heard of a state housing finance authority. I didn't know what such agencies existed. I didn't know what they were. I didn't know much about HOME funds. I knew that our state had gotten together a group called the governor supported housing task force, and I knew that they had gone to somebody and got some money set aside, some rental assistance set aside for people with disabilities coming out of institutions. We had heard about this money, and the centers for independent living were waiting for it to happen and waiting and waiting and it never happened. Well, after I went to the transition workshop, I decided to contact our state housing finance authority and talk to them about some of the things that I had learned there. One thing I want to say is when I went and talked to them, they complimented me on my knowledge of the programs and the accuracy of the information that I had. So I think that's real important to note that these guys really do kind of know what they're talking about here. And so we went to the state housing finance authority and they were the people who had these HOME funds set aside. There was $300,000 set aside for people transitioning out of institutions or people at risk of entering institutions. And I don't know about you guys, but to me that says all people with disabilities. They had put an R. F. P. out. It had been out for a year, and they had not received one single proposal. They had -- the state housing finance authority had gotten permission to open it back up and they were still waiting for someone to come along and say, yes, we will administer these funds. Well, after meeting with them, first what I did was go back to my local housing authority and try to -- try to encourage them to submit a proposal for these funds. So that we could work together on it, and we met with them three times. Each time they said they were interested and they would look into it and get back to us. Well, still I knew this money was just sitting there and my fear was -- and the fear of the state housing finance authority -- was that if someone didn't apply for this money, it says that it's not needed and at some point in time it goes a way. So I contacted them again and said, you know, we -- we as the center for independent living, we have no expertise in administering vouchers or inspecting houses or anything like that, but we do have expertise in connecting community supports and that piece of the program that they wanted for this proposal. They encouraged us to apply. So we came back and we started thinking about it, and I looked at the proposal, and a lot of it was very technical, very focused towards housing authorities, but they had promised that they would help us with all the technical stuff once we got the grant, once we got the proposal. So I went ahead and applied and in my application that we submitted, it's very broad. We -- when we're working trying to get people out of nursing homes, we could not really identify certain areas of the state that they wanted to go because folks may be in a nursing home in one area and want to live somewhere else. So we just said we were going to locate folks in the community of their choice in the state of Arkansas. We didn't put a lot of restrictions on who was eligible, who was not eligible or where they had to go or anything like that. And our proposal was funded, and I think that the -- so now we have $289,000 for the program that Steve mentioned called the tenant-based rental assistance. This is vouchers for community housing. We're supposed to be able to serve 100 people for up to two years with this. It hasn't actually begun yet. We've gotten -- we've been approved. We know we've gotten the grant. They're still working on their end as far as all the paperwork and everything, but my main point is that this money is out there. Housing authorities aren't necessarily interested in it because there is not a lot of administration money or anything like that. And we get to kind of make it up as we go along. So we get to kind of make the rules as we go along to fit the needs of the population that we're serving. So we're very excited about the opportunity. And I just want to encourage other folks to find out what HOME funds are available in their state, just like Steve and Jay have said, and to consider going for it. I think it's a great opportunity for centers for independent living. We're out there hunting down housing any way. So we might as well be the one -- the agency administering the vouchers. >> JAY: and be able to help 100 people get out of nursing homes and stay out. >> STEVE: So all we need is more Brendas around and we all can be Brendas, I guess, but you took the initiative and that's wonderful. >> JAY: and we really appreciate you sharing that with us. >> STEVE: One of the reasons we wanted Brenda on is that one of the things that I think we've both really begun to discover is that there is very little communication that's talking about what's working. What's been successful, what are the best practices helping to achieve the affordable, accessible, integrated housing. And here is one state that -- and one Executive Director and one independent living center that's doing it. Jay, what do you know about -- I heard something more about Texas is doing something with HOME money. >> JAY: So just released in the last couple of weeks the Texas department of housing and community affairs, which is the finance agency -- the housing finance agency for the state of Texas just released $24 million of single-family HOME money. And as part of that HOME money, they will allocate 5 percent of that money towards people with disabilities; but even more than that, when you start to really look at the availability of that money and what you can do, they have home buyer assistance for people who are low income. Eligible home buyers with disability can also receive $15,000 of down payment assistance if you have a disability, you can receive 15,000. If you don't have a disability, you receive 10,000. So all of these kinds of things, you have to look and see what the HOME plan is saying. There is owner-occupied housing assistance as related to their HOME allocation. So that people can use that money for rehabilitation, reconstruction and cost assistance. So as they allocate that money to local communities, those local communities then have to comply with that. And right now, they're saying that 45 percent of the HOME allocation will be available for allocation to their communities, meaning that about 9 -- between 9 and $10 million will be allocated to local communities. So that local participating jurisdictions, many times those are city or county agencies, then administer those dollars. And so you can actually access that money on a local level. The big thing that they did in relation to what Brenda just -- just mentioned is they have released about $3.5 million in tenant-based rental assistance. Specifically -- and they're even calling it this -- that it's an Olmstead set aside. So that this money is targeted to people who are -- who are protected under the Olmstead decision. People who are transitioning from nursing homes or leaving nursing homes to move to the community, state mental retardation facilities, community -- intermediate care facilities, state mental health facilities, other institutional settings. People who want to go to their community. >> STEVE: Jay, one of the reasons that's so critical is that most of the time when we think about Olmstead, we think about waivers, and therefore, we think about medical assistance and the departments all over this country that administer medical assistance probably have no knowledge of what kind of housing money is out there and available to supplement getting people -- you know, the waiver kind of money for attendant care that supplement putting together a fuller -- a full Olmstead package. And probably the housing finance people in those states are not even sitting at the same table talking about Olmstead, but they are critical to get to the housing issue. >> JAY: and the one thing I'll say about that, Steve, because we're going to continue to move on with this, is that go to the Texas website, look at their Olmstead initiatives and if you go -- now I'll read a website. The website to go to is www.edhca -- which stands for the department of housing and community affairs. So www.tdhca.state.tx.us. Go to that website and again you can send us an E-mail if for some reason you didn't get that down and look at what Texas is doing. Go to your local communities, your state communities, your state finance agencies, show them what might be possible. >> STEVE: One of the things I think would be really great is is that if other states are doing creative things with their HOME money, let us know. Let's start passing this information around so that the Brendas of the world in Arkansas and Texas are not the only states that are known about, but we can talk about what other states are doing as different models. Because we've really got to develop sort of a best practices store house of information to use, and those states that might not be doing very much and for those centers that may need some help to figure out what to do. I mean, I'd be glad to pass stuff around. >> JAY: and I would be -- and I would be, too. Steve, why don't you say a little bit more about tax credits. We'll talk about a few more things and then we'll open it up. >> STEVE: Okay, the low income housing tax credits -- it is a huge, huge pot of money every year that -- God, during the '90's, it was like a major source for big companies that wanted to get tax credits. We are talking credits, not deductions now. This is much more valuable for companies than just a deduction. This is a credit. And these are all administered through your state housing finance agency. The way it works is the federal government -- in this case not HUD but I. R. S -- allocates based on the number of people, et cetera, in your state, a formula giving your state housing finance agency a certain amount of tax credit authority to then allocate to anyplace in the state, to companies, et cetera, and nonprofits, et cetera, that are going to be getting into the housing game and building low income -- remember it's called the low income housing tax credit. Now, one of the problems -- or there are several problems, not to diminish from us getting into this because we really do have to get into it -- is that as I said in one of the answers to one of the questions in the beginning, this is not considered quote-unquote federal financial assistance. So that when your state housing finance agency allocates money to build 30 units with low income housing tax credits, Section 504 does not automatically go into force because it is a tax credit and not a federal financial assistance. However, saying that is only the beginning of the inquiry. One of the things that we've seen now in the last ten years is that most developers that really want and need the low income housing tax credits -- not all, but most -- many -- put together a package and look for different sources of tax credits and money so that you may get a developer for those 30 units. Not just low income housing tax credits that have been authorized by the state finance agency, but you also may get some HOME money or you may get some Community Development Block Grant money, CDBG money in the same project. Whereas the low income housing tax credit will not trigger the Section 504 5 percent, 2 percent duties, the HOME money sure does. The CDBG money sure does, so that even though one source of the money doesn't trigger because that developer building those units got money from some other source that does trigger, then whatever number of units are involved are required to be accessible. The other thing about that that's really, really important -- two things actually. One, a number of states have begun to put a requirement on their -- on their low income housing tax credits that the recipients have to comply with Section 504, meaning the recipient of the low income housing tax credit must have 5 percent of the units or more -- no reason to keep it at 5 percent. Can you do 8 percent, 10 percent or whatever you want that's accessible. And the experience I think we've had is that the developer doesn't care. That is, the developer so much wants that low income housing tax credit, that to make 5 percent or 10 percent of the units accessible when you're building new construction or whether doing rehab, et cetera, it's not a big deal for them. And they're not -- they don't squawk very much about having to comply. The trick is you've got to get your housing finance agency to make that a condition of receipt of the low income housing tax credit. And the second trick of that is you then have to make your low income housing tax credit -- the second trick is you have to make your state housing finance agency monitor the low income housing tax credits to make sure that, in fact, the percentage are accessible. Because there is no question affordable. We can get the affordability to a large number, if not all, but a large number. It's accessibility and holding them accountable. And I think the more we start becoming players with the housing finance agency, the more you're going to be able to hold them accountable to make sure when they do make those conditions as part of the eligibility for receiving low income housing tax credits, they'll begin to enforce them. >> JAY: You know, I'll throw out some more numbers. State housing agencies allocated over $5.7 billion in low income housing tax credits. >> STEVE: Last year. >> JAY: Since 1987 -- and that equals 306,267 low income apartments financed through housing tax credit. And so here we have over 300,000 apartments and a percentage of those need to be accessible. And find out where they are. >> STEVE: They need to be accessible if there is another source of federal financial assistance or if the state housing finance agency has made receipt of the credit conditioned on complying with Section 504. And that's right, you do have to find out where they are. It's not that difficult -- I mean it is difficult, but it's not impossible by along shot to find out. Most of the time they are recorded on the deeds. So if you have a place and you think it's potentially a recipient of the low income housing tax credit, you just check the deed because the credit has to run with the deed, and which means that the recipient of the tax credit cannot just sell the property and that property then loses its requirements do comply with having affordable housing. It runs with the property. So there is some protection for ten or 11 years, I don't remember offhand, one or the other. But there is lots and lots of money out there, and until the disability community says, hey, what about us? I don't have any doubt that there is no -- we're not going to get the benefits of all that -- all that money. go ahead, Jay. >> JAY: Well, do we want to mention a few more things? >> STEVE: Sure. >> JAY: Just quickly. We'll make mention of this and we'll also promise during the questions if you want us to go into a little more depth. One thing that both of us, both Steve and I are intrigued with -- and this is not for everyone -- it's something called Community Housing Development Organizations or CHDO and you may have heard of CHDOs and referred to as CHDOs. CHDOs are a nonprofit organization and community-based organizations and their primary purpose is to provide decent, affordable housing for people in the community that it serves. And so if people with disabilities are saying we want affordable, accessible, and integrated housing, CHDOs then have to develop that kind of housing. But the other part of that is that it's possible for a group of people to get to go and start a CHDO around the purpose of providing affordable, accessible, integrated housing to your community. And there is all sorts of information on how to become a CHDO, why become a CHDO, what are the reasons to become a CHDO or to -- why would anyone want to do that? >> STEVE: Well, one reason, Jay, is that by statute, 15 percent of the HOME money has to go to CHDOs. >> JAY: and they also receive -- I mean the 15 percent, but they also receive special assistance such as predevelopment loans, technical assistance in operating funds from the participating jurisdiction, and all of that is required also, and it's not available to other types of organizations. So they get special preference, both from the participating jurisdiction in addition to HUD. They perform services to contractors. They can have other nonprofits that receive some of their funding. They can act as a developer of housing where they can go in and purchase a piece of property, make it affordable, accessible, and integrated, and then sell it to another nonprofit organization to manage it or to another developer or another housing agency. So there is a number of things they can do. And I guess what we would do is we would encourage you to -- if you're interested in this, one, to contact us and we can certainly put you in touch with some resources; and also look up on the HUD website, which is hud.gov and look under CHDOs, and there is all sorts of information and manuals on what's required to be certified as a CHDO and what a CHDO is about. Steve, do you want to talk just a little bit about fair share vouchers? I know you've talked about that a number of times. >> STEVE: I guess I want to open up for questions, Jay. I just want everyone to know that very, very soon there will be another NOFA for fair share vouchers open. I'm not sure whether it will have -- as the last few years have been the extra points for -- if the applicant says we'll put aside 15 percent for people with disabilities or people in the home and community-based waivers, but we know that and I am really -- and hold them accountable and make sure they say they're going to do that, but the second thing that I'm really, really concerned about is in the last few years there have been a number of housing authorities that have told HUD that they were going to be using 15 percent of their fair share vouchers for people with disabilities and/or 3 percent for people under the Medicaid waivers and we have no way of holding them accountable. No one knows what's going on, whether this in fact has happened and people should be talking to their regional HUD offices and finding out how they're making sure that the housing authorities that applied and received these in the past are in fact doing it. And that's, again, sitting down and becoming a partner with them and becoming a player with them and knowing what they're doing and then knowing that you're there looking at them. >> JAY: Well, in addition to opening it up for questions, Steve, what I think we should also do -- especially after hearing what Brenda had to say, I'm sure that for many of us that are on the call that was the highlight of the call -- >> STEVE: Yep. >> JAY: if you want on ask a question, we're certainly happy to comment on your question. We're going to turn it over to Sharon in just a second, but also what we would like you to be able to do is if you have something -- some sort of program or some sort of project, you've accessed some funding which has created -- or you know about has created affordable, accessible and integrated housing that you'd like to tell the rest of the people on the call, briefly, we would like to hear about that, too. >> STEVE: Not just that, but also if you're partnering formally or informally with the housing authority or agency, et cetera, to get affordable, accessible housing, we'd like to know that, too. >> JAY: So feel free to ask a question or to make a statement and we'd really appreciate that. So Sharon, do you want to start with questions? >> SHARON: Yes, thank you, Jay. Thank you, Steve. I do have my first question, Brenda, and it is for you. Who are you working in cooperation with your PHA or your public housing authority, you got the grant but are you involved in any way because, as you said, you still didn't have expertise in the housing portion. >> BRENDA: Well, a couple of things that our local PHA has agreed to do for us is to share with us their list of community landlords who do accept vouchers and to work with us on doing the inspections. As you know, all of the rental property has to meet certain specs and everything, and they have the expertise in doing these inspections, and they have agreed to work with us in doing those. >> SHARON: Great. Thanks. At this time I was going to ask Kenny if he wanted to go on head and give the instruction for our callers. >> OPERATOR: At this time if you would like to ask a question or have a comment, please press the star key, followed by the one key on your touch tone phone now. Your questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. Any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, please press star two. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one. And your lines will be muted just after you ask your question. The first question comes from Barney Morris. >> CALLER: Yeah, this is Barney's assistance, but I'll ask the question. We're calling from Fresno, California. We're here at a CIL and this question is for Brenda. We're really interested in the tenant-based rental assistance. We're actually going to a meeting for perspective applicants for NOFA here in Fresno on Friday, and they're going to be talking about did HOME funding and we're really interested in knowing does or did your CIL need matching dollars and, second part, was it only for Olmstead consumers or for other consumers as well? >> BRENDA: Okay, first of all, no, we didn't have to put up any matching funds at all. And our proposal was directed at people with disabilities leaving institutions or at risk of entering an institution. And like I said earlier, depending on how you define that, we see that as the whole disability population because under the right circumstances, anybody could be at risk of entering an institution. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> OPERATOR: Once again if you would like to ask a question, press star one. The next question comes from Shannon. >> CALLER: I'm with grove house in Jacksonville, Florida, and we actually provide affordable community-based housing for adults with developmental and acquired disabilities and we kind of just did it on the fly. Didn't know what we were getting into. Started buying single-family homes in the area and started renting them out as S. R. O. units. As we're developing this model it's becoming more and more difficult to subsidize the rents. Fair market vent would be $1,000 a month for one of these houses and it gets to be a little bit of a stressor. The HUD waiting list for vouchers is closed -- been closed for years and isn't going to reopen. Do you have any suggestions other than begging around of anything other than maybe even nongovernmental that might help fill that -- bridge the gap so to speak? >> STEVE: the state program under the HOME -- have you looked at that to get whether any tenant-based rental assistance is available? Which is sort of a back door housing voucher. Is she still on the phone? >> OPERATOR: Her line has already been muted. >> STEVE: I'm sorry. I would look to see whether under did HOME -- whether -- I think she said she's from Florida -- the Florida housing finance agency, and I would go on their web page and see whether they have the -- any tenant-based rental assistance specifically that could be made available to supplement the rent. You need either vouchers -- you need some kind of rent supplement, no question. >> JAY: I would also check on why the waiting list is -- I would check into the waiting list also, Steve. Does this particular agency in Florida, if it was the state agency, do they have local preferences or preferences for their waiting list? And what are those preferences? Are they willing to add another preference. So when vouchers become available, that the agency will then allocate on behalf of the population that you happen to be concerned with. >> STEVE: and related to that, Jay, I think I would also double-check and triple check whether the housing authority has 100 percent of their vouchers leased up. >> JAY: Right. And the issue around -- without getting into all the specifics of it, not having those -- all those vouchers leased up is significant because that agency then can apply for new vouchers. And the reason -- many times people think okay those are unused vouchers, so if they have 90 percent lease rate, they say there is 10 percent available. Those vouchers might not necessarily be available because the agency may have issued those vouchers, but people are looking for places to live. So until they're leased -- until the person finds a place and there is a lease, they're not considered used, but the person -- when people are looking -- so they may have a lot outright now and the other thing is vouchers are returned and by time they go through all the bureaucracy to return the voucher and get it back out, that may take some time. Why might they have a low utilization rate needs to be found out also because those vouchers then may become available and from is local preferences then they're going to allocate based on those, maybe without opening up the waiting list. >> STEVE: Sharon. >> SHARON: Kenny, do we have any callers? >> OPERATOR: if you would like to ask a question, press star one. The next question comes from Carl. >> CALLER: Hi, this is mobile independent living center in Columbus, Ohio. We have a home modification program with CDBG funds with the city of Columbus. >> STEVE: Terrific. >> CALLER: It works really badly and we wanted to know, can we get the HUD funds straight from HUD rather than through the city of Columbus? >> STEVE: No. >> CALLER: No? >> STEVE: Why sit working poorly? Talk to me. >> CALLER: Mostly because -- I think because the city really keeps it at only 30 home mods a year rather than letting us do triple that many instead of letting -- you know, instead of letting us -- >> STEVE: Let me tell what you they did in Philadelphia. It took our independent living center in conjunction with the local ADAPT folks two years of going to every CDBG meeting and all the consolidated plan meetings and meeting local elected city council people, and all the time talking about affordable, accessible housing and home mod. This year, this past spring of '03, for the 'on 3-on 4 CDBG, I think they got a huge amount of money allocated, increasing the number of home mod programs two fold, maybe threefold solely because for a two-year period they were making this a high priority and becoming real players and making the elected officials totally aware of the problems that people with disabilities were having in terms of home mod. When you talk about the program, you know, not in great shape. It's not in great shape because there is not enough money there and you really want to make -- increase it substantially. And that's purely a political discretionary issue. I mean, when the city gets its CDBG money, they could put all of it in a home mod for one year. >> BRENDA: I think that goes back to the thing that you guys have said over and over about getting in on the planning stages because our city just started receiving CDBG money again this year for the first time in a long time. And we went to the planning meetings and while they don't have home mods in this year, they will next year, and we're going to be a subcontractor so that that fund does come from the city to us to administer the home mod program. >> STEVE: the other thing is you really got to know what's the extent of the need so that you really have to figure and do some kind of community survey to figure out, you know, what do they really need to sort of get up to an even starting line? Because if you haven't been getting the money for a number of years, you could have a huge waiting list or a huge back fill to make up. >> JAY: and the other point I would make is that many times it has to do with the relationships that you develop over time. So -- and I appreciate your story about where it's not available this year, but will be available next year. Developing those relationships now with the people who are making the decisions may pay off in 12 months, 24 months, 36 months. >> STEVE: the other source, by the way, of home mod money is the state housing finance agencies frequently get CDBG money as well. And they have to in their consolidated plan say how they're going to use not just their tax credit money, but also any CDBG money they get and want to make it a priority if this is what your priority is to do home mods for accessibility so people can stay in their own homes. >> SHARON: I just want to make a real brief announcement. We do want to apologize that about three o'clock everyone was knocked off the server and it looks like most of our parties have joined us back, but we do want the apologize for the disruption in the service today. We will capture this webcast and it will be archived. So for those of you who missed some of it, you can go back to the archive to actually access what you missed, and we do apologize. I do have a couple of really quick questions that I want to go ahead and ask you. How do we find out when and where the housing authority board meetings are? And how do I find out about the HOME funds in my state? >> STEVE: Okay, the easiest way is to go to a politician who is a friend of yours and ask them to find out for you. Only because -- I mean, if you don't have a relationship with the housing authority, it may be a bureaucracy to go through. Find out who is on the Board of Directors, maybe you'll recognize a name and just ask these people, when are the board meetings? They're normally -- most states have a public open access type requirement for public board meetings like this. And, you know, you want to go where is it and is it? It shouldn't be that hard. If you have any difficulty, call your regional HUD office and tell them you're having trouble finding out when your local housing authority is having their board meetings and you want to be able to participate and you're being denied it. What was the second part of the question? >> SHARON: the second part of the question was -- >> STEVE: I'm sorry. >> SHARON: How do I find out about the HOME funds in my state? >> STEVE: in my state meaning -- I assume the person means anywhere in the -- there are two different ways or at least three. First, HUD has a web page when you get on it you can actually go to your state. There is map on it and you can get a historical -- you can break it down in terms of local cities and stuff, but you can do historical -- get historical information about your state. The second way -- if you want to know like specific years, the consolidated plan either from the housing finance agency or if you live in a larger city or county that consolidated plan from those entities will say how they've spent their HOME money and are supposed to say what they plan to do in the future, in the next two or three years in terms of how they're going the spend their money. >> SHARON: Thank you. Kenny, do we have callers? >> OPERATOR: Yes, we have a question from Helen. >> CALLER: Go, go, go -- >> CALLER: Basically just a comment that we have an issue here in New York City where we have tax credit housing like the 80/20s, but the (Inaudible), so we really have to find a way to get like vouchers for the HOME program to try to be able to get consumers to qualify because almost all of or consumers are left out of the loop. >> STEVE: Because? >> CALLER: Because the income requirements for the 8020 requirements are below. >> STEVE: I agree. You must access vouchers either through the HOME program or through the housing voucher program to make up the difference. >> CALLER: and the housing voucher program here tends to be frozen and awaiting list 10,000 miles long. >> STEVE: How about the HOME vouchers? >> CALLER: That I'm not sure. >> CALLER: Could you offer more details or directions? >> STEVE: Yeah, the New York State housing finance agency has a pretty good web page, and you want to basically find out how much money per year they're allocates to the tenant-based rental assistance. You want to find out when their next meetings are. I mean, New York City is -- as New York City, Boston, San Francisco, maybe a few others where the rents are incredibly high and the market is such that people on SSI can't do it -- cannot do it without a rent supplement. No, I'm aware of that. But what you want them -- you want your state housing finance agency and how did the city of New York that received lots of money, putting aside vouchers to supplement for low income housing tax credit? >> CALLER: I believe those are kind of frozen. >> STEVE: No, no, I'm just saying for the future. If the state housing finance agency in New York is not -- and I don't have any knowledge at my fingertips of how much of their total HOME money is allocated to the tenant-based rental assistance -- but if that's the problem right now that you've built a lot of housing but you can't use them, low income people, disabled low income people because they're on SSI and cannot Ford, but you work for the next two or three years, money will be allocated for the tent ant-based rental assistance so people can get those vouchers through the HOME program to be able to use those units that are now there. >> CALLER: Okay. >> JAY: They have $190 million allocated in 2002. >> STEVE: Under the tenant-based? >> JAY: Under the HOME program. >> STEVE: Jay has just gotten a fact on the HOME program national. So he has it on his fingertips. Can you look up for New York how much of it goes to the tenant-based rental assistance. >> JAY: I'm looking it up as you talk. >> STEVE: That's another -- it's a fancy term for basically back door vouchers. And if Jay comes back and tells us, you know, the percentage of the overall HOME money to that is not as great as you think it should be, and more it is going into new construction or more it is going into rehab, et cetera, than you guys want -- because what good is new construction and rehab if the lowest income people can't afford it because they can't afford the rents. >> JAY: the total HOME programs committed in 2002 were 0 towards tenant-based rental assistance. >> STEVE: New York State, guys here there, 0 HOME money. That's the reason in New York City you can't do it. They're forcing you out of the city. They're using the money to build it for people whose income are much higher and there is no tenant-based subsidy for rent. >> SHARON: Jay, while you have that HOME information out, I have a question. How do we find out how much our state housing finance agency receives from the HOME program? >> JAY: From the HOME program. >> SHARON: How do they get that information? And the other question that's a little bit different, but along the same lines, is where mighty find a listing or source of information on what possible funding is out there for assistance? >> JAY: Let me start with the first question. The HOME dollars, again, Steve -- >> STEVE: I'm trying to look up quickly from my web page address. Tomorrow send me an E-mail, I'm not in my office right now. I'm doing this from a different source. I will get back to you tomorrow with a web page -- a web address that you can look up for New York. Now, the thing that's interesting that's really important is that New York City -- Jay, does your data book break down New York for this? That's only for the state agency? >> JAY: State agencies. >> STEVE: Probably -- probably I was too quick at the trigger. Probably none of the state agency money goes to New York City. New York City probably gets its HOME money directly from the Feds and what we have to find out through the New York -- the recipient of the HOME money, how much of it goes to the tenant-based rental assistance. You understand -- because by law when a state agency gets it, it goes to the smaller jurisdictions, and the larger jurisdictions get the money directly from HUD under the HOME. So the easiest way to find that out should be to look at the consolidated plan for New York City for the last few years, and see how they're spending the HOME money. >> JAY: and basically what Steve is saying, Sharon, in answer to that question is that the way to find out is to look at the consolidated plan and look at the allocation that HUD has posted on its website for any participating jurisdiction, which would be the state finance -- housing finance agencies, if they participate, 38 state housing finance agencies do, or -- and/or, the local jurisdictions so the county organizations or the city organizations that receive HOME dollars. >> STEVE: I am not sure that the latter is posted by HUD. I can't tell you where I am talking from now, but -- >> JAY: It's in the Federal Register and so I'm sure through HUD clips it's available because people -- I mean, once they allocate money, they do post it in the Federal Register of how much they're allocating of those dollars. >> STEVE: That's just going to give you for New York City the total dollar amount, not how they then spent it. >> JAY: Right. You'll have to look at your consolidated -- >> STEVE: That's correct. >> OPERATOR: There are no questions from the phone lines at this time. >> JAY: The other point I would just make about that is that many times -- many times you can find that information on that agency's website. So the city of New York or the city of hot springs, if they have -- or hot springs, Arkansas, if they have a consolidated plan, many times they'll talk about did allocation that they have and where they're going to spend that money. >> SHARON: Jay, I have a question from someone in Virginia, and they do not have a local financing agency there. Where can they look for local housing finance or state housing finance agencies? >> STEVE: This person says that Virginia -- >> SHARON: They are here in the area in Virginia and there is not a local financing agency. >> STEVE: the finance agency is a statewide agency. Jay, I mean, your data book -- do they list the addresses or the names for Virginia? >> JAY: They've had the Virginia housing development agency since 1972. >> STEVE: So there is a statewide housing finance agency for Virginia. It probably is in the state capital. And you guys -- do you have an address or something, Jay, that this person can -- >> JAY: I can certainly find that for you. >> STEVE: Yeah, it's really important. When we're talking about fines answer agency, we're talking about the state finance agency that basically services and funds the smaller jurisdictions for the HOME money. The larger jurisdictions in Virginia probably get their money directly from the Feds for the HOME program. That's different than the low income housing tax credit, all of which goes through your state housing finance agency, that then allocates it all over the state. Jay, did you find that answer? >> JAY: I'm looking for it right now and I will have it soon. Let's see if there is another question and I'll go back to it. >> SHARON: I do have a lot of questions. Have any consumer run disability organizations attempted to use tax credit to develop integrated housing opportunities? If so, could you share information which would help other organizations to do the same? >> STEVE: Well, I am not aware of any, but one of the things that could happen -- I mean that could be, I'm just not aware of it whether they've done it directly -- I do know that there are independent living centers that have set up other nonprofit corporations to basically do their housing development because of the prohibition in the federal regulations for the CILs directly; but they have set up other legal entities to do it. I don't know of many, by the way, but there are a few that have done it. >> JAY: Virginia housing development authority is in Richmond. And to access their website, it's dhda.com, and they there is the phone number and the address and how on contact them and there is even directions on how to get to their offices. >> SHARON: Thanks, Jay. This is one quick question and I know you get this question all the time. What does CDBG stand for? >> STEVE: Community Development Block Grant. It is a federal -- it's a HUD-funded program that the recipients being the state and the local entities get as an entitlement based on numbers of people. CDBG, unlike HOME, which is also that kind of entitlement, can be used for many, many, many different things, not just housing. It's been around for a long, long time, and it's been used for some good stuff and some not good stuff. One of the things that I've been urging people to do all over the country is to get to their -- to use the CDBG money for HOME mod to keep people in their homes and make their homes accessible. And we've been having -- we're beginning to have some success. >> SHARON: Great. Thank you, Steve. Kenny -- >> OPERATOR: Yes, we do have some questions. The first is from Lois Jackson. >> CALLER: a question -- how do you get the listings of the tax credit units in the county or the participants of those units? >> STEVE: That I can answer. Got a pencil? >> CALLER: Yes. >> STEVE: It's an incredibly long -- no www. You get on the web page and this is the address: Lihtc -- which obviously stands for low income housing tax credit -- dot HUD user.org. Now, you're going to ten do the following: You're going to go to your state and hit enter. After which when your state comes up, you'll be able to do it by county or by city, and there is certain things you can -- that you should do. You're going to be able to clearly get the street address, number of units, the number of low income units, the years they were put in credit, and the years in service, the years in construction, et cetera, by street address and total number of units. So you can do -- you can then find out where -- where the low income housing tax credits going back I don't know how many years, but a lot, that your local area has received. Did you get all that stuff in terms of the address? >> CALLER: Yes. >> STEVE: Good. >> SHARON: Thank you. Ken I. >> OPERATOR: Yes, we have a question from Barney Morris. >> CALLER: Yeah, we are in California. Our question is when we're looking at the consolidated plan for your city, will the tenant-based rental assistance be clearly on the index? I mean, would it be clearly marked tenant-based rental assistance or could it be under a different program? >> STEVE: I think it will be clear because the HOME program is used for basically, you know, limited number of things. If you think about it in terms of columns and rows, you know, it's rental, home buyer, homeowner are the columns and the rows would be new construction, rehabilitation, acquisition or the tenant-based rental assistance and you can apply each of them to the column meaning you can have rental -- you can have rental that's either new construction, rehab, acquisition or rental assistance. You can have home buyer that's new construction, rehab or acquisition. Et cetera, et cetera. But it should be clearly stated what they're using them for. If it's not, then someone is playing a game with you on the consolidated plan. >> SHARON: Thank you, Steve. More questions coming in, one in particular regarding the 2005 proposed HUD budget. Can you give everyone a few suggestions on national advocacy efforts. As I'm watching this webcast, E-mails are coming in regarding the 2005 proposed HUD budget that flat lines or even cuts the number of programs. It also attempts to change how Section 8 is funded. Last year, the administration attempted to block grant state to state, but that died. This year, they're trying to give it directly to housing authorities, HOME funds actually would increase. What argument can you make to our representatives to increase funding for Section 8 vouchers and other programs? >> STEVE: Well, one of the things that we found really persuasive -- I'm not sure this is going to work, but at least it's persuasive -- is that we know the percentage of people in the state who is on SSI. We know it by age, under 64, which means that they are disabled. We also know -- and therefore they need -- you know, that's the lowest income we're going to get in terms of people with disabilities, and you're going to basically be able to say how many -- you know, what's the market rate right now for housing and without subsidy for Section 8, these people can't afford it. One of the things we've done in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania is the disabled action and ADAPT and our local center for independent living, Liberty resource is putting out a fact sheet that's telling everybody how many people there are that need affordable, accessible housing. How many people are on SSI, et cetera, so that we all know what the problems are. And I think they're sending it to the elected officials in the Congress and the Senate. I don't know of any other way to make them see that there is a major crisis we're facing. If you start cutting back -- we're already down beyond the bone. You can't cut further unless they want to kill us. >> JAY: The interesting part about what the person who wrote in is pointing out, is that instead of calling it a block grant, they're calling it the flexible voucher program administered then by the -- that state. And so they're not calling it block grant, they're just saying we're changing the program name, but flexible voucher program is basically a block grant. >> SHARON: All right, we have just a little bit of time left and I'd like to ask one more question. Please explain how people can get involved in shaping the priorities of a state LIHTC program including greater emphasis on integrated, affordable, accessible housing. >> STEVE: Okay, the LIHTC, low income housing tax credits are all administered through the state finance agency. That agency must put out a consolidated plan every year and therefore, has to have two open meetings. Most of them have board meetings once a month, once every other month, whatever, and you guys got to go to the state capital and attend those meetings. You guys have to get the last three years' worth of consolidated plans and find out in terms of the low income housing tax credits, how many of them went for housing for the lowest income -- the lowest median income population, i.e, people on SSI. And then you have to find out how many of them, in fact, are not being lived in by people with disabilities? And you've got to keep asking those questions publicly. Most of the low income housing -- I'm sorry -- most of the state housing finance agency board -- you know, have been appointed by governors and other sources, and some of them obviously represent the industry, the housing industry and developers, et cetera, but others may not. And there are some good people probably on every state housing finance board and you want to get them. You want to know who they are and you want to talk to them and establish relationships with them and you want -- you want to be able to tell them what the problems are you're having in terms of getting housing. And then hold them accountable. Ask them what are they going to do about the next year to remedy that problem? >> JAY: You know, one point I just want to make before we go, I did find that website and we can certainly send it out. It's a long website, but it's a map that's on the HUD website, HUD.gov, and it has -- it has consolidated plans and it does have at least listed, if not the plans right on the website, they have listed the counties that have -- or the cities that have consolidated plans on that website. So they'll list the state plan, and they will have the state plan, and they'll list who has those. So for example to Virginia, there is a state plan. It talks about who developing that state plan and there are three counties that are listed as having consolidated plans. >> STEVE: One of the points Jay made earlier -- I think a I take a little different approach on, I think that in every state and in every large area particularly the centers for independent living, et cetera, are going to have to assign some people to become housing experts. This is too -- too important and too complicated an area to not have certain people whose responsibility it is to really know these programs and know how they fit together hand in glove and know who they have to contact and what the dates are that the certain meetings have to be attended and making sure people get there, et cetera. I think we'll have to really on staffs have housing specialists, people who know this stuff very, very well. >> JAY: You know, the point that I'll make about that -- I agree with you, Steve -- but to become an expert -- right now you and I are considered experts. So to become an expert, it takes just a little bit of knowledge. >> STEVE: It also takes time, guys. One of the things we've seen people in this country -- the first time they get involved, they clearly get sand backed by professional housing people. And when a big bag of sand hits you I may not see it coming but you know you just got hit witness. The next time around, you're going to know it's potentially there and it's not going to come and surprise you. The third time you're going to be there, their going to know not to let the sand bag hit you or even go at you because they're going to know you've now learned your lessons and you know what you are doing, but it takes some time. So that's why assigning people over along term is really important. >> BRENDA: Well, and the experience that we've had is that they have welcomed our interest. >> STEVE: I agree. That's why, you know, I talk about becoming a player. Any time we can do this stuff with sugar and honey, terrific. Mean a player who is sitting down with them is a real goal. >> SHARON: I think we're just about Harris County of time. I dove a lot of questions that did come in that we didn't get to say. One of the once I wanted to ask you, Jay, is several people have asked for the resource book you've been flipping back and forth through and I wanted to see if that is available electronically. >> JAY: It is not. >> STEVE: and it's very expensive. >> JAY: It is the state finance housing authority fact book and you can go to their website. If you're an affiliate member, it's $70. Your state housing finance agency can buy it for $50 and other people with buy it for $100. >> STEVE: I bet you that people who go to their state housing finance agencies, they probably have a real small library. You can get it and use it there, but it is not available on line. >> JAY: It's available, but it's expensive. It's available to order it. It's not available to download. >> SHARON: That's unfortunate for us. >> JAY: and the website just so that people know is ncsha.org. the national council of state housing agencies, and it's hcsha.org and the book will be down on the home page there and it will say 2002 fact book. >> SHARON: Thank you, Jay, Steve, and Brenda, great job. I did want to mention that this presentation will be archived and available on our webcast. So all of the addresses that were given out you'll be able to replay the presentation as well as access a transcript that will have the written U. R. L.'s in there should you need them. Great information, guys. Obviously there is abundance of questions still needing to be answered from you. One person E-mailed in, you have so much information you could go on for hours and hours and I believe that's true. We do need to thank our funders at this point in time. The Community Living Technical Assistance Exchange at ILRU in collaboration with the Rutgers center for state health policy, with funding provided by centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. The ILRU Olmstead Training Project disability advocacy. The project is funded through the U.S. Department of Education, office of special education and rehabilitative services and Rehabilitation Services Administration. The Disability Law Resource Project, a project of ILRU, DLRP is one of the ten disability and business technical assistance centers funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to provide training, technical assistance and material dissemination on the ADA and other disability-related laws. NIDRR is part of the U.S. department of Ed education and ILRU is a program of TIRR, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, a nationally recognized rehabilitation facility for with disabilities. The opinions and views expressed today are those of the presenters and no endorsement of any of the funding agencies should be inferred. And finally, this webcast would not be possible without the efforts of our in-house ILRU staff of Marj Gordon, Dawn Heinsohn, Rachel Kosoy and our technical gurus, John Searle and Rob Dickehuth, and our renowned realtime captioner, Marie Bryant. Everyone, thank you for taking this time out of your day to join us and have a great afternoon. >> STEVE: Goodbye. Thank you, Jay. >> STEVE: Thank you, Steve and Brenda.