ROUGHLY EDITED COPY

CIL‑NET PRESENTS:
ASSISTING INDIVIDUALS TO FIND AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE, INTEGRATED HOUSING
Renaissance Hotel
1 West Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
8:50 a.m. ‑ 12:30 p.m.

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This is being provided in a rough‑draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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Okay.  So our first two questions were about sheltered plus care.  Another yellow question, is there any situation where a landlord is required to pay for a reasonable accommodation, and I think. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We discussed that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  We discussed that at some length yesterday. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Do we need to talk about that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And we are going to talk about reasonable accommodations.  Did you want to talk about is it?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Actually that's a great question.  Don't forget we have accessed housing coming and the fair housing person from HUD is coming tomorrow, so basically it's a negotiated process.  There are some things (inaudible). 
The next question is if ‑‑ and the answer from my perspective, although Pat may know, my answer to this is I don't know.  But if an owner landlord has more than four properties but they're all single‑family homes, are these units covered under fair housing?  I have a guess. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  If it's more than four, yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That was be my guess, but I wasn't sure. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Because they're not just a regular landlord that's in it for personal profit.  They're in it for ‑‑ yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And I suggest you check with your state laws, because in Vermont, it's three or more.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Exactly.  And I was going to say, each state is different, but ‑‑ like I know in Chicago, it's four or more.  In different states it's either three or four or more, but the federal law says yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I want to understand more regarding community development block grant.  I think we're going to cover that this morning.  We're going to talk a bit more about the housing resources and walk through some of them this morning.  Again we have a resident expert in the room, and if you don't ‑‑ she's looking behind her.  If you don't get what you need from us, ask the question again.  But let's wait and see if we can answer it in our regularly planned session. 
Resource map.  I want to see a sample or a template.  We're going to send it to Tim and he's going to put it on Wiki. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah, and I think that's the best way to do it.  And what we could do, and what we probably should do is send one for rural and one for city. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And we've got those so we will do that.  We'll send one of each.  So one rural and one big city.  So like Houston and ‑‑ or we can ‑‑ we'll look around.  We've got ‑‑ we'll look around and send you sample.  We may send city based.  We may also send you state based for some of the more rural states.  Sometimes state resources are looking at it from the state perspective is good. 
Ideas to walk away with to increase vouchers.  I hope we're going to do that in our first morning session. 
Can you speak more about how to establish important relationships with community organizations?  That's on our agenda for this morning. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah, and we actually ‑‑ there was a person I was talking to who I think is a ‑‑ 
(Laughter.) 
I think she's. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  But I saw you as really being good at building relationships.  And I think that's something we could help others with because I think we need to learn from each other, and, you know, we all have different techniques of building relationships, but when we were talking this morning, I was inspired.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A very basic thing that I use it you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and then just go from there. 
>> ANN DENTON:  We'll lead from that.  Our whole first session this morning is sort of to walk through all of the different kinds of housing resources to talk about relationships, to talk about landlords, to talk about housing authorities, to talks about how these things work, and how to shake the tree effectively on behalf of individuals, and then Access Living is also going to talk about the same stuff on Thursday and Friday, but just from ‑‑ Thursday and Friday, but just from a different perspective, and I'm sure there's going to be overlap and I trust you all to bear with it.  You may hear some of this stuff again, repetition is good for me what I'm learning, so I'm hoping that you can think it's okay with you. 
Okay.  Tax credit housing.  We'll talk about that this morning.  Again if you don't get enough out of that, let us know.  Put it on the sticky notes and I'm sure Access Living will talk about it on Thursday and Friday. 
As an ILC, what amount of involvement in housing is too much?  That's an ILC question.  I would defer to our experts over there.  I know there's a line, and I don't know where it is.  
Need clarification on PHAs and wait list preferences, what's required and allowable (inaudible) general and specific.  And we talked a little bit about that yesterday.  We account put ‑‑ provide you with some more specific guidance.  As I said yesterday, I have seen guidance that's going to come out from HUD, and they already ‑‑ it may already be out, but I don't know if I've seen it.  I don't know if I've seen it at this point.  If I've seen an advanced copy that hasn't been released yet or if something has actually gone, but I will track that down and send it to Tim, and if it's public, it'll go up on Wiki, but the fair housing office at HUD has worked with public and Indian housing divisions and HUD to sort of wrestle through some of these dilemmas, because they want to accommodate what we ‑‑ what we as an industry or we as a collection of advocates want them to do.  We want more housing for people who have the greatest needs.  And they run afoul of their own fair housing act.  And so it seems simple but it's not simple but they have wrestled with it for more than a year and they're about to issue guidance so anything we can say based on what's current right at this minute is going to be outdated.  If it's not already outdated, it'll be outdated within weeks.  We will get that to you. 
Okay.  This is the red actually pink.  How do you get public housing provider reasonable accommodation without claiming undue financial hardship. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I think that question, unfortunately starts with the relationship, and I would suggest that everybody should have a relationship with their public housing authorities before you have to go to them with requests, because then the relationship kind of greases the wheel and gets them to ‑‑ so you can ask those questions.  And also just negotiating.  I mean we talked about that yesterday.  Negotiate.  What is going to be reasonable.  What ‑‑ what other ideas do you have?  And have that discussion.  Yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We actually had an accessibility expert in our office, and he had quite a bit of construction background as well.  So if you can think outside of the box and think of the practical ‑‑ whatever the practical need is, and not go necessarily to the first ‑‑ like let's say somebody needs to get up into something, right?  Into the house or whatever.  Your first thought goes right to a ramp and sometimes that is cost prohibitive or, you know, aesthetically not desirable or whatever the situation is.  
So if there are ways around it that are a little more creative, you know, perhaps creating another entrance could be cheaper than ‑‑ so we've done all sorts of things.  I would just suggest thinking outside the box instead of going automatically to the adaptive equipment that you think suits the person's needs. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right.  And not go into, you know, if you think it's a ramp, I'm sure there are probably three or four other ways to do what you're trying to do.  So really thinking about ‑‑ thinking about other ways and maybe even doing a little research or talking to somebody else who has the same issue and seeing how they've dealt with it.  So if they're just ‑‑ but I would also start with building a relationship.  So you can have those discussions and maybe, you know, you can build an ally with the public housing and they can say, well, you know, what about this, as opposed to just saying no.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And one of the basic take aways and we're going to try to give you enough knowledge about the different housing programs this morning, one of the basic take aways is if we as advocates for people with disabilities can learn the housing language and speak their language to them, back to them, we're going to be so much better off, because then once you speak their language back to them, you will have a better appreciation of what their needs are and what the requirements are that they have to meet, and you can then use ‑‑ we can use our brains to figure out how what we need fits into their boxes and we're going to try to do some of that this morning.  
Next question is greater understanding of the financing behind permanent housing options at the federal level. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, my goodness.  Do we have a date for that?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  I mean I'm not ‑‑ I don't know whose comment this was, but if you want to know more about how the financing works and how it flows to communities and states?  Is that kind of ‑‑ you want a map of that, or do you want to know more about tax credits will pay for this and ConPlan, you know, the home (inaudible) can pay for this, is it more program specific?  Or both?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  You can take it either way. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I hear Darrell is getting fired up at the microphone. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  That is all going to be covered in depth by Access Living. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Perfect. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Good. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So you'll get that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  You'll get pieces of it from us this morning.  But you'll also get it again from Access Living. 
Big question, CoC, does that mean continuity of care or continuum of care?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I thought continuum of care. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I thought continuum of care but that's our context.  So I'm just checking. 
Nobody wants to fess up to write that one down?  
(Laughter.)  
If it's continuum of care, that's all of the continuum of care funding that we talked about yesterday.  We're going to talk about that this morning, I'm assuming that's what it is.  
Funding opportunities for operational dollars, match dollars for IBAs.  I don't know.  I think Access Living is going to cover that.  Maybe?  
Funding housing resources for people with criminal backgrounds.  We talked a little bit about that yesterday through reasonable accommodation.  Probably talk about reasonable accommodation again this morning.  And the big take away, the big take away that you guys need is ‑‑ came out yesterday afternoon, which is that all of these rules around criminal backgrounds, with the exception of the two things that were read out to us, are all local rules.  So the housing authority has control over their own rules.  
You had your hand up.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  When I work with clients, I frequently find the trifecta of what I call the perfect housing storm and that is they have an extensive criminal background.  They are in need of wheelchair accessibility, and they need it to be affordable.  So when those three circumstances come together I find it very challenging to find housing in the area.  So I would love some tips about those factors. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Two of the three are going to be the same for everybody.  Not always.  You said needing ‑‑ certainly needing the housing to be affordable.  That's going to be the same for everybody.  The mobility.  Is that ‑‑ that was the second one?  The mobility ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Accessibility. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Accessibility.  Accessibility is an issue for the majority.  Some level of accessibility is an issue.  So that's the same.  The difference is people with criminal backgrounds, and that has to be addressed either through some kind of conversation with the housing authority about all of your people together, or a case by case reasonable accommodation. 
Yes, Lisa?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I just was looking for clarification.  I have two things with regard to reasonable accommodations related to parolees, I wasn't sure what you meant by that, and also with regard to my parolees or people with criminal backgrounds.  I get the verification from the parole office with regard to their good standing, and do background work with regard to references and supports after they've been through certain kinds of programs and training and have a certain level of success on the outside. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right, right.  And so you can use that to talk about how the previous behavior, the criminal background in this case, linked to the disability in some way. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Correct, and also by being prepared and going in, they're accepted by HUD, and this is why.  What's the difference with public housing?  Because sometimes the housing authority and HUD, one will accept and one won't, so I go in prepared to show that the other one will.  What's your difference and why isn't this acceptable?  We have all of this support indicating this person is successful and shouldn't be discriminated against because of a past mistake.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And I'm not exactly sure what you mean by HUD housing, because that would mean anything. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Section 8. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Well that's public housing authorities too. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  She's got a method to get people in who have criminal backgrounds and I think the two of them ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  But our housing authority and our Section 8 don't always agree on the same thing.  One will tell me it's acceptable, and the other one won't accept the application. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'm sure you have more to say. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I think the two of you should talk at lunchtime. 
The other thing is did you have money follows the person?  Because money follows the person does pay for some of the accessibility issues.  So I would utilize ‑‑ enough people are not using that money that comes from money follows the person for accessibility issues. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Does money follows the person also include parolees because they're deinstitutionalized?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Unfortunately it's mainly people coming out of nursing homes, but I would really connect with anybody coming out of a nursing home in your state, you should be connected with the money follows the person and try to get them into that program and try to get some of that accessibility money. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Would there be an exception if they left the institution, went to some kind of assistive living for mental health and would there be some kind of supports for people leaving that institution?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  No, it doesn't work like that.  I appreciate your creativity, though. 
(Laughter.) 
I like that.  You keep asking those questions.  Push the envelope, but right now it's mainly people coming out of nursing homes.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So the next question then was more about tax credits.  We're going to talk some more about that today and I'm sure Access Living is going to talk about it tomorrow and Friday.  I'm making a list for Access Living. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm just looking at the next question. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, the next one.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Wish we had more time.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, more focused discussion on housing individuals with mental illness.  Yes, we would love to do that.  I mean Pat and I both have that background, sort of behavioral health, come out of the behavioral health field.  We came from there.  Well I came from there to housing.  Pat ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Well, yeah.  I guess I worked with almost every population, but most of my experience is with people with mental illness.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And a lot of them were ‑‑ had the host of issues that came with it, but it started off with mainly mentally ill. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  So we can do that.  We'll try to weave some of that in. 
How to have ILs connect better with individuals in ICFIDs.  That's an IL question.  That's outside of our domain.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'm bucking it to people on the right there. 
Tools to create a resource map.  We will send the templates, send examples to Tim to put up on Wiki.  We also have ‑‑ actually we have instructions on how to create a resource map. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was going to say I do have instructions on how to create a resource map. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Hopefully you have that in your Power Points. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Hopefully someone is making a list of things we're promising. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  I have a list of things to send to Tim, but I should add the instructions. 
Okay.  We're almost to the bottom. 
Okay.  Can vouchers be used or continue if you move to another city or county within the same state?  Yes.  It's called portability of the vouchers.  So (inaudible) rental assistance of which the vouchers are an example of tenant based rental assistance and how our housing vouchers are made.  For example, I get my voucher from the Podunck housing authority and I want to move to Seattle, I have to stay in Podunck's housing authority jurisdiction first.  They can make that rule.  But then the nature of the resources is portable.  It should be portable.  
And tax credits for making units accessible.  Explain.  
I didn't hear that.  I don't know ‑‑ tax credits are development (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Tax credits are for development.  They're not for making housing accessible.  I have not heard that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  But when you are using them for the development ‑‑ for the construction, you're using them as a development funding stream, okay?  And they're actually a nice ‑‑ they're nice to have.  They'll give you enough money to get the job done.  (Inaudible) but they will.  So when you're working with people who are doing the actual construction of these projects, and they get tax credits, you can talk to them about accessibility. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Well, when you ‑‑ new construction has to be accessible.  You can't do new construction without it being accessible, and you have to have so many accessible units, so right now if you're doing new construction, you have to have all of the parameters of having to be accessible.  That's just a given.  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'd like to add if you have HUD funding in a new construction, the units not only have to be a certain number accessible but all of the units need to be adaptable. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Exactly.  And actually smart construction people are making all of the units adaptable because it saves money down the line as opposed to going back to units, and therefore it goes back again, if you're having ‑‑ if the housing is yours, that's one thing.  You can build that in.  If the housing is not yours, work with the company or the agency who is doing the housing, and try to get that in up front, making sure that all the units are adaptable.  It doesn't cost that much more to do the units and make them adaptable, and it's going to save the money down the line, and it's going to be great for you because all of the units in that building will be adaptable.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  Doing it right to begin with is so much cheaper than retrofitting.  Doing it right to begin with costs almost nothing extra.  Almost nothing extra.  Retrofitting is (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And a lot of companies are getting smart about doing it up front.  But if you are not sure, I would be that relationship with the developer or at least with the agency doing the housing to make sure that they're thinking about this.  
>> ANN DENTON:  So are there other burning questions?  That is the list from yesterday, from red and yellow.  
Any other burning questions before we get started?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I want to know, did anybody do anything fun last night?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We had pizza. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah?  Excellent.  Cool.  Enjoy Chicago.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So what we're going to do really probably, in one form or another for the rest of the morning, is we're going to talk about finding housing.  And so if you look at your agenda, you can see that we're going to talk about things that you need to think about, we're going to talk about affordability again, we're going to talk about overcoming barriers, and so we're going to touch on reasonable accommodation again.  We're going to talk about how people ‑‑ and this is really about how the people we're trying to assist can communicate with people in their lives about the choices that they're making. 
So one of the things ‑‑ are we good?  Yeah?  
One of the things that I really wanted to direct your attention to is on page 45 of your book.  We covered it yesterday.  But I want ‑‑ you might ‑‑ it might be worth actually turning to this page, and looking at it.  This is a summary of the major funding sources or resources for housing.  It comes from SAMHSA's permanent supportive housing tool kit, which I'm going to talk about tomorrow at lunchtime.  I pulled it out of that resource.  But it gives you a little bit ‑‑ it's a snapshot of information about what these funding streams will pay for.  So let me orient you to that briefly. 
On the ‑‑ if you look at the front page of it, you can see the names of the program funding sources down the left‑hand column.  And then the things that it might pay for are new construction, or acquisition of property or rehabilitation of property or tenant based rental assistance of which housing choice vouchers are one form. 
Project based rental assistance.  We talked about those two yesterday.  We're going to talk about them again. 
Support services.  Some of these money streams will pay for support services.  
Leasing.  Some funding services will pay for leasing. 
Operating costs.  Some will pay for that. 
Pre‑development loans are actually ‑‑ pre‑development loans are fairly common and easy ‑‑ well nothing is easy in housing development, but they should be obtainable.  Not easy but obtainable. 
Home ownership.  
So those are the things that the housing (inaudible) does an analysis on.  So when you look at that form, and you say I want to do leasing of property, I don't need to own it, I just want to be able to lease property, and you look down under leasing, and you will see that HOPWA program and the supportive housing program under the continuum of care, those offer leasing options.  So that's how you use this resource.  
Okay.  We talked yesterday about some fundamental concepts, but I'd like to review some of those concepts. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Absolutely.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Because I think that ‑‑ because I just think they're so crucial to where we're going, and if it's too simple or I'm reviewing stuff that you already know, then stop me rather than just sit there politely.  Don't humor me. 
(Laughter.) 
Stop me.  
But I really ‑‑ we really wanted to talk this morning again about affordability because the ways we achieve affordability, when you look at the ‑‑ there are multiple ways to achieve affordability, and when people are using different resources for the development or ‑‑ of housing or access to housing, sometimes the ways that they achieve affordability have an impact on who can get in, because funding is for certain eligible populations, or it has an impact on what affordability means for that particular unit. 
So affordability, key concepts in affordability that we ought to review are median income, fair market rents, and then types of vouchers, which we talked about yesterday and we're not going to spend a lot of time on, and then subsidized units.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Median income.  Did you say medium?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Median.  Did I say medium?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  No.  It takes me back to statistics. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah. 
(Laughter.) 
Yes.  I can remember somebody made a joke about my age and used the word median age in the room, or something like that, and it took me a while to be offended because I didn't know what median was.  Then I was offended. 
(Laughter.) 
So median income.  Who wants to hear about that?  Or is it too ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was going to say who knows what median income is?  
>> ANN DENTON:  And you're not allowed to raise your hand.  
(Laughter.) 
Okay.  Median income ‑‑ I'm just going to go ahead and do the short version.  
Median income is the standard that HUD uses for different ‑‑ for talking about households in a community and targeting resources to those households.  That's the short version. 
And the standard definition of low‑income housing, so low income housing, is 80 percent of median.  
So I don't know about your communities, Pat, you may know this for Chicago off the top of your head, the median family income in the community that I live in is $62,000. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Does anybody know what median is?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah, maybe I should do that.  Go ahead.  Tell us.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's average. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's not average. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's not average. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So the median income is the point at which half the people have a higher income than you do and the other half have a lower.  In other words, it's the midpoint.  It's not an average. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's not an average. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It is where half the people have ‑‑ are higher and half the people are lower. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  If you put all of it on a list and take the middle point, that's it. 
>> ANN DENTON:  So it's a descriptor, it's a descriptive statistic of the incomes in a community, but it's not an average.  It's important to know that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah, 'cause I think if you take the average, it's going to be totally different than the median.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Average is probably closer to poverty. 
So the average ‑‑ so the median family income, so the midpoint of income in my community is $62,000.  I'm going to need somebody who's good at math.  What's 80 percent of that?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  49,600. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Wow.  Oh, man.  
>> ANN DENTON:  So. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I thought I was good. 
>> ANN DENTON:  So in this example ‑‑ now there's some technicalities, I feel people who know this are getting ‑‑ there's some technicalities on this, based on family side, and blah blah.  
So low income housing in my community is targeted at 80 percent or less.  So that's households at 49,600.  That's probably not even two minimum wage earners together. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  No. 
>> ANN DENTON:  The thing to know about median family income is that it does not correspond well with the poverty level.  So the ‑‑ so 49,600 is significantly above the poverty level, okay?  
Now, there are other communities represented here that are not so dramatic (inaudible).  Am I right?  So like Odessa, where's Odessa?  Do you know what the median family income is for Odessa?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  No. 
>> ANN DENTON:  No. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I could try to look it up. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Anybody from a smaller community know what your median family income is?  
Okay.  Housing specialists need to know.  You need to know.  So Pat's going to look it up.  We're going to do ‑‑ 'cause it's easy to find.  And maybe at lunchtime what I'll do is get on the HUD website again and check where to find it.  I think we may have where to find it in the slides.  I can't remember for sure.  But you need to know.  You need to know what the median family income is.  
So median family income.  So when we're talking, and when Access Living, I will bet you that access housing is going to tell you exactly what I'm going to say. 
This is part of the HUD language, so this is low income.  80 percent of median is low income.  
Very low income is 50 percent of median. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  In Odessa, Texas, the median income in 2009 was $43,149.  
>> ANN DENTON:  And can somebody do 80 percent of that?  He's working on it.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was talking. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  What's 80 percent of 43,149?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  34,400 something or other. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'll just say 34.  Close enough.  So 34,400 is 80 percent.  50 percent is. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  21 five. 
>> ANN DENTON:  So 21 five is 50 percent.  So very low income is 50 percent.  And extremely low income is 30 percent or less. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So that's 12,900. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So 12,900, okay.  
Now, I think I said this yesterday.  You already knew it or you heard it yesterday, but where is SSI?  And remember these are ‑‑ in the median family income is particular to your community because it's linked to your median family income for your market.  So everybody's median family income is going to be different, as we've illustrated.  But in general where does a SSI check fall?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Below that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Below 30 percent.  So if our primary audience or our primary customers are the housing that we're trying to think about here is people on SSI, then in HUD language, you're talking extremely low income households.  That's the HUD language.  Right?  My HUD person?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Can I ask ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  But just to ‑‑ I found a great site for median incomes, and you can look up any place.  And it's at eFannieMae.com.  
>> ANN DENTON:  I'm going to write that on here.  So E, the letter E, Fannie Mae. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  Dot com. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And you just put in your state and then you can go by county or you can go by the state and you can get your median income.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What's the website again?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  EFannieMae.com. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So is median income not based on family size?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I know with (inaudible) ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So you can also go to the USDA's website and it has for every major area, it has the ‑‑ a grid that has family size and then median income for each family size. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Which would probably be ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah, it's in ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  If you look ‑‑ what I look for ‑‑ actually the most useful thing ‑‑ yes.  USDA also has it, and then HUD has it.  So USDA has it by family size, and so does HUD actually.  
What I look for on HUD is the home income limits actually, because a lot of other programs use HUD home income limits, so ‑‑ and the home is specific. 
So that's median family income.  
Fair market rent, what is fair market rent?  How many people want to hear about fair market rent?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I see hands. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So fair market rent, the short version ‑‑ this is the short version.  We don't have ‑‑ as I say, we ‑‑ I was going to say we don't have all day, but we do. 
(Laughter.) 
But the fair market rent, or FMR, I'm trying to teach you the HUD language, so (inaudible) low income households.  Those are ours.  FMR is a list of rents by unit size for your particular community that they publish every single year.  And I can see Pat's looking at trying to get ‑‑ she's already there. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  At HUD.gov, you can find all of the fair market rents for any area.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Right.  
So again HUD.gov, and my favorite thing ‑‑ I love the HUD.gov website, because I go, and because I'm lazy and can't remember where I found it last time, their search engine is magical, so you can go to HUD.gov and type in fair market rent and it'll take you right where you need to go.  
Okay.  So fair market rent is a list of rents published by HUD.  It's not negotiable.  So if you're in ‑‑ we talked yesterday about, you know, an area where there are a lot of students in the market, you know, the landlords can charge whatever they want, right?  Fair market rent or no fair market rent and that has no bearing.  It has no automatic bearing on what HUD's fair market rent calculation is. 
Yes.  I was going there but you can say it. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible) how the FMR is calculated and how do you use it?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I don't really know ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  What was the question?  
>> ANN DENTON:  How is fair market rent calculated and how does HUD use it?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I actually saw that yesterday, so let me look that up again. 
>> ANN DENTON:  She's going to tell you how it's calculated.  I can tell you they use it for just about everything.  In other words, they're using it for rental housing of all types.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And it's the maximum amount that they will pay in a given ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Exactly. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In a given area for any given type of unit type?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes, its not negotiable. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's not negotiable.  For the people in here who already know this, there is detail that we're leaving out.  There are some areas designated high cost areas, so you need to know if you're in what HUD designates as a high cost area, but I was trying to keep this ‑‑ you know, get the essential element of the concept out there.  
But you can look that up.  Pat can look it up right now, what are the high cost areas.  I mean it's easy. 
Why is this important?  Because when you calculate a voucher, so you get a voucher, and the voucher pays ‑‑ the tenant pays 30 percent of their income, and the voucher pays the difference between their income and the fair market rent.  So let's play with one. 
What did we say the SSI income is?  761 is what I think we said it was.  So 30 percent of 761 is?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  228.30. 
>> ANN DENTON:  228.30.  Okay so we've got 228.30.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  What do you need?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Find me the fair market rent for a one‑bedroom apartment in Odessa.  I'll pick on Odessa, because I'm from Austin and I can pick on Odessa, can't I?  Because we're sisters, you know?  We're doing your homework for you.  
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's coming up.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And you want to know for efficiency?  
>> ANN DENTON:  A one bedroom.  Let's do a one bedroom. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  In Odessa Texas, a one‑bedroom apartment is ‑‑ the fair market rent is 549. 
>> ANN DENTON:  549 is the fair market rent for a one bedroom unit. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  All right.  Now I need my math genius again.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  $320.70. 
>> ANN DENTON:  320.70?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah. 
>> ANN DENTON:  He was ahead of me.  320.70.  Okay.  That's the amount of the voucher.  Plus from the housing authority's perspective, a ten percent admin fee.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Ten percent?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  It was ten percent the last time I looked.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What did you call it?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Administrative fee. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Okay.  Thank you.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And those ‑‑ for those who are interested in how they calculate the fair market rent, if you go to HUD.gov they actually give you their ‑‑ it's very complicated, and there's a whole page on how they calculate it, so ‑‑ and I know for ‑‑ in real estate, you have to calculate fair market rents because if you have property, and basically it's looking at all of the property in that area and taking, you know, what the ‑‑ and usually it seems like it's on the lower end of what the general consensus is of what a two bedroom would cost in that area.  That's a very basic, but they have a whole system of how they collect ‑‑ how they calculate it.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  How many years back do they go?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  The mic, and I'll tell you in a minute.  They go all the way back to 2000.  So it's from 2000 up to 2013 in HUD.gov. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And say we're in 2012, is the most recent data 2011?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  2012 is the most recent data.  
>> ANN DENTON:  And the most recent list.  We're on 2012 FMRs.  They publish every year. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah.  So they already have out 2013. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Proposed?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Proposed, yes.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So this ‑‑ so this is just a refresher of some of the concepts we touched on yesterday. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And this is done by zip code?  
>> ANN DENTON:  No.  It's done by ‑‑ no.  It's done by community.  So ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  In some places it's counties.  In some places it's parts of the city.  It depends on the size.  I mean I know for Chicago ‑‑ well, actually I looked up someplace in Texas, Dallas, and Dallas was broken up into umpteen locations, and so you really have to look at the different location, because there's differences.  Like in Chicago, it's cheap to live on the West Side.  It's cheap to live on the South Side.  The North Side's going to cost you more money. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  What they'll do, if we're a big community for Dallas, they'll say Dallas, and then I'm doing this from memory so forgive me if it's not completely correct, and then they'll list communities that are included in that ‑‑ actually this is for median income.  This is for median income.  So they'll list which communities are included in their median income calculation.  Fair market rent, I forget what the tables look like.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was looking at the table and it shows zip codes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Some places it's zip codes, and some places it's the whole city.  It depends on where it is.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Well you may be able to look at it by zip codes.  Okay.  That's good information.  It sounds ‑‑ is that from HUD.gov?  You can access it by zip code.  That's great.  I didn't know that or remember.  That's great. 
Okay.  The only ‑‑ the other piece of language that I want you to hear about is cost burden.  And again I think we touched on it yesterday, but this is like basic training for HUD language.  So cost burden ‑‑ how many people in here have ever bought a house?  Right?  When you qualified for your mortgage, they looked to see if your mortgage was going to cost you more than 30 percent of your income.  Right?  Your housing costs 30 percent of your income.  That's the HUD definition of affordability.  We said that yesterday.  But don't ‑‑ that applies to everyone.  So 30 percent of income for housing costs is the HUD standard of affordability.  And when I talk tomorrow about the permanent supportive housing tool kit, you'll see when SAMHSA developed the tool kit, they used 30 percent of income as the standard of affordability.  They're leaning into what the housing industry uses.  Okay?  
So a cost burden is where you have a cost burden if you are paying between 31 percent and 50 percent ‑‑ or it might be 31 and 49.  I'm not sure, of your income.  So if you're paying above 30 percent, up to 50 percent of your income for your housing, you have a cost burden.  Okay?  And if you're paying more than 50 percent of your income towards your housing costs, you have a severe cost burden. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, no.  I think I have that. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  And so part of the HUD language is ‑‑ part of the advocacy, is to be able to stand on data, stand on facts, and say to people, we need 200 additional ‑‑ and you'll to talk about ‑‑ we'll talk about how you get to the 200, but we need 200 units of housing for extremely low income households with a severe cost burden.  Right?  Except for the 200, that could be a true statement in any community. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  That data is actually readily available as part of the consolidated plan.  HUD provides that for each entitlement community.  It states how many, by owner and renter, the percentages and numbers of cost burden, and extremely cost burden. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  Yes.  It's in the ConPlan.  It should be in your local ConPlan.  I was going there, but thank you for the segue.  
Because one of the things you need to do, and we talked about this yesterday, is, and again this is sort of basic training, and I tried to ‑‑ I started to do some of that at lunch.  You need to know where to find the consolidated plan, and actually the very best place to get the consolidated plan is probably off of your jurisdiction's website.  So they're going to have the most current version, although you can get them from HUD.  But I would look on your jurisdiction's website.  
So back to Odessa, it would be the city of Odessa website.  
You can get them from HUD.  Sometimes they're not the most recent versions.  
The jurisdiction's website will also tell you, communities have to submit an annual action plan, and an annual performance report related to what they've done on the consolidated plan.  
So you can get copies of those there.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Just for the heck of it, I just entered into Google ConPlan for Odessa, Texas and it took me back to the HUD.gov and there's a list of all of the cities in Texas and their consolidated plans.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Easy, easy.  Easy, easy. 
Now, let me ask our consolidated plan expert, 'cause I don't remember, and I'm going to put you on the spot.  If I was looking for it the information that you just said is in there, you know, sort of the market analysis, where is that?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Depending on how the ConPlan was developed, it would be at least mentioned in the narrative part, talking about the housing market analysis.  But ours, 'cause we use the tool as they call it, it's a separate chart that actually has the numbers in it.  
>> ANN DENTON:  See and the chart would be the great thing to have. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's very hard to read. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, is it?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Of course it's from HUD.  But the data ‑‑ let me do some looking and see, 'cause you can pull the data off line in the chart format. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And see if I can find where that's at. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  And if you can find that and show me where it is, I might be able to download it and bring a copy for people to look at after lunch.  
Okay.  So you need to know where your ‑‑ this is just basic ‑‑ I'm sorry.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was going to mention that the ‑‑ the consolidated plan is usually a five year plan, and sometimes a five year process to get that ‑‑ to get to that five year plan.  Both the action report and also the keeper are updated on an annual basis, and have (inaudible) a comment period attached to them as well, so that you can have more ‑‑ provide more immediate feedback and have more immediate impact through those processes as well, rather than having to wait for the ‑‑ rather than having to wait for the next five year‑round in the consolidated plan. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And you can also get access through HUD, but it takes you ‑‑ when you go through HUD, it takes you directly to the states or the cities site and you can also get the action plan. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And the performance report. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And the performance report, right. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And I think that's an excellent point.  I will say my observation and experience in working with communities around the consolidated planning process and advocacy opportunities within that process, the public hearings, the paying attention, my overwhelming experience is that the people who are writing the consolidated plans in these communities are grateful for people who are interested.  And that's not a hundred percent, but they're happy to have somebody else on the team with them, usually.  And they may not ‑‑ they may be resistant at first or they may say, you know, people at extremely low incomes are included in the 80 percent low income, and then technically they are, but you can ‑‑ as you create those relationships, it's all about relationships, as you create those relationships with people, you can expand their understanding by using their language about what it is that you need.  You know, I can go all day to say to somebody, we need more housing for people with disabilities, and they might say, well, that's good but it doesn't mean anything unless you're talking to them in their language, which is what this ‑‑ why this is important that we just did. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Also without having input, the consolidated plans aren't effective because they're not hitting the targeted areas, the most needy areas. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Yes.  Opportunities for advocacy within the consolidated plan within the public hearings that Andrew was talking about, are, you know, you can ask people to target resources, and the safest, easiest way to ask people to target resources is to use the HUD language and say extremely low income households.  That way you're not triggering any of this ruckus around fair housing and should it be for people ‑‑ if I'm an advocate for people with mental illness, and I want ‑‑ I want targeted to that ‑‑ you can side step all of that by saying we want you to target a certain percentage of your resources to the extremely low income households.  And then you're in a good community position to come in with proposals that will serve that population.  You know, so you are asking for something that you need to know, if the answer to this question is yes, but you should never ask for more than you have the capacity to do as a community.  So don't ‑‑ if you need 6,000 units, but you know that you've only got two developers who are interested in building housing that is for ‑‑ that has (inaudible) units in it, and you've only got, you know, one independent living center that can help people when they get vouchers, so you might need 6,000 units, but don't ask for 6,000.  What if they gave it to you?  Ask for what you can do.  
(Laughter.) 
Some of the communities that got the NED vouchers through the public housing authorities last year, oh, my God, Pat and I worked so hard with those communities to say up‑front, don't ask for the world.  And the way HUD did it, no offense to HUD, they did it on a lottery system, which made absolutely no sense.  And so some communities got a hundred vouchers when they could only really use ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was going to say some of those vouchers are still unused, because they couldn't use them. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  It makes it look like we didn't have the need and the truth is we have the need. 
I can't remember how I got off on that. 
(Laughter.) 
But so the ‑‑ so this is your tool kit.  This is your housing specialist, executive director, program director housing tool kit is these concepts, this language.  This is one of the tools in the tool kit.  
The other that we just did ‑‑ 
The other tool in your tool kit is information, and we started this yesterday.  And people got all excited and I can't remember why I did that at lunchtime, because it's in all the slides this morning, but the other thing you need to know is the public housing authorities in your community.  Lots of communities have more than one.  Some have ‑‑ some only have one.  And some extremely rural areas have the state as their housing agency or housing authority.  So part of what you need to know, part of what needs to be in your tool kit is what are the public housing authorities, public housing agencies in your area, and you can find that out. 
When I did it yesterday, you talked about zip codes, I was looking for Nyack, remember when I was looking for the village of Nyack, and I couldn't find it, and you gave me the zip code and I found it, because you can enter it by zip code.  So you can enter it by zip code on the HUD website.  So you need to know what your PHAs are, you know, the names of them.  The names ‑‑ and I always jot down their HUD numbers, because you never know when you're going to need that.  So Nyack is Ny (inaudible) I remember it from yesterday.  And then you need to know, certainly you already probably know, or your case manager or housing specialist would know, who's who.  So if it's a big housing authority, there's an executive director.  There's probably a Section 8 manager.  If it runs its own units, there's unit or property managers or something.  So you need to know who's who.  You have to know who they are, and then within them, you need to know who's who, and then you need to know what they have, and the best quickest source of that is the plan which we talked about yesterday.  The plan will tell you on the first page what they do, and Troy, you know this from the class.  We directed people in the on line class to look up their housing authority plan.  Look at the last approved plan.  That will tell you, line two, how many units do they run, how many vouchers do they have.  And if you want to know how much those vouchers are worth, Peter asked that question yesterday, you have to do the calculation we did on the previous page, which is how much is a voucher worth in your community, which is the gap between ‑‑ and it's going to change.  You're going to have to take an average, but for SSI, you're going to get ‑‑ you're only going to get an approximation.  
Troy?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The one thing that we all need to be mindful of is if you're looking at the (indiscernible).  Go back to the previous consolidated plan and the (indiscernible) plan and notice if there's anything like fair housing (indiscernible) from the previous (indiscernible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  If you don't, HUD is going to not ‑‑ is going to kick back the (indiscernible) it didn't have any funds set aside (indiscernible).  So please, please, go to the public agencies.  Pull up a previous list of a consolidated plan (indiscernible) and keep note of what the analysis of the impediments are and make sure that they're doing something in reference to fair housing. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  That's another opportunity for advocacy.  He's talking about the analysis of impediments to fair housing, which is ‑‑ is it in the consolidated plan?  Yeah.  It's a portion of the consolidated plan.  You can also get them stand alone for communities.  I know the city of Houston on their website, you can go right to it. 
So it's in the consolidated plan, but it's another thing to look at.  
Okay.  In your housing specialist, executive director project tool kit, this is information tool.  So the first tool that we talked about was language and concepts, which Pat really talked about yesterday, but I'm just redoing and again stop me if you're human ‑‑ if you're humoring me, stop me. 
So the first tool was language, speaking their language. 
The second tool is information.  
Another piece of information, again that we did at lunchtime, is the continuum of care resources.  And that's the one that's on the HUD HRE website.  I think I have a slide with that.  Somewhere I might have it.  
I don't have it.  Okay.  It's HUDHRE.info.  We looked at it yesterday.  And what you ‑‑ once you get to that website, you wanted to look at continuum of care awards.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What was that again?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I was just looking for a website.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  There's a question in the back. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, I'm sorry. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What was the awards?  What was it called?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Continuum of care awards.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Also on that website, it'll have a link to the continuum of care contacts. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And it's a lot of times just easier to call that contact, because otherwise you have to look back through five years worth of awards. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Like the point yesterday, when we looked at yesterday ‑‑ what community were we looking at yesterday?  I don't remember.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  New York. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It was somewhere in New York?  That's right.  It was. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And we went to Genesee county.  When we did that we only found two awards so we went back one year just to see.  Because sometimes you can have a previous award that's still in operation. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right.  Because sheltered plus care is five years. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's right.  So you would have to look five years.  Sometimes it's just easier to call the people. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And this is a good opportunity to start building a relationship. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I have to say that.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Exactly. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It really is about relationships.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So information.  The other information that you need, and I have slides for these so I'm not going to write it all up here.  But we talked about yesterday and you had questions about low income housing tax credits.  And I also wanted to talk to you about the 811 and 202 programs.  
So low income housing tax credits, we described basically what they are.  The shortest version of what is a low‑income housing tax credit is that it's a development stream.  It's a funding source for development of housing.  And if you're interested, you can tell us and we can see about it at the break. 
But I'll come back to PHAs if you want, but I wanted to do tax credits.  Do I have that here?  Yes. 
Okay.  Low‑income housing tax credits are controlled by who?  I said this yesterday.  It's a quiz.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  It comes from IRS.  It's an IRS funding source.  That's right.  
Who does it though?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  No.  It's not housing authority.  It's the state.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's the state.  So the state ‑‑ remember when we talked about tax credits, I said the state develops what's called the qualified allocation plan, so this is tax credits, low‑income housing tax credits.  It's governed by the QAP, or the qualified allocation plan.  And part of your information, the information portion of your tool kit, is to know what's in your qualified allocation plan.  Qualified allocation plans require a certain level of attention to housing for persons with disabilities.  So there's a basic requirement in there already.  What you want to know is does your state do anything extra.  Do they do anything different.  So you want to look at the qualified allocation plan to see what it says.  
So for example, and again I'm doing this from memory, the state of North Carolina has, and Pat, you may remember this better than me, has nice stuff in their qualified allocation plan that targets resources to housing for persons with disabilities.  
The other place to look, when you're looking at low‑income housing tax credits, is how are these ‑‑ and you may think we're in the weeds, but this actually makes it easier.  How are the applications going to be scored?  Because the truth about low income housing tax credits is because they're money, they're money for development, they're extremely competitive.  There's a whole industry out there of consultants that do nothing but tax credit properties.  One of our good friends abandoned advocates for (inaudible) potential and went into business for herself. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  How dare she. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Because she's making more money than any of us will ever see, which I'm actually mad at her. 
(Laughter.) 
But so they're extremely competitive, and so if you have ‑‑ if the state has created a scoring incentive that favors persons with disabilities for housing units ‑‑ the development of housing units for persons with disabilities, you need to know that because ‑‑ there's two opportunities for advocacy.  There's two things that you can use a tax credit program for.  One is to get a list of the units that have been assistive.  So list of units that have been financed with this assisted stream.  You want to know what those addresses are and I'll tell you why in a second.  Most of us need more affordable housing units developed.  Wouldn't that be a correct statement?  There's no community I've been in that has enough affordable housing.  So when you're developing public housing, you want to do it in a way that's affordable and accessible for people with disabilities.  This is one of your tools, so there's an opportunity for advocacy here.  Both with (inaudible) and how it's scored.  You may think if you get ‑‑ if they say, okay, we'll give you an extra point for that, then you might think, my first thought, one point.  Yeah, like that's going to make a difference.  So competitive that people scramble for fractions of points.  So one point doesn't sound like much, but it could be a big deal.  Three points would be better. 
Okay.  Let me tell you two for things about the low‑income housing tax credit and this is from the perspective of you've got somebody who wants to move out.  So the first thing you need is a list of the units that have been assisted.  Most state housing agencies, the ones that run the low‑income housing tack credit ‑‑ tax credit programs will have a list of assisted parties.  I think it's going to vary by state. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It does.  And I was actually looking at Odessa, Texas.  There's a place called arbor terrace apartments that has 120 units.  So it's all here.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  I know for sure, since I'm from Texas, I know Texas made a complete list of all the properties that have been developed using tax credits as a funding stream.  It's on the (inaudible) website.  A lot of states have it.  Not every state is going to have it exactly the same way.  In other words, I'm not sure they're all going to be searchable by zip code.  I have no idea. 
Okay.  So a list of units, you're going to be able to get that. 
Now, we said this yesterday but we'll say it again.  The thing about tax credits is that they result in affordable housing.  When they result in affordable housing to very low income households.  Does anybody remember what that is?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  50 percent. 
>> ANN DENTON:  50 percent of median.  Some of them are 50 percent.  Some are 60 percent.  I'm not going to go into that level of detail about which one is what.  But the bottom line, the need to know information, is that low income housing tax credit properties result in affordable units that are more affordable, they're more affordable, than units that have been developed at the 80 percent level.  So the more afford ‑‑ they're more affordable, but they're still out of reach for someone on a SSI income, unless the person's willing to pay extra, or they have the resource, like family is willing to chip in to make up the difference between, you know, what the rent is.  
So they're good resources.  They're not the magic wand.  But you want to know.  Housing specialists ought to know. 
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  If they have additional resources, like from a family, doesn't that affect their SSI check?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  It's a can of worms, which is why I didn't go into a lot of detail on it. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  They could have a trust though, right?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  There's some ways, which you guys I think are probably going to be better at describing than I am, about protecting special, you know, doing income, getting income or getting assistance that also protects SSI.  
Okay.  So low income.  So we were on low‑income housing tax credits.  We'll come back to that. 
I want to talk about 811 and 202 projects.  We talked about ‑‑ how many people know if they have 811 projects in their area?  That's a pretty common source of housing.  So how many ‑‑ show me your hands again.  How many have an 811?  How many have one or more. 
How many people have looked at the changes to the 811 program this year, that are implemented this year?  Okay. 
All right.  811 program like it says on the slide, is traditionally funded, not always, but you have to make a special effort to have 811 fund integrated units so historically you're going to get 16 to 30 units ‑‑ I'm doing it from memory.  16 is a good average unit size.  16 or more units all in one place, usually with a staff office on the bottom floor, something like that.  They're usually very nice, because the 811 program, the way it was (inaudible) gives you a nice (inaudible) stream going forward that supports the property.  So like tax credits, they're usually really nice.  They're pretty, they're nice, they're well done. 
Okay.  Last year, and the 811 interim regs or proposed regs are out, and we're expecting ‑‑ no.  The applications just went in, so the regs ‑‑ the proposed regs came out, the use of proposed or interim regs to support the application process for this year, and the applications went in the end of July.  So the first question I have for you is has your state made application for these funds under the new way?  
Don't know or the answer is no?  Huh?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The answer in Virginia is no. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, that's right.  You said that.  Yeah.  I think you said that yesterday.  Yeah. 
Okay.  You ought to know that, though. 
The really cool thing about the 811 program and the changes to the 811 program is that it's going to be ‑‑ it's going to matter.  It's not going to be ‑‑ if I was a developer and wanted to develop one of these, I would think these changes are bad, because instead of being sort of a package deal, that I can use to develop a property for a specific purpose, it becomes a funding stream and I can use it as part of the development.  
The good thing, though, is that it's going to result in more integrated housing.  So instead of ‑‑ I mean in my community, we have 811s that have been in operation for many years, and one of them is 16 units in an apartment complex that also houses or used to house the ADAPT offices.  Well, that's great, but it's this little tiny apartment complex, it's sort of like where ‑‑ when people are segregated, it's all too easy for others to say that's where "they" live, right?  And so even though it's great and people got housing, we also don't want to invite that kind of reaction.  
Okay.  So Section 202.  Anybody know what that is?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Elderly. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Elderly.  Right.  It's a subsidized ‑‑ it's a development program that results in subsidized housing for the elderly.  
Construction operation of housing. 
Now, I'll let you know how offended I am by the fact that HUD defines elderly at 55 or older. 
(Laughter.) 
Deeply wounded by that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm sorry.  I wasn't laughing. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right, right.  You were laughing. 
(Laughter.) 
Which means that I've been elderly for quite some time. 
(Laughter.) 
But we talked about it yesterday when we talked about ‑‑ remember I gave you a quiz on what's integrated and what's not integrated?  And so if you're 55 or older, it's not disability specific housing at all.  It's age specific housing.  So if you're older and you can get in and you can get a subsidized unit and that's where you want to go, it's a great deal.  'Cause what is a subsidized unit ‑‑ what's the reality for the person who is in a subsidized HUD unit like that?  What are they paying?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  30 percent. 
>> ANN DENTON:  30 percent of their income.  So they're paying 229.30 out of a SSI check. 
Yes, I see two hands on the far side.  Who's first over here?  You'll have to fight it out.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Is 202 like 811 in that it has a service component attached to it, or is it straight housing?  
>> ANN DENTON:  That's a great question.  I think it has ‑‑ they're sister programs, so I'm less familiar with 202, but the answer is yes.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm pretty sure that 202 has the service component.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  They're actually ‑‑ if you look at the original regs, they're only ‑‑ they're almost identical.  And the changes to 202 that they're making this year are very close, so the changes they're making to 202 to make it more of a funding stream rather than a development, you know, package deal, similar kinds of changes.  
And you have a question?  All right.  Okay. 
Okay.  So if you're a housing specialist, a program director or executive director, in your tool kit, on the tool of information, you need to know where these are, right?  And there's a website that is up on the screen of where to find them.  How to get a list.  
Okay.  The third ‑‑ well, let's go through the slides.  Yes.  Go ahead.  I'm sorry.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Can I just ask kind of a quick specific question, and that is regarding the 811s.  I understand that they're disability specific, but I guess in our area, they're specific to folks with mobility impairment.  So are there 811s that are specific to folks who have mental illness or folks who have ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  Yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Thank you.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So the third ‑‑ I'm going to go to the slides because there's a lot of stuff on here, because the first tool is language, the second tool is information, and the third tool is opportunities for advocacy.  So kind of knowing what to ask for is great.  
I tell a story every time I say this in a class, 'cause I love it.  I just love it.  It makes me feel that the work that I do sometimes have an impact.  But I did years ago, I did a whole morning on housing resources and there was a guy from Nebraska in the class, and he took the slides and wrote down all the stuff, and we talked about what can you ask for, and he got back to Nebraska and he didn't know diddly squat.  Now he knows more about it now than I'll ever know, but when he took the class he knew nothing, so he wrote down some ideas of what to say.  When he got back to Nebraska he went to a public hearing on the consolidated plan and he stood up and he says, maybe he was reading it off a paper but I don't think so.  He basically stood up and gave the testimony that was on the slides.  He said we need, you know, units for extremely low income households, income targeting, blah, blah, blah.  He used some of that stuff, and after the public hearing, the ‑‑ and this was the state consolidated plan, 'cause Nebraska had a lot of resources in the state plan because it's so rural, that people that were doing the hearing made a bee line before he could get out the door and within a year, they had a basically what amounts to a set aside within the consolidated plan activities that targeted 25 percent of all of the resources to extremely low income houses and they still have it.  Now, that has completely exhausted the depth of my knowledge of what to do with the consolidated plan.  He has become an expert.  But it's the opportunity ‑‑ I tell that story to tell you that the opportunities for advocacy are real, and the majority reaction that I hear back is that people who are writing these plans are happy to have you on board.  Not a hundred percent.  I can't guarantee you it's going to be true of every community, and housing authorities are a little tougher.  The consolidated plan, usually people welcome the input. 
So we're going to talk about opportunities for advocacy in the big buckets of information that I just went through.  Okay?  We're going to talk about the consolidated plan.  We're going to talk about the public housing authority plan.  We already talked about low income tax credits. 
So for public housing authorities, okay.  This slide we talked about, this is part of your information.  This is what the housing specialists need to know.  Where are they, and I wrote that on the slide, on the paper. 
A good housing specialist, did I say this yesterday, is going to have a messy office.  You all know what I mean by that?  They're going to have applications and people's business cards and little scraps of paper with NY 114 written on it, and all over the place.  They're going to have ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Can you call my boss and tell him that?  
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  But it might just be, you know, I'm projecting, because my office is a disaster. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Mine too. 
>> ANN DENTON:  But I mean there's a lot of information, there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of things to know.  If you're really, really, really an expert on all of these housing resources from the perspective of you want to come out of the nursing home and we're going to go together and get you housing, from that perspective, you should have a messy desk is a diagnostic indicator. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  At one training I made the mistake of saying you should have a full Rolodex, and half the people looked at me and said what's an Rolodex?  
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  Back to that designation (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  But you should have lots of numbers, lots of names, lots of resources, in whatever form you have that.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  
Okay.  So we talked about that.  But really the opportunities for advocacy, one of the things that you can find when you look up your PHA plan, one of the things you can find on that very first page is are they a high performing public housing authority.  If they're a high performing public housing authority, maybe they can apply for something extra.  Public housing authorities can apply for all kinds of things, all kinds of programs, in addition ‑‑ a public housing authority does one of two things, or two things.  They do a Section 8 voucher program, a housing choice voucher program, and/or they run their own units.  They have to do one or the other to be in public housing.  They can also do lots of other things, so there's all kinds of specialty programs coming down all the time.  They can participate in ‑‑ under the continuum of care, they're required actually to run a shelter plus care program under the continuum of care.  You have to have a PHA partner.  To do home ownership sometimes you want public housing authorities to project base some of their resources and dedicate those to home ownership.  That's an allowable activity for low income households. 
There's all sorts of things.  It's not endless.  But there's all sorts of things that come from HUD that housing authorities can apply for.  Some of the opportunities are only for high performing housing authorities, so you need to know if yours is high performing. 
The other thing ‑‑ and I can't remember ‑‑ I don't think it's on their plan, and I don't remember where to find it so I apologize, but you can also get a housing authority that's in trouble.  Right?  And there's got to be a way to find that out.  I just don't remember how to find that out.  But if you have a housing authority and the HUD language is, unless they changed it, troubled, if you have a housing authority that's troubled, that means that there's something about the way they're operating that HUD doesn't like.  Usually it's something that has nothing to do with people with disabilities.  It usually means their lease up rate is too low.  That's a really common thing that gets them in trouble.  So they have all these vouchers sitting there and they're not leasing them up fast enough that's contrary to logic. 
If you flag a troubled housing authority, that actually could be a good thing, because you can ‑‑ you may be able to help them.  You know, it looks like they're responsive in the community, but again it may soften your audience.  It may help you make an advocacy based approach.  
But what you want to know and this is part of where you're going to go in advocacy, do they receive funding for home ownership, set aside (inaudible).  I already asked this, but who gets e‑mails from Steve Gold?  If you don't, Google Steve Gold and get on his e‑mail list. 
He is an angry man. 
(Laughter.) 
That's a good thing.  Am I right?  They did it again.  He's a great source of information, and one of the things he's most angry about is that there were housing agencies, housing authorities that claimed a designation of they were going to set aside a certain number of units for people with disabilities.  They got the extra money, and then they never did it.  And if you want a list of those, go to technical ‑‑ you'll have to Google it because I don't have their website memorized, but the technical assistance collaborative.  TAC.  And I think it's tacinc.org. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes, it is. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's www.tacinc.org.  And go to their search engine and put in housing authorities ‑‑ something that's, you know, units for persons with disabilities, housing authorities.  They have a list.  You get to the right place on their website, there's an Excel spreadsheet that shows you the housing authorities, how many units they said they were going to do, how many units they actually did, and you can look it up, you can look up their plan from there. 
Part of what they did sometimes is, somebody said this yesterday, a common sort of shenanigan, is I will give ‑‑ I will get the voucher and I'll give it to you if you have a disability and you use it for a few years, and then you get a job and you don't want to live in it, and you can afford to live in the high rent condo downtown and you give up your voucher (inaudible) qualified, and so your voucher becomes non‑active, so I go, aha, and I give it to you, and you don't have a disability.  It loses its character as soon as you let go of it.  That's a common practice, although some pretend to do that (inaudible). 
Okay.  So in terms of advocacy, what you want, is you want your information, and then you want them to do things, like participate in specialty programs.  So last summer, when Pat and I were working with the (inaudible) we were really pushing them to get ready to work with their housing authority on the non‑elderly, disabled, and that's HUD language (inaudible) non‑elderly disabled vouchers.  And what we wanted was for those ‑‑ so your request at that point is can the public ‑‑ will the public housing authority submit the application.  It had to come from a PHA.  So your advocacy then, you should have already had a relationship with them, but when these things come up, you need the information about it, and you need to have a relationship where you can go and ask.  Will you apply for this for us.  
Okay.  The other thing that they can do is set preferences in the housing choice voucher program.  You can ask for that.  Now, that's not a popular thing for them to do, and that has nothing to do with us or the quality of our tenants or anything like that.  It's an administrative nightmare for (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  But if you have a good relationship, you can talk about how you can help them with that administrative burden, so it really is about those relationships, and knowing why they're saying no, and being ‑‑ having them be able to tell you that it's an administrative burden and figuring out how you can assist with that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Absolutely.  The other thing is ‑‑ we're going to talk about (inaudible) and take a break and then we're going to talk about opportunities for advocacy.  We'll do that after the break.  
But before we leave public housing authorities, I think I said this in front of the microphone yesterday but let me say it again, the reason to get somebody on the PHA list, even if the wait is for eight years or infinity, there are two reasons, one is sometimes it moves faster than you think, and two, when they did the NED vouchers last year, the housing authorities got it had to go through people ‑‑ documented disability already on their list first.  They were the first customers up.  So if you had to ‑‑ hadn't said, oh, well, the waiting list is eight years long, no point in putting your name on the list, and then you were one of those communities, your person missed an opportunity.  
So that's kind of ‑‑ that's kind of it for advocacy around public housing authorities.  I'll say two more things and then I will quit before somebody gets the hook. 
One is that public housing authorities have public hearings on what they're doing.  They have public hearings on their plan.  The other thing is that public housing authorities have boards that are appointed by local authorities.  The boards are not always governing boards in the sense that we like it to be.  And I think they are on paper, but really the housing authority is responsive to HUD.  But it's still nice to know, and it's really cool if you can get an advocate on that board.  So all right.  Let's take a 15 minute break, and we'll come back and talk about some more opportunities for advocacy, the third tool.  
(A short break was taken.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  I think we're ready. 
(Applause.) 
Yeah.  I love co‑training with Pat.  This is fun. 
Okay.  We're ready to start back, and what we're going to do between now and lunchtime is I'm going to finish the whole session on finding housing, so where we are, just to orient you towards our agenda, is the entire first morning session entitled finding housing, we're 85 percent of the way through that session.  So we're running a little bit behind.  But ‑‑ so we're going to do finding housing.  We'll finish that now, and without taking a break we're going to finish out the Power Points and start talking back again about really the individual you're trying to help.  We're going to talk about tenancy and supporting, obtaining tenancy and supporting it.  We'll talk about that up until lunchtime and then we'll be on our lunch break. 
So just to recap where we are, the way we've been framing the discussion around finding housing is what housing specialist, executive directors or program directors need to know, and what you need is the very ‑‑ well, one of the things that you need is information, right?  Let me find my ‑‑ 
You need to be able to speak their language.  So you need a working knowledge ‑‑ I don't think I wrote that up there actually.  You need a working knowledge of housing ‑‑ you need a working knowledge of housing concepts.  And so we did a short focused first session on what are some of the key concepts, how do they work, how can you use them, what does that mean to the people you're trying to advocate with ‑‑ advocate to. 
The second thing that you need is information.  We started talking about that yesterday when we started talking about resource maps.  We went through it in considerably more detail this morning.  We're not finished with that, but that's ‑‑ so we're completing that session. 
And then finally there are opportunities for advocacy, so you have the toolbox, it has three big tool kits in it.  One is language, one is information, one is knowing what to ask for.  
So down to the advocacy ‑‑ 
(This is where the computer froze.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  I know the Nyack housing authority, we know they run units and they have 236 vouchers and 28 of them were set aside for people with mobility impairments, so I want to know how that 28 units are going. 
Yes, Troy?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Indiscernible) the number of units they have in inventory and if the people that are occupying them have documented disability.  The one thing that is happening in Houston is that they'll have the (indiscernible) they're not accessible, and then when a unit needs to be made available for someone with a disability, they have to move it around.  The other thing you can do is to make sure that all of the units that are handicapped accessible are on the ground floor.  Don't have accessible units upstairs.  (Indiscernible).  Most of them are designed with the main bedroom upstairs.  And what good is that?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  So that's a really good point.  I mean you also want to look for, in these plans, you want to look for problem areas or practices that public housing authorities engage in that are not beneficial.  And Troy just identified two of them.  One is the practice of having people without disabilities occupying units that have, you know, that have accessibility modifications or other modifications, and then that unit is full and then they'll want to relocate people and so another practice is designing is really to design of the units, and if the bedrooms are upstairs, was your example, try to see how that's useful.  
So, yes, so part of what ‑‑ part of that ‑‑ and the advocacy then would be pointing those things out to them, politely, honey rather than vinegar, right?  Politely, you start polite.  And if you don't want to stay polite, you talk to Access Living. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  There's a hand up over there. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have found one of the best ways to start relationships is when you're the new person in the room, asking what they need or what they're looking for, and frequently our agencies have resources or ‑‑ that you ‑‑ in the community that might be able to help with some of those things that they're really struggling with, like one of our counties got rid of all their intensive case managers so they were having a crisis with people (inaudible) no way to turn to at all so they were able to provide some interim case management type services that got people kind of to a stabilization point when they were looking for other ways of dealing with that situation in our region, but just being there and being willing to offer what we have available is a great way to start that relationship before you're asking for new things. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Absolutely.  Yes.  It's always better to have ‑‑ to come in with your hands full of gifts as well. 
Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The captioning has stopped.  
>> THE CAPTIONER:  My computer froze. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  The computer froze.  Thank you for telling me.  I would have gone on and on and on.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Should we stop?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Let's take a short pause.  
>> TIM FUCHS:  We don't need it for accessibility right now, so if you're okay with it, we're continuing to right at the transcript, and at the next break we'll reboot the machine and it'll display again.  Okay?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So in talking about advocacy, here's the things I want to cover.  I just wanted to do a quick review of public housing authority.  I wanted to talk about the consolidated plan.  And that will take a little bit of time.  I want to talk about continuum of care of advocacy, which will be relatively short because that's not what this is training is so much about, and then the tax credits, which we've already talked about, so it'll be very short.  Then I also want to talk, in terms of advocacy, about things like successful outreach.  So how do you make friends with landlords.  We're going to talk about that as well. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's an easy one. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah, we talked about it yesterday, but I want to hear, because I know there's some really good ideas in this room.  There's some good things that you can do.  It's like making friends with anybody, really.  But I really want to talk ‑‑ I want to not leave that topic unexplored. 
So we've talked about housing authorities.  I want to move on to the consolidated plan that (inaudible) for advocacy was in the consolidated plan programs.  Are you all ready for me to do that?  And is the sound better now that I'm using the microphone?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So consolidated plan programs, we touched on this yesterday.  This is a very quick review, 'cause we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but in the consolidated plan, there are four HUD programs.  Who remembers what's in it, the four programs?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  CDBG, HOME. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  They were paying attention. 
>> ANN DENTON:  They were paying attention.  And the emergency solutions grant.  Which is a homeless, right?  It used to be the emergency shelter plan.  So that's a whole different can of worms, but it's on the consolidated plan. 
Okay.  So opportunities for advocacy, for the consolidated plan in general, back to our conversation this morning about language.  One of the things that you can ask for is income targeting.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I see some confused looks. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Income targeting.  What I mean by that, is in HUD language, where are the people who are on SSI.  Who remembers?  Extremely low income.  Yes.  They are at 30 percent or less of median family income.  And in most communities they're less than 20 percent, right?  It's a very rural area or a poor county that they're close to 30 percent.  There's not ‑‑ again if you look at the technical assistance collaborative, which is www.tacinc.org, they have a publication called priced out in 2010, that's the most recent version, that does an analysis of where SSI falls in communities.  So I recommend that resource. 
But back to advocacy with regard to consolidated plan, you can ask for income targeting.  So this is what my friend Jim Harvey from Nebraska said.  He wrote down this phrase.  He wanted 25 percent of the resources in the consolidated plan targeted to extremely low income households.  For him that was just a shot in the dark.  He didn't know what that meant.  But what we ‑‑ what that means for a planner is that you're asking them to do something different, and that's just that blanket statement, and I'm going to lean into Lisa's expertise from Oklahoma, since she writes the consolidated plan for her community, that's not that easy to do.  But remember they got up and followed Jim out of the room, because they wanted to know more about what it was that he meant, and how they could be ‑‑ how they could do that.  They wanted their ConPlan to be responsive to the needs of the community.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is overwhelmingly the response that we get.  That's a hundred percent.  I guarantee that. 
The other thing you can ask for, you can ask for income targeting.  You can ask for a share of resources by program too.  You can say 25 percent of your home resources, you know, percentage of blah, blah, blah.  I would leave emergency solutions alone.  And HOPWA is for people with AIDS, so we're really talking about CDBG and HOME.  But income targeting as a strategy is a good advocacy thing to ask for. 
The other thing that you can ask for is set asides.  And one of the program ‑‑ the state HOME program in Texas sets aside $2 million a year, right?  Texas?  $2 million a year out of the HOME program for Olmstead.  Did you know that?  I'm so glad you're here. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Me too. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Because ‑‑ and the Olmstead set aside in the HOME program is for tenant based rental assistance.  That means you can get up to 24 months of rental assistance for someone, and depending on ‑‑ now, really depending on how you work it, you have to have someplace for people to go at the end of 24 months, but it's a fabulous bridge subsidy, so if your housing authority's waiting list, if you're in a miraculous environment and your housing authority's waiting list is less than 24 months, it's a perfect bridge.  If people are going to bridge to, you know, a living wage and they need 24 months, you know, of a subsidized sort of setting, subsidized income, you can do that.  If they're going to bridge, if they're on the list for a subsidized housing unit, so let's say they're eligible for senior housing and they want to move to senior housing and there's a high‑rise in your community that's senior housing and there a' on the waiting list for that and it's 24 months or less, (inaudible) 24 months of assistance to bridge to more permanent assistance.  
So that is done through a set aside.  That was the set aside.  And that is a recurring set aside.  It's $2 million a year out of the Texas state HOME program, as just an example.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Is there a way to include a personal assistance component in that?  
>> TIM FUCHS:  Can you use the microphone?  
>> ANN DENTON:  The question was ‑‑ you want me to repeat the question?  No.  You got it.  They're going to make you repeat it. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Is there a way to include a personal assistance component in any way to that?  
>> ANN DENTON:  No.  That's the short answer.  These are housing dollars.  Housing dollars are about housing.  And so part of the independent living center job is to weave these resources together.  So to help people.  And we said yesterday, you know, one of the most amazing things, it's like a circus trip, an acrobatic trick, it's like a tumbling roll, to pull these things together so they come out in the same space and time.  You talk about people who need waiver services, home healthcare, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff needs to be ‑‑ that's in a separate pipeline moving towards the end and you've got the housing voucher in this other pipeline and having them come out even close to each other, is a feat.  
Andrew, did you have a comment?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A question actually.  For those of us who are relative newbies to all of this, would you briefly describe what the HOME program is and its purposes?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes, I would be happy to do that. 
So the HOME program, which is one of the programs governed by the community's consolidated plan, provides four kinds of housing assistance, and it's housing only.  It's not any kind of services.  What those four kinds of housing assistance are is owner occupied assistance, and this is a common use of this category is, you know, the little old lady living in poverty whose house is falling apart around her and these dollars can be used to help rehabilitate that house and make it livable so she can age in place.  That's the kind of thing that owner occupied housing assistance does. 
Now when we look at Lisa, I don't want to get this wrong, then another category is rental project development.  And this is where HOME funds are often used actually as match for tax credit programs.  Right?  I don't know, are you doing that in Oklahoma?  Matching HOME rental project development?  
Then I'm going to blank ‑‑ can you help me?  I blanked on the third category, because I know the last one is tenant based rental assistance. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  For HOME projects, there's housing rehabilitation, home ownership. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Home ownership.  That's it.  Thank you.  Yes.  Home ownership assistance is the third category, and actually lots of communities do ‑‑ I can't believe I even forgot it, because lots of communities will do home ownership assistance, because everybody loves home ownership, right?  Don't we all love home ownership?  It's a way for poor households to build well, or has been historically in the country.  
Yes, Lisa?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  How does that differ from owner occupied?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Owner occupied is I'm already in the house.  I already own it.  I'm too poor to fix it up or I'm too poor to hold on to it or something like that.  Home ownership is I'm a first time home buyer trying to ‑‑ this is more of access home ownership. 
And then the last category is tenant based rental assistance.  TBRA is what I'm going to write on that piece of paper.  Tenant based rental assistance.  Now we've talked about tenant based rental assistance over and over again.  That's a big category of assistance where you give someone a voucher or whatever, whatever, and they take it around.  It's attached to the tenant.  So I go and pick out a unit that will accept the voucher.  And the most common form of that the housing choice voucher program, aka Section 8 that the housing authorities run.  But this is an example of another source of tenant based rental assistance that's available in most of your communities that is underutilized.  So ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So that is that separate from Section 8?  
>> ANN DENTON:  It's a completely different funding stream.  In terms of the big buckets, we talked about the big buckets.  The housing authorities are a huge bucket.  Did I forget to do that?  Let me show you.  I don't know what this will do to the filming, but this room, this line, is HUD funding in a community.  So from here all the way out to about here (indicating), is the public housing authority's share.  Actually it's probably more like this.  So you look at the national numbers and the amount of resources that go to housing authorities.  They get ‑‑ this is HUD only.  This line is HUD.  They're here.  They come to about here, okay?  
So I come probably. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A long way. 
>> ANN DENTON:  60 percent of the room.  60 percent of the room.  
Now, for the consolidated plan resources, that's another nice little chunk.  So that's probably over to about here (indicating).  Right?  So another 25 percent, 30 percent.  30 percent really is in the consolidated plan.  So we have ‑‑ so that's what you have.  Those are common to your community on a formula grant, for God's sake.  You can't screw up ‑‑ you can't ‑‑ 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  See, I'm not the only one. 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's hard to get defunded on the formula grants.  It's possible, but they're pretty much ‑‑ unless you murder a puppy in the streets. 
(Laughter.) 
Or something, if you do something egregious, you're going to get your formula funding. 
So this comes to you through your community, and it comes every year.  
Okay.  Then the remainder on this line is the consolidated plan, which is over to about here (indicating), which is another ‑‑ I'm almost up to 98 percent of the line here visually, when I'm moving across the room.  
So this is the continuum of care.  So the homeless resources that come to your community that people fight and scrap over is this little itty bitty piece really of ‑‑ compared to everything else that's coming in, we're killing ourselves trying to get the (inaudible) shelter plus care.  It's not fair.  We're fighting over crumbs really in a way.  And then all the way over here on this very little, this last two percent of resources over here, these are things like the 811 program and the 202 program that we talked about.  Okay?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So why do people fight over those few funds when there's all of these funds over here?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Because all of these funds over here (indicating), majority of funds are not targeted to particular populations.  They're open to households that are at or below 80 percent of median.  So the housing authority stuff is targeted lower.  But it's not population specific.  It's poverty specific.  And so the boutique programs as my friend would say, the continuum of care and the 202, and the 811s and the other boutique programs that are targeted, those of us who know about it are ready to fight about it. 
So where's my question?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's over here. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Go ahead. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I think the three buckets of money that you were talking about yesterday?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  These are the three buckets of money, the three buckets of HUD money.  So bucket one is the housing authority, bucket 2 is the ConPlan, bucket 3 is the continuum of care.  
Back to the visualization.  You know, I have walked a line from one end of the room to the other.  Right?  And that's the HUD line.  So it's a foot wide, let's say. 
Okay.  Low‑income housing tax credits, imagine from the HUD line to the back of that wall, the volume of the room.  Not a narrow line.  It's the volume of the room.  That's the resources that go into the tax credit.  It's amazing.  It's amazing how much money is in the tax credit plan.  
So that's the visualization.  
So back to the HOME program.  These are the four categories of assistance under the HOME program.  And most ‑‑ sometimes communities will focus just on one type, and like I said, home ownership is, you know, it's a mom and apple pie.  Everybody loves home ownership.  Tenant based rental assistance is underutilized.  One of them is because it's a nightmare to administer.  I'm looking to Lisa.  It's a nightmare to administer. 
The other reason is that, you know, everybody loves a ribbon cutting and it just doesn't have a ribbon cutting.  It's not as much of an easy sell with the politicians.  But back to advocacy, we're talking advocacy, one of the thing that you can ask for, and this is HOME program specific, is you can ask people to use a percentage of the resources for tenant based rental assistance.  
So Pat, could you look up for me ‑‑ let me see.  The consolidated plan resources, let's pick on Odessa. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We can pick on a different state. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Or someone else want to volunteer to be picked on?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Tennessee. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Tennessee.  Okay.  And what community in Tennessee?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Knoxville. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Knoxville, Tennessee.  
I just want to know how much you're getting.  I just want to look up how much you're getting. 
Back to the information tool in your toolbox.  
Go ahead. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I just want to ask a quick question, when you're talking about the advocacy and the set asides.  It seems like what you were saying about the area in Texas, they set aside $2 million for Olmstead implementation.  So it seemed like you were asking for a dollar amount, so would it be appropriate, first of all, to ask for a percentage, and is it appropriate also then to ask for that to be population specific rather than for policy implementation?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I would ‑‑ you can ask ‑‑ there's two questions there.  One is do you want a percentage or a dollar amount.  You can do it either way.  You can ask for whatever you think you're going to need.  What we did in Texas is, since I live there, I was part of that, we figured out how much each voucher was going to be worth and we wanted it to serve 105 people, I think.  I can't remember.  We figured out how many vouchers we were going to use.  Because the worst thing you can do is ask for too much and not be able to use it. 
The other question, tell me it again, was ‑‑ oh, do you want to ask population specific?  I'd stay out of that fight. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So you want to ask for it to be something that's policy driven?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Like Olmstead, or you could ask for (inaudible) money follows the person.  You could ask for that.  
Okay.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What if you want to ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  So what I want to know about Knoxville, Tennessee, there should be an Excel spreadsheet on the HUD website that shows how much money Knoxville gets for CDBG, how many they get for HOME, how much they get for ESG and how much they get for HOPWA.  There should be a spreadsheet that does that.  Maybe 2011 allocations. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Go ahead and give me a minute. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  The computer's working a little slow. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And we'll come back to that, too.  But this is, in terms of your advocacy tools, knowing ‑‑ remember, information is your other tool.  Knowing enough about what your community gets every year, and what the plan says they're going to use it for and how well they've done it gives you some ground to stand on, and knowing ‑‑ you know your own level of need, how many resources can you realistically use, gives you something ‑‑ a real conversation to have with people about what you want.  So you put those building blocks together, and so you might go to a consolidated plan hearing, for example, and say we would like you to do a better job of serving people with disabilities.  In order to do that, we recommend the following:  We recommend that you set aside ‑‑ let's not be greedy.  Ten percent of the resources in the consolidated plan, and for some communities, you're about to find out, that's a big number.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Tell me when you're ready. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'm ready. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So for CDBG. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Knoxville. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Knoxville, $318,970.  The number of units ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's HOME program?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  HOME program is 660,723.  CHDO. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's set aside.  That's the HOME program set aside. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  380,000. 
>> ANN DENTON:  380.  Yes.  When you're going ‑‑ now, we're in the weeds, people, but when you want to know how much the HOME program is, the CHDO is part of HOME. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What's CHDO?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Community housing development organization.  Thank you for asking.  It's a particular type of housing development organization that is rooted in the community that it's serving.  So for example, 51 percent of their board has to be made up of people who are in the population that you serve.  And they're not disability specific but there have been CHODOs dedicated to the development of housing for people with disabilities, and their board is 51 percent people with disabilities. 
And in the HOME program, in that formula, there's a mandatory CHDO set aside, a percentage of the dollars have to go to CHDOs.  
So you have the ESG number for Knoxville yet?  Not that it really matters. 
My point is, for Knoxville, you have almost a million dollars in HOME, and an additional 300,000 in CDBG that comes ‑‑ I have to say to be fair, these allocations are declining.  They're getting lower.  Okay?  They're not going up.  But they come every year. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  What else did you want me to look up?  
>> ANN DENTON:  ESG. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's divided into several programs.  I'm trying to do the math.  It comes out to over 120,000. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'll just put 120,000.  That's close enough. 
And then not every community gets HOPWA.  I don't know if Knoxville does. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I don't see that here. 
>> ANN DENTON:  HOPWA is on ‑‑ I believe I'm doing it on memory.  If you don't have a population ‑‑ they look at incidents of prevalence data around AIDS, and so it's really linked to where are people living who have AIDS.  
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  This illustrates that you have to really pay attention where you're pulling your numbers from.  If you look at the Knoxville action plan for 2011, 2012, they actually get 1.6 million of CDBG funds.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Where are you looking at?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  1.4 of HOME. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Where are you looking?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'm on the city of Knoxville's website. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And which page?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's just their action plan PDF.  City of Knoxville.org development current docs. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's a great illustration.  Yes.  
(Cross talk.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You have to really look to where you're finding your information. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I see what you're doing.  I'm actually looking at what they're planning on spending. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  So ‑‑ but that's a great point.  So you have to pay ‑‑ what I usually look is HUD.  'Cause HUD has a planned allocation.  They have the formula for everybody up on their website.  
But you knew something now that you didn't know when you got here, right?  And you know that there are resources that are available that you can provide input on what it is that you like out of those resources.  Are you automatically going to get it?  No.  But you know what to ask for now.  
Okay.  You know what you can ask for.  You go home and figure out what it is you need too.  Yeah.  That's the other part. 
Okay.  So that's the consolidated plan.  That's all we're going to talk about now.  
I do a training where I teach people how to ‑‑ you know, where we actually practice testimony and we look at data from different communities and people sit up here and pretend to be the people taking the public testimony and other people practice.  I had somebody one time, he brought money in an envelope and tried to hand it to people. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have a question, you probably already answered this but I didn't understand it.  You mentioned the bridge funding that could be used or is used in your state, and I wasn't clear if that was federally or if that could be used in every state for the 24 months while someone may be on some other waiting list. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  Let me answer that.  Yes.  
The answer is yes.  Using HOME funds under the consolidated plan is theoretically possible in every jurisdiction that receives HOME.  So tenant based rental assistance, which can be used to bridge, is available in every jurisdiction that receives HOME funds. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  As long as it's in the consolidated plan?  
>> ANN DENTON:  As long as it's been selected within the consolidated plan, and there are some reasons, good reasons, that jurisdictions don't do that.  Which one is, Lisa, it's a nightmare to administer. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So again read your consolidated plan. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Read your consolidated plan.  One of the things you want to look at when you're reading it and you should read the version that Lisa's pointing out, is do they even ‑‑ are they using that as an activity at all. 
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  One thing you'll find in reading most of the consolidated plans is they're very vague.  Because you're trying to write a planning document that's going to span five years.  And you really can't anticipate what your specific needs are going to be, and so, for instance, the way we wrote ours is we do anything, you know?  It's vague enough that we can justify what we want to do year to year from the consolidated plan as we're preparing our action plan.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  And that's great.  Actually if you've got one that's vague, that's great, because then ‑‑ that's good, because it gives you an opportunity to get them to experiment with things during their action planning. 
Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So I suggest, because in our state, they have a public reviewer comment period in writing the consolidated plan. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes, in every state. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  That advocates (inaudible) their comment is you need to include this in the plan, whether it's hard to administer or not. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Absolutely.  I'm trying to present both sides of the question, which there are ‑‑ there is a barrier to it that's been a reasonable person could agree on is a barrier, but that doesn't mean we don't overcome it.  Plus I don't want Lisa to get mad at me. 
Okay.  So the answer to that question is the way HOME ‑‑ I'm going to do this one more ‑‑ one more time about how the money flows, because I don't think we covered it exactly.  And then we'll go on.  
Yes, ma'am?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Every time I read our consolidated plan, they don't include extremely low income. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I call that relationship building.  I would call the person who is writing the consolidated plan.  You know, I was reading this and I'm not sure I understand it, but I went to a training session, and (inaudible) how are you meeting the needs of extremely low income.  Tell me where I can find it, and that starts the conversation and the answer might be you just missed it, or the answer might be they don't do that.  And then you can have a conversation about why not, and you can build from that interaction into real testimony and into comments, written comments, on the plan when it comes out for comment.  
Okay.  One final quick sort of picture about how the money comes for the consolidated plan.  For the consolidated plan, the ConPlan is administered on a formula, and for each category of funding in there, CDBG, HOME, ESG and HOPWA.  Who has a different formula?  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on that, except to say that depending on what your jurisdiction is, the physical ‑‑ the population size of your jurisdiction is going to determine which of these dollars you get.  So just because ‑‑ so if you are too small, if you are under 75,000 in population, you're a small community, you're not going to get HOME.  Because in order to get HOME funds, you have to be 75,000 or greater in population.  But you will get CDBG most likely because the population limit for that is lower.  There's a lot of CDBG communities in our country.  I think it's 50,000.  
So this is community.  So community specific.  So this is Knoxville.  And Knoxville as we saw gets CDBG, HOME, and ESG.  They don't get HOPWA, so their prevalence rates of AIDS is not high enough that they get HOPWA. 
Okay.  What if your community is too small to get its own CDBG money?  Or what if your community is too small to get its own HOME money?  Are you just out of luck?  And the answer is no.  You are then covered, if you're too small to get your own, you're covered under the state ConPlan, which has exactly the same four CDBG ‑‑ CDBG, home, ESG, and HOPWA.  And those dollars are used for what's called the balance of state.  
So whether or not you get your own community formula, your own community money, is based on your population size generally.  And if you're too small to get your own allocation, you're covered by the state.  So somebody somewhere last the consolidated plan that applies to your community.  
Yes Julia?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You were talking about the set aside.  Is it appropriate to ask for geographical set aside, like this county or this particular town, village, city?  I'm saying if you, this happens to be true in my county, (inaudible) like let's say for Lisa's county, it's a smaller county or some outlying counties. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I've never heard of anybody doing that.  I'm not sure if it's prohibited or not.  I just never heard of that.  
Andrew, you had a comment?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was just going to mention that at least in Utah, one of our (inaudible) tenant organization does the consolidated plan for a couple of the small cities and counties as well.  So ‑‑ and they write it for I think it's like five or six different small cities or towns. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  So that's another way it could be happening.  Right.  Yes. 
It's like Medicaid.  Right?  If you've seen one state system, you've seen one state system.  They're idiosyncratic.  There's certain things that are common based on the legislation that governs the funding programs, and there are things that are common based on the way HUD allocates money, but then within that there's a variety of things. 
Okay.  So advocacy.  So we're almost done with this.  So back to the third set of tools in your toolbox is advocacy.  We talked about what to ask for in the consolidated plan.  
All right.  Continuum of care.  You need to know who is writing the continuum of care for your community.  You need to know what you're getting now, and as Lisa has said, one of the best ways to get that is to call the entity, and sometimes it's the city or the county, sometimes it's a local coalition, increasingly it's going to be local coalitions, because of some changes that HUD is making to the way these things operate.  
But somebody somewhere in your community is governing that.  If you want to know who is getting money, and what they're getting it for, we showed you how to do that yesterday.  That's the HUD HRE homelessness resource exchange.  So it's HUDHRE.info.  
Low‑income housing tax credits we've talked about already.  I want to spend ten minutes to talk about outreach to landlords, and then we'll move to the ‑‑ and then I want to set the stage for the work we're going to do for the remainder of the morning and after lunch, which is about back to the tenants that you're working with.  It's less about where the dollars are for money, but once you find that, how do you then support someone's transition effectively, because there's a whole host of things that we haven't even talked about today that, you know ‑‑ we talked about the timing of getting these things to come together.  There's also a whole lot of work to be done with people as they contemplate what they want to do, and how they want to do it and how they get set up and how many times they change their mind and having their parents tell them that they can't do it.  There's lots of things that we wanted to explore that we're asked to explore with you. 
Let's talk about landlords.  So, Pat, you're going to be our landlord.  You're going to be our token landlord. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Absolutely. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  So I need more housing for people with disabilities.  Can you help me?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  What are we ‑‑ how many housing units are you thinking?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Well, I just need a lot. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Well, I only have four units, so I can't offer a lot.  And those four units, I have to wait until people move out. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Well, let's see.  (Inaudible) the bad one. 
(Laughter.) 
Can you put me on a list?  Go for the sell. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Let me just say ‑‑ okay.  Tell me what kind of landlord am I?  Am I a landlord of a few units or am I a landlord of a lot of units?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Let's talk about the kind of landlords there are.  That's a great place to start. 
So what do we mean by landlord?  What do we mean by landlords?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Well, I think you're going to have two different types of landlords.  You're going to have the small property landlords who are doing it for some type of investment, and usually don't have, you know, they may have a few buildings, and then you have the bigger properties that it the actual people who operate the buildings are companies.  Property management companies.  And those are usually, if it's a property management company, that means somebody has enough property and enough money where they have gone to somebody and said, look, I don't want to operate it.  Here, operate my buildings and you send me the check and you take out your fees for all that you do but the check comes to me for the profits. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  That's sort of a universal private landlord.  Yeah.  
So how do you find small landlords?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Small landlords actually are hard to find.  And the reason they're hard to find is because you can be ‑‑ it doesn't take anything to be a private landlord.  I mean you don't have to be a part of an association.  Or anything like that.  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I developed (inaudible) based on being an advocate and being the relationship and keeping them on the list.  Also your local department of social services usually has a list of regular private as well as managed landlords.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  There are some lists.  They're not complete, and you can start developing your own list, which is where I was going to go, is to ‑‑ when you ‑‑ part of being a housing coordinator is you have to get out there, and you have to see who's renting up apartments, you know, and I always recommend that you start with the smaller landlords, because smaller landlords have a lot more leeway.  We have a lot more flexibility.  We're going to be willing to take more risk in some cases if we have a good relationship, and if I know what you're going to be doing and helping people.  The big property management companies don't have to take those risks because it's not crucial that all their units are leased up.  
Now, a small landlord, I need my units leased, because that's where my rent comes from.  I pay my mortgage from that money.  A bigger landlord, you know, if I'm a big company, a couple of vacancies are not going to hurt me.  
And actually there are various ways to find landlords.  I know that public housing actually tries to accumulate all the landlords who work with them.  They have a whole list of landlords who work with public housing, because they want to be able to, when somebody moves out, or when you have vacancies, they want to be one of the people who can refer their people to you who have the vouchers.  
And a lot of it is foot work, and a lot of it is keeping an eye on various local newspapers, looking at Craig's List.  A lot of people are using Craig's List to look for tenants.  
When you're a small landlord, you're not going to be advertising in big newspapers.  It costs a lot of money.  You're going to be advertising in low cost things.  Putting signs up in front of your building.  Putting things on Craig's List, putting things in local newspapers where it doesn't cost a ton of money.  Any free newspapers that you have in your area, because it's cheap ways to advertise, because you don't have a big advertising budget.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  So to summarize some of these things, I mean the first step is finding landlords that you can engage.  And so PHAs have a list of landlords that they work with.  Sometimes health service organizations have a list.  The low‑income housing tax credit property list that we talked about earlier that you should be able to get off your website for the state.  Craig's List, word of mouth.  Word of mouth.  And free newspapers.  And so yeah, the key word is hustle.  You've got to hustle to put this stuff together.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And you have to hustle and you can do some of the work over the phone and on line, but with smaller landlords, a lot ‑‑ meeting face‑to‑face goes a long way.  Because now I have a face with the person and we can start a relationship, and a lot of times it's, you know, landlords don't want a lot and we talked about this yesterday.  Landlords want two things:  Their money and their properties or buildings taken care of.  I don't want somebody who's going to come in and ruin my property.  And a lot of times when they start asking questions, or you can always tell when a landlord starts asking questions, they're trying to see if this person is doing ruin their unit or ruin their building or cause problems.  And you can try to address that in various ways.  You can talk about the support that you're going to be providing.  The one thing you can't do with a landlord is say you're going to do something and then don't do it.  Word gets around very quickly.  We talk to each other.  Landlords talk to each other.  And we'll say, don't ‑‑ they promise and they didn't deliver.  So if you say you're going to provide support for somebody, even if you're working with another agency to provide that support, you need to make sure that that support's being provided, because the one thing you don't want to say is, well, we had this contract or a memorandum of understanding with this agency, and they didn't do what they were supposed to do.  I'm still only looking at you.  My relationship is with you, not with this other agency.  If you chose them, you need to make sure they're going to follow through.  
Also if you know you can guarantee rent, or at least a portion of the rent, the other piece of advice, don't promise stuff you can't deliver.  Don't promise me that this person is going to move in and never cause me a problem and be in my building for years.  You can't guarantee that.  And why would I expect this if none of my other tenants do that?  
You had your hand up?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Starting as an ILS, one of the things that works very well for me is thank yous with follow‑up about agency information and the kinds of supports we can provide for current tenants to keep them in there so they don't have a lot of openings and missed months of rent. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right, and one of the things we're going to talk about later and just talk about what ‑‑ as a housing coordinator you need to know the legalities.  Because landlords, you think landlords know that stuff, and not every landlord knows what they can do legally.  
(Laughter.) 
Some of them just ‑‑ somehow got into the ‑‑ into the business and are flying by the seat of their pants, and sometimes landlords do illegal things without knowing that they're doing something illegal.  It's important that the housing coordinator know.  Sometimes it's a matter of education.  Sometimes it's a matter of taking that person to court.  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was going to say I have a relationship with the state's division of human rights, and they have a lot of landlord complaints and stuff.  They're willing to work with us and give us the list of some of those landlords (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Which is a great way to establish a relationship, is doing that training for landlords who are ‑‑ who have complaints against them.  Landlords don't know.  In order to be a landlord, you don't have to go take classes.  And a lot of times you hope you get lucky or you try to do your best up front to do the best screening that you can possibly do, but even that screening is based on (inaudible) things, and you do a credit report.  A person has good credit.  You go that's good.  They pay bills.  You do a background check and nothing comes up.  Oh, good.  They didn't get into trouble.  I mean it's trying to guarantee that this person's not going to cause problems.  Well, now that you know what I'm looking for, you can address that.  You can let me know as a landlord, if this person's going to be causing problems, you call me, and I can do what I can do on my end to work with this person, so you don't have to deal with it.  I'm like oh, I don't have toe deal with the problems if this person is doing something?  I just pick up the phone?  That's awesome, that's a benefit for me as a landlord.  But what happens if they ruin something?  And having that relationship means you're going to hear what my concerns are, and you can see how you can address those concerns, but again don't tell me something you can't deliver. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  One of the best practical things that housing programs can do is have an emergency fund for emergency repairs.  So if I knock a hole in the wall, rather than make that a big to do and it turns into a huge ruckus, if the independent living center has an emergency fund and you can go in and have somebody, like a Willis, right?  Like Willis who knows how to do that, who knows how to patch, you know, sheet rock or drywall or whatever it is, then you just go in and do that.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Also if you're the housing coordinator, having phone numbers that people can get ahold of you and if you're not available, having backup.  You go on vacation and you think I'm on vacation, well if your landlord is trying to reach you because they have a problem and there's nobody to call because you're on vacation.  So it's like of all those little things that can mean the difference between having a good relationship.  I'm not saying you have to be on call 24 hours, but at least letting the landlords know, you know, if you can't get ahold of me, I have some ‑‑ I'll always make sure you have somebody who you can contact if there's an issue that comes up.  It makes a big difference.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  It makes a huge difference.  
So we've talked about, in terms of landlords, we've talked a little bit about how to find them.  That was on the previous page.  So how to find them.  And then Pat's been talking about some details kind of around how to approach them. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And let me just add one thing.  If they're a big property management company, in most states they have to have information on the building somewhere about how to contact the company, the name of the company and the phone number.  So that you can contact them.  But if you see that name and that number, a lot of times you're dealing ‑‑ especially if it's a big company, it's going to be that company's name, you know that you're dealing with a big agency who this is all they do is they have property managers who have 20 properties that they have to manage, and a lot of times it's very hard to get a relationship with that person because they're not willing to take the risk because I got 20 properties.  I don't need problems.  I want everybody to come in and if there's a problem, I'm not going to sit down and work with you.  Get out, or let's go to court. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  I would say back to the general information tool in your toolbox, one of the things that you should know, and you should get from the HOME, the consolidated plan, is a little bit about your housing market, what's your vacancy rate or what's your occupancy rate in rental units.  If your occupancy rate is extremely high, you know, or your ‑‑ that means that your vacancy rate is really low, that means that landlords are not hungry (inaudible) people knocking down their doors.  So every unit is full, and they can get away with a lot.  If your vacancy rate is bigger, and ‑‑ or if there are vacancies in certain areas of your community, then those landlords are likely to be hungrier, even if they are a big company. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, absolutely. 
And the other thing is you or somebody at your agency should know how to do housing quality inspections, HQSs.  Just because I'm a landlord, don't mean I got quality units. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And you don't want to move people in unless the person chooses that place.  You don't want to move somebody into a place that, you know, especially if they have a voucher, that will not pass an inspection.  And if the unit will not pass an inspection, but the person really wants to live there, then if you know what the ‑‑ what things are deficient, you may have the resources to help that landlord get that unit to where it needs to be, especially if it's minor things, so that that person can move in.  I mean those are the types of relationships where it's give‑and‑take or you educate me as a landlord.  What is it that my unit needs to pass this inspection.  Because all landlords aren't thinking that way.  Landlords rerent their units and we're not thinking about it's got to pass certain types of inspections.  
>> ANN DENTON:  So we've kind of touched on landlords.  I would say, to summarize and close this discussion around landlords, is to, emphasize that what you're doing, just like you're doing with anyone else in this world, is you're creating a relationship.  And so looking for landlords, one of the things that you can do is go to their meetings.  If they have ‑‑ there is an association, you can go to their meetings.  
You are making friends.  My friend Sam Saharas who runs a big supported housing program in New York City, calls it the care and feeding of landlords, because know what they want.  Just knowing the housing language, knowing what landlords want and need is crucial to being able to fit yourself into their world in a way that benefits the people we're trying to serve. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I know one group who actually did something and they were very successful at it.  What they did was they tried to get all those lists and get a whole list of people that were landlords, and they invited them all to an open house. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And they had just little snacks and drinks, like soda and water and juice, and it was kind of a get to know each other, but it was bringing all of them together to one spot so you don't have to run around and try to ‑‑ and they gathered all the information they needed.  They started their relationship building that way, as opposed to going door to door or trying to look up everybody and trying to meet face‑to‑face with everybody.  You don't have a ton of time so you have to be creative in ways that you do things.  And it was very successful for them.  When they were done they had a whole list of people and managers who would e‑mail them and let them know when they had vacancies.  So those times of resources are what you want to start building.  And if you don't have a whole group of landlords who are contacting you to say, look, we got a vacancy, I'm looking for tenants and you're one of the people on my list to contact.  
>> ANN DENTON:  One of the most powerful things you can do is recognize people who are on your team, and so after you've gotten past the stage where Pat just talked about and you're in a relationship with a landlord, just like if you're in the relationship with an affordable housing developer or you're in a relationship with a state senator, is that you give that person an award, or, you know, or you hold a press conference or you issue some kind of ‑‑ you know, you recognize people for being on your team, and that doesn't really cost you anything.  And it's a powerful tool. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah.  We used to highlight people in our newsletters and would send the newsletters out so people would get to see their face a little bit about the relationship, and people loved that.  I mean we would do vendors, if a vendor was great and hired some of our people that ‑‑ because we also had an employment program.  If they hired people, it was awesome, and we would highlight that.  And it was free publicity for them.  And it didn't cost us a thing to put it in our newsletter, and it was just a newsletter.  We weren't doing anything special.  We did a newsletter anyway.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Okay.  So what I'd like to do now, I'm looking at food going by out there. 
(Laughter.) 
I thought our lunch was at 12:30, so I was going to take the 30 minutes we had before 12:30, and move us into the next module.  So that's what we're going to do.  I'm getting antsy watching the carts. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We can see the food and we're going, that sounds good. 
>> ANN DENTON:  But we're going to ‑‑ so I'm going to find the next one.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I just am curious, how many people feel comfortable with basically what landlords can throw you up for?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Oh, that's a good question. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I see a few hands going up.  
As a housing coordinator ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What was the question?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  How many people feel comfortable with knowing how you can be evicted from housing?  How landlords can evict people.  
I see a few hands.  
So we have housing coordinators who ‑‑ that's something you need to know, is how you can be evicted.  'Cause a lot of landlords don't know that either.  
(Laughter.) 
And that's ‑‑ it's kind of scary.  But I've heard people say, well, he told me I had to get out, so I left.  Well, no, it don't work that way.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  When I tell them out, I tell them they have to take me to court. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I can say anything I want to and hope that you'll leave. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A lot of people don't know that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  A lot of people don't know.  A lot of people think if the landlord says you need to move, you need to move. 
Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Even if that's the case, there are creative ways to hold that off until they can make a safe transition to another home. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's true, but they don't actually have to move. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I want to share an experience I have. 
Are we on?  
Yeah, I actually, one of the few housing experiences that I have had is ‑‑ and this was actually with not a small landlord, but with one of the companies.  I had a consumer come in one day off the street, and everyone who works in independent living knows that's pretty common, with an eviction notice, they had to be out in 30 days for differences between him and the rental staff.  So I talked to the consumer, and he was saying that every time he went to the office for an issue, the staff was disrespectful, so I called up the property manager to get his side of the story.  He was saying every time the consumer came in, he would argue and yell at the staff.  And this person that I was working with had a mental disability, and had stopped taking medication.  So what I was able to do is the property ‑‑ I talked to the consumer and I was like, look, if you're willing to get back on your meds and start doing treatment, I'll see if I can talk to the property manager and maybe we can work something out.  He agreed to that, and I was able to get a face‑to‑face with the property manager and the regional manager of the company, and we all sat down, and hammered out a written agreement that, you know, as long as this person agreed to start seeking treatment, they would revoke the eviction notice, and I would act as a go‑between between this consumer and the property manager if anything else came up.  And he's still there so it's worked. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  It's very possible. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It can happen. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah.  It's very possible.  
Do we have ten minutes. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes, you have ten minutes because I'm going to go through these Power Points real quick and then we'll be breaking for lunch. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  What are the three ‑‑ and I'm pretty sure there are only three ways, that ‑‑ or three things you could be evicted for?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Failure to pay rent. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So you don't pay rent.  If you don't pay rent, you can be evicted.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Damage to the property.  There's a bigger category than just damage to the property, and that's following your lease.  If you don't follow your lease, you can be evicted.  It's a legal document.  
One other one?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  The objectionable tenant clause. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I mean, I don't know, in our area it's most commonly used to evict people who traffic in drugs.  It's really, really hard to evict somebody (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  In a lot of leases that goes under lease violations.  So that really is a lease violation.  
What else?  There's one more way.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Actually you cannot evict somebody when the lease is over.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You can give them notice. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  You can give them notice.  You can ask them to move out.  You can't evict them.  You still have to go to court even when the lease is over.  
Abandoning the unit.  If somebody abandons their unit, you can get rid of ‑‑ I mean you can go for eviction.  
Now, the paying of rent is fairly simple.  Right?  If you don't pay your rent ‑‑ 'cause most rent is due on the 1st, right?  Of the month?  You can have other lease ‑‑ I mean we used to ask some people to pay rent on the 15th.  In most place, how many days do you get to pay your rent?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Five. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Five.  So that means rent's due on the 1st.  You have five days to pay your rent.  If you don't pay your rent by the 6th day, I can legally give you notice that I'm going to take you to court.  Once I give you that notice, that I'm going to take you to court, I cannot take rent from you.  Once I start the proceedings.  If I take your rent from you, then all of that stuff that went to court is null and void.  So when you have a person who says it's the 6th day, I tried to pay it, they wouldn't take it, they wouldn't take it, because when I send stuff to court, I have to pay to take that stuff to court, and that already costs me money, so why would I lose that money and start taking your rent when it's already gone to that point. 
Now, most landlords don't operate that quickly.  Some do.  But some will give you a notice or, you know, send you a ‑‑ in some places it's called a five‑day notice or a notice that you didn't pay rent and say you need to pay rent or this could result in eviction.  And they have to say result in, because there's no guarantee, 'cause it's all depending on what judge you get and what happens in court.  
So that's that part.  So rent payment is fairly simple.  
Lease agreements.  Now, as a housing coordinator, I like ‑‑ and I can say this 'cause I know it don't even ‑‑ it applies to everybody.  I can't tell you how many times I sit down with people and say, here's your lease.  You know, I need you to sign it, and they pick up the pen and they sign, and never read what's in the lease.  And it happens all the time.  
A lot of times when you're the housing coordinator, you want to make sure that you know what's in that lease and you want to make sure that the consumer that you're working with or the client that you're working with knows what's in that lease, because that lease is going to dictate what they can and cannot do.  And if it's in the lease, no matter even if it's verbal, if I say to you, oh, don't worry about it, but it's in the lease, guess what?  It's going to stand up in court.  That lease.  
So if you do a lease violation, what I have to do is give you notice that you have to stop it.  So say you were playing your music too loud at night, you were partying and got complaints and I said, in your lease it says you have to have quiet enjoyment of your unit and you have to respect your neighbors.  I'm giving you a lease violation.  Your lease violation says you have so many days and it's different in different states, so you need to know in your state what it is, but it says you have so many days to stop.  So if you don't do it again, then we're done.  But say in Chicago, it's ten days.  You have ten days to stop.  So for ten days, you're good.  12th day you have another party.  Give you another notice saying you have ten days.  
Eventually I say we're going to court, because you're doing this, it's like over and over again and I got the paperwork to prove it and I take you to court and the judge has to make the determination of whether you get evicted. 
Cities are different.  Some cities are tenant friendly, like Chicago is a very tenant friendly city.  So most times the judge is going to err on the side of the tenant.  
When I was in ‑‑ did some work in Cincinnati, they erred on the side of the property manager.  I had an easier time evicting people in Cincinnati than Chicago for the same things.  You need to know your city.  You need to know if it's a tenant friendly city or a property management friendly city.  That's important.  
The other thing that you can evict for is if people abandon their unit, and a lot of times people don't go there, because unless the unit is subsidized.  If the unit is subsidized, you're getting rent so you won't be evicting for that, but somebody might have left for 30 days, and it's 30 days, and you haven't seen them or heard from them.  You have to prove that they have not been there for 30 days, so that's giving ‑‑ sending them a note, sending them a certified note, asking them to contact you, saying, look, we really need to know if you're still here, blah, blah, blah.  If nobody responds and you've gotten (inaudible) and nobody's responding, you can start proceedings to evict that person, unless that person has told you they're going on vacation and they won't be back.  That's why it's important that if you're going to be gone for more than a couple of weeks, letting the property manager know that you're going to be gone for a couple of weeks on vacation, just so they know that nobody's going to be in your unit.  
Those are the only things you can evict for.  Property managers cannot evict you.  The only person that can say that you're being evicted is a judge.  And usually the judge orders the sheriff to come out and some places the sheriffs actually take the stuff out of your unit.  In some places the sheriffs wait while you take the stuff out of your unit.  So it depends on your city, your state, as to how it works, but that's the only person that can evict you.  
Landlords cannot go in your unit and touch your property and take it out.  That's illegal.  Landlords cannot lock you out of your unit.  That's illegal.  Landlords cannot ‑‑ if you file ‑‑ if you go to court and you win, landlords cannot make it difficult to live there.  
Every state has a tenant‑landlord agreement and what ‑‑ you should have a copy of that.  And you should be ‑‑ you should make sure that your tenants or your clients have copies of their leases and know what is in their lease. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's a tenants rights guide. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And it can be obtained through your attorney general's office. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Every place has one and you should have a copy of it.  Again in that messy office, it should be in one of your files, because that really ‑‑ and it's almost like a bible for landlords, and some landlords don't have copies of it for themselves.  I've given copies to landlords, because like I said, it doesn't take anything to be a landlord.  
Clear?  Does that help?  
All right.  
>> ANN DENTON:  I think one of the big points to make about evictions is that there are multiple reasons on both sides, both the tenant side and the landlord side, to avoid them at all costs. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Absolutely, and the thing is if you're a good housing coordinator, you want to have that property manager contact you before they sent paperwork to an attorney, because once the paper works goes in, it's a done deal, but if you can get to the property manager before the paperwork goes in, you've got a good chance of saving that unit and maintaining that housing.  Sometimes it's about just ‑‑ it's a misunderstanding or somebody needs to be the mediator or there needs to be some interaction, you know.  The landlord has no clue of what's going on and as a landlord, you follow your guide, because you have to do the same for everybody.  But you can a lot of times prevent evictions because it's costly to evict.  I have to pay money to evict you.  I would rather keep you in my unit, but I don't want to keep you in my unit at the cost of everybody else.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And from the tenant's perspective, having an eviction on your record, you think you have barriers now.  Once you have an eviction on your record, you know, it's a pretty significant thing.  It's a significant barrier.  
Okay.  All right.  So it's a little bit after 12, and I think that what we'd like to do is again we have ‑‑ we have backed away from sort of the housing resources and how to find housing and we're moving into again some of the ‑‑ from the tenant's perspective, how do you prepare people to move.  And we're going to spend, you know, the time before lunch on that, and then we're going to spend an hour or so after lunch, looking through the tools that are available to you in the publication, (inaudible) regular integrated housing I think is the name of it, and I want you to know what's in there, especially the people who are working directly with people who want to come out of institutions.  Because those tools are also in your ‑‑ should be in your toolbox.  We've talked a lot about what's in your toolbox to find housing this morning.  We also want you to know to have as many tools as possible to help people get mentally and physically ready for the move. 
Did you have your hand up?  I'm getting tired.  I saw her hand up and I thought, oh, good, a question. 
Okay.  So where we are is ‑‑ here we go. 
Okay.  So our suggestion, Pat's and my suggestion to you, to the housing specialist, is to keep a practical focus.  And this is actually ‑‑ it might be a comment ‑‑ I don't think you need to hear it, but certainly people in the behavioral health world hear it, and you asked us about mental illness, people are coming out of that clinical sort of focus oftentimes want to talk about symptom management and clinical issues and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they mix that up with what the housing is.  We don't want that ‑‑ our suggestion is not to do that.  There's somebody somewhere who's taking ‑‑ who is the medical, you know, there's a medical home for this person.  You are not the medical home.  Right?  So we want you to focus on the practical necessities, and there are plenty of practical necessities.  So I would ask you to look in the book, and I wrote down the page number and then I walked away from it.  Pages 138, 139, and 140.  
So this is, again the scenario, if we go back to where we left Kay yesterday, where we left Kay yesterday was we had done some cost and assistance worksheet with her, and you should have been looking at the spending plan.  I don't think we need to revisit any of that.  You know how to do that.  
But at this point, we've taken all the information we took this morning.  We used this morning.  You found housing.  Okay?  Or you're about to find housing or you're confident that you're going to find housing.  We have Kay sitting in a nursing home.  She's been there for 30 months.  It's been a long hard road for her.  She has been independent before, but there's maybe a lot of things that she's forgotten.  These tools can be very helpful for you.  And they're the kind of thing that you can work with her on over a period of time.  Over multiple visits.  It's all about the relationship.  And it's the kind of thing you can leave with her.  So she can look at it.  And it's also the kind of thing that you can use to reassure people in her world that you're not just, you know ‑‑ you're not a radical idealist who's going to snatch people out of nursing homes and throw them into housing because that's the right thing to do and you do it without any consideration for their health and safety, their needs and preferences, right?  You know what you're doing.  This is part of your tool kit. 
So let's look at it.  It's pretty self‑explanatory.  But you'll notice, and I think we don't have ‑‑ I don't think we have exactly the right copies in here, but if you look at the book itself, in the back of the book, there's the pieces of the form are what do you do in the months before you move to a new place.  What do you do ‑‑ what do you think about and do in the weeks before you move to a new place.  And what do you think about and do in the days before and after you move to a new place.  
So let's just take a quick look at that.  If we look at the book, book, you know, this thing that's in the back pocket of your binder, in the very last three pages of that, so pages ‑‑ in that document, it's 82, 83, and 84, if you look at ‑‑ oh, you're right.  Never mind. 
Okay.  The ones we have are fine actually. 
What you really want to do is you want to talk people through what you're going to do before you move.  So look at the ‑‑ looking at page 82 in the document I'm referring you to, what to do ‑‑ think about and do in the weeks before you move to a new place.  You've picked a unit.  And so looking at that list, and this is just a possible list of things, you're going to tour it again, because if I'm Kay and I'm sitting in a nursing home and I've looked at this unit once and I've picked it, remember we talked about supporting choice.  So I've picked it from several units that I looked at, and then I go back to the nursing home and I don't go out again, it's hard for me to remember.  You know, it could be hard for me to remember the details.  What color was the tile in the bathroom?  I don't really remember. 
So you go back out.  The other thing you can do is take pictures.  
If you need accommodations or modifications, the accommodations are pretty much going to be during a lease up process.  People need accommodations for criminal background or to meet the income requirements.  You can request accommodations.  Modifications, you need to be paying attention to modifications as well.  Do people need that ‑‑ because you can't move someone in if they need a ramp and the ramp's not there, so paying attention to all of that.  Has the person actually signed a lease?  Have you worked through the lease requirements with the tenant?  Does the tenant have a copy of the lease?  When Pat and I do fidelity (inaudible) that I'm going to talk about tomorrow at lunch, the SAMHSA program, there's a fidelity for the model and one of the things we look at is the lease.  And one of my favorite questions is to go out to the home and say do you have a copy of the lease?  A lot of people don't have a copy of the lease.  It's your job to make sure the people have it and understand it. 
Then there's a million practical things.  Anybody who's ever moved knows there's an endless list of practical things that you need to do.  Do you have boxes?  Do you have packing tape?  Do you have Magic Markers to write what's in the ‑‑ you know, all of those details. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Have you notified the landlord that you're going to move, so you're not leaving them in the lurch?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  So we talked about that last month is a flurry, because you've got housing going on over here, and you got services going on over here, and the housing specialist, you are juggling, you're juggling.  It's like ‑‑ it's an incredibly intense period of work.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And if something can go wrong, it will. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It always does.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yes.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Somebody doesn't do what they're supposed to do.  Something's not ready when it's supposed to be ready.  Something will always happen.  Being prepared and being available. 
I made a big mistake when I first started this job.  Not this job, but when I first started doing housing.  I had somebody set up to move and I was going on vacation before they moved.  Not thinking it through.  The vacation was already planned and then we got the place, and then I just turned them over to somebody else.  It was not pretty. 
>> ANN DENTON:  No. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  No. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Don't do that. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  We have a question back there?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So I asked you the other day, yesterday, about this IL center in Texas that's placed 15, 20,000 people, and I know they did 11,098, 30 days ago, unless (inaudible) hand on one‑on‑one moves of people from place to place.  What are the sort of big picture things that need to be in place in order to start moving large numbers, and what are the sort of small pictures things that, yes, although, you know, you're going to move a few people, you're not going to move huge numbers of people?  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  That's a great question and I'll try to answer it better today. 
The big picture thing, if you really are wanting to move a volume of people, and when I said the 16,000 people, that's the money follows the program person for the whole state.  That's not one center.  But if they're moving 1200 people then they clearly have a source of vouchers or a source of housing.  So they've got ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  This is Texas where you live.  Who is it?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I don't know who it is.  It's a big state.  Yeah.  It's a big state. 
But they have a source of housing.  So their biggest problem is solved somehow.  They've got vouchers.  They've got some kind of a program where people ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I actually can speak to what Texas is doing.  Actually the money follows the person, they have a relationship with the public house, so they're getting their units that way, and as far as the day‑to‑day stuff, they have relationships with CILS, and other providers who are doing the day‑to‑day stuff, moving people, getting stuff prepared.  So basically the money follows the person is just kind of administrating a grant and making the connections and bringing all of the players to the table that are doing the services. 
>> ANN DENTON:  And the other thing Texas did is they funded relocation specialist teams, and those teams are really doing what Pat and I would call from our behavioral health background, critical time intervention, so they're working with people in conjunction with the nursing home providers and waiver service providers and the Holt healthcare ‑‑ home healthcare providers, they're doing the bridging.  So critical time intervention is usually six to nine months.  (Inaudible) after transition, then they drop out and then the person is hooked to their mainstream services.  So Texas has funded those relocation teams. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And a lot of states are doing it the same way.  They're not doing all of the work but they're making sure it happens, and the thing is they have memorandas of understanding with other agencies that they're going to provide such and such services, but a lot of this stuff is written into what they're going to be providing.  So the services, they need to make sure that this type of level of detail is being provided to people, to be successful.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  It might actually be worth taking a few minutes to talk about Texas, 'cause I live there.  I served on the Olmstead committee for years, and Pat is in charge of our money following the person technical assistance, so she knows it from a completely different ways, but the way Texas has, quote, solved the housing problem is through the $2 million allocation of home tenant based rental assistance that comes every year, and what I forgot to tell you, that thing is on a reservation system, so there's not even competition for it.  It's undersubscribed.  Talk to me at lunch. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What does that mean. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I don't understand any of what you said. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  I have a question and comment here and then I'll answer that. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Basically there is a team, as you said, that do the relocation, and that's actually made up of the individual's HMO, DORS, and the relocation specialist, and we actually coordinate that move.  There are at least three, sometimes four persons involved in it, and each person has a responsibility.  
The relocation specialist is the person that does the coordination of that service for that individual.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Okay.  Great.  That's great detail. 
Yes, sir?  And then I'll talk about the details about what does a reservation system mean. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I have a question.  Is there a breakout of types of disabilities that need relocating?  Because it seems like relocating someone who doesn't need mobility accessibility features may be a little bit easier that relocating people with other disabilities.  I mean harder for the mobility issues. 
>> ANN DENTON:  As a former member of the Olmstead committee, I can tell you that that data exists but I don't have it in my head. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And the thing is ‑‑ you're referring to MFP in Texas?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right, MFP in Texas and like in our state, they've actually expanded it beyond nursing homes.  They also include assistive living facilities and they've also included group homes, which by our state's definition, if you are a home that's beyond what we call a therapeutic care residence, in other words there's more than two people in the home with a disability, that's our limit.  If it's beyond that, then we help people transition into an independent living center.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right.  If there's nothing ‑‑ basically the requirement for a person to be ‑‑ a client to be in an MFP program is they want to move out of a nursing home.  It doesn't matter whether they have a disability or not, or what the disability is.  All they have to do is say I want to move out of this nursing home, and live independently.  That's it. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  
(Cross talk.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  The majority do have disabilities. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  But to be in a nursing home, don't you have to have a disability?  
>> ANN DENTON:  You have to get there somehow. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A level of care. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  But I'm really interested if you can tell me where I can find the demographics on who they're transitioning, because it seems the method's going to be a little different depending on what population you're working with. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  I don't blame you for being skeptical.  I'm skeptical too but I served on that committee for five, six years.  It's a real number.  But I don't know the details.  I don't remember the details ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And I think each state is going to be different. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Texas is the best. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  What I would suggest is you contact your state MFP.  Every state has a director of MFP and talk to that person about the numbers, because they can give you the numbers on that state. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Actually we have partnering relationship.  We serve on the MFP teams to transition folks.  But again, when we transition someone who doesn't have a mobility impairment, then it just becomes a matter of finding an affordable unit for that person.  When we try and transition folks that have mobility limitations, the actual units don't exist.  
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  And I think you absolutely might be right about that.  We would have to look at the data and I will look at the data, but I can tell you I've heard people say exactly the same thing about people with behavioral health.  Well, that number can't include people with behavioral help because they're too hard to locate. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah, we don't encounter that.  
>> ANN DENTON:  You don't ‑‑ yeah.  
Okay.  So let's talk about what it takes to take it to scale.  And I'm going to come back to the Texas example.  If you're going to do transitions on a large scale, what do you need?  You need access to housing.  The other thing that you need is access to services.  And the truth is you need to build a pipeline for both.  If you're going to take it to scale, you have to have the resources and the step by step in place.  This is taking it to scale.  
Now, it doesn't ‑‑ if you are ‑‑ want to do ten people a year, you don't have to have all the systems stuff, and I'm sure Access Living is going to talk some about this tomorrow, because they're talking about systems stuff, but what you need is the resources and step by step pipeline for services.  You need, and you know this better than I do, getting people approved, and I know that as a former Olmstead committee member, one of the biggest barriers we have for people coming out of nursing homes is their level of care was too high, and so you get approved, you get the level of care assessment.  It's called different things in different states.  And then even if you get a level of care that's sort of favorable, you still have to do things like work with home health or attendant services to ‑‑ there's a lot to do.  And you know it better than I do.  But again what you have to do is make sure that the resources are there, and the money follows the person program, the nursing home transition programs, the real choice systems change grants, all of those things provided resources.  So you have to know that the resources are there and you have to have a pipeline.  
Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Are you going to or are you familiar with the SASH program?  
>> ANN DENTON:  The what program?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's called SASH program.  Don't ask me what the acronym stands for because they changed it.  What it is is the CMS labor program where they provide funding directly to the housing authority to provide supportive services in the units.  It's very new.  It's very unique. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Never heard of it.  I'll make it a note. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  There's only ‑‑ it's only in a couple of states, and it actually began in Vermont with an organization called cathedral square, and if you look it up on the Internet I'm sure you're going to be able to find it but basically they provide a very low level of support services for the tenants, and the funding goes directly to the housing provider. 
>> ANN DENTON:  That's great. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And it's coming out of the Medicare pocket, so it's very unique.  Very new, and ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  Do they know about it?  
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  They do know about it, because ‑‑ and they ‑‑ it's actually functioning right now on a grant where they have to show the outcomes.  Of course everybody's going to outcome measurements.  They have to show how many people have reduced things like emergency room visits, reduced medications, et cetera, but it's very unique, and very new, and I encourage people to look into it. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I will ‑‑ Pat and I will definitely look it up. 
Okay.  So let me just talk about what it takes to take it to scale.  So let me talk about Texas, okay?  What Texas did is we have a small set, an inadequate set of resources, for housing.  And what those resources for housing are from the state level are the project access vouchers.  Who remembers those?  Anybody?  I can't see hands.  My back is turned.  
These were vouchers that came out ‑‑ oh, lord, I don't know.  Eight years ago.  I remember being ‑‑ I was on the Olmstead committee at the time, and Texas applied for them and didn't get and lots of states got 50 or 75 vouchers and we didn't get any and in the last round, they sent us 35 vouchers.  We're happy to have 35 vouchers but we have 20 million people who live in the state.  3500 would have been better. 
So project access vouchers and I'm going to talk about how advocacy and good relationships made that resource grow.  And then we have the HOME allocation of tenant based rental assistance.  
Okay.  Project access vouchers.  The state housing authority run by the Texas Department of Housing and community affairs, so the state housing agency, received 35 project access vouchers, and it took us probably eight months to figure out what the steps were to educate ourselves, the Olmstead committee, and providers about what was necessary to get one of those project access vouchers, because they weren't just ‑‑ it wasn't ‑‑ well, this process is never simple.  Step one, all the documentation you have to have, you know, blah, blah, blah.  I can remember being in a meeting room where we had marker board, and it was like ‑‑ what is that, Rube Goldberg, one of those machines where you have this input and it goes through all these convoluted crazy things and comes out the other side something else.  That's what it looked like.  We literally stood there and drew what needed to happen when for the voucher.  
And underneath that we drew what needed to happen when for the services.  That's ‑‑ if you're going to take it to scale, that's what I mean by building a platform. 
Okay.  So project access vouchers.  The state housing authority got permission from HUD, the state housing agency usually can only provide vouchers to the areas in the state that don't have their own housing authority.  That's kind of a rule.  And what they did was for project access vouchers, they got permission to take those ‑‑ people could take those project access vouchers anywhere.  So people got into the pipeline, and it was really slow at first, because we kept messing up.  You know?  We would get this going and we'd get this going and we'd get this going and then something would happen on the housing side and then it would be declared ineligible and start over.  It was a tortuous process.  We did all that.  We got people going.  What happened was the state housing agency, we talked to the local public housing authority, the local public housing authority would be administering the vouchers, so they would receive the voucher from the state.  And they would do all the things that housing authorities do at the local level.  And then the person would find housing. 
Over time, what happened was that these local ‑‑ so they were using the portability ‑‑ the state was using the portability feature to allow people to move to other places.  Over time what happened, and this is the miracle, is that the receiving housing authority said you know what, this person is really working out really good.  You can have your voucher back.  We'll just keep him on ours.  Isn't that amazing?  So the vouchers that had been ported out would come back to the state.  So we got 35 vouchers, and with the original 35 vouchers, we served over a hundred people.  Transitioned over a hundred people, because of that portability thing, and the local housing authorities, and I don't know if this is a technical term, I'm looking at my HUD people, they absorbed the person.  Kind of creepy word.  
And so what we've done ‑‑ I know it's time.  I know, I know.  I'm almost done. 
Okay so what we've done for the project access vouchers is the housing authority has actually written it into their state plan, and we're doing 50 vouchers a year, and the same thing is happening.  So that resource has mushroomed, has grown.  
The home TBRA.  What I mean by a reservation system is most jurisdictions when they're doing something like TBRA, they do a competitive application process and they're putting stuff together and we say we've got 50 people and you have to win it.  A reservation system says there's 200 vouchers available and you have to go on line and fill out the paperwork and if you want two vouchers or 20, all you have to do is fill out those forms, that process adequately from a housing agency's perspective and you've got it.  It's easy.  
So on that optimistic note, let's break for lunch. 

>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Actually this afternoon we're going to focus on the practical stuff, the practical side of supporting the people who are moving into these places that we keep talking about.  We've talked about people are moving, so we need to support the people who are moving. 
I'm curious, are you actually doings moving the ‑‑ doing the moving of people or coordinating that or have you having other agencies doing that?  How is that working for people?  You're coordinating?  So you have people that you're coordinating to do all of the process?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We have staff. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Remember the microphone.  Sorry.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We have staff that coordinate the whole transition process from doing the initial assessment all the way through 30 days afterwards. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  
How are you doing?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What we usually do is we meet them at the facility that they they're getting out of with a family member or friend and they will transport them and we will follow them home and settle them in, and, you know, visit with them that way and get them settled at home or wherever they're going.  We have a family member, especially if they're a wheelchair user. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So what do you do if they don't have any family members or friends. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We try to find other options like an area agency or something like that.  If they don't have any other supports.  Sometimes we have vans and things like that.  We don't have a personal van ourself.  We work with area agencies.  We recently transferred a man to a less restrictive facility and they came and got him because it was four hours away and they came and got him and drove him back. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, that's perfect. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We provide the individual with the information, and we'll oversee the coordination, and provide funding, along with money that follows the person program, but we leave it to the individual to follow through.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And so have you had issues with that or has that all worked smoothly?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Sometimes the person's not ready to follow through, because we believe in teaching the person how to fish.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So what if I haven't fished in a long time?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We provide you with the information to fish, and if there's a cognitive or an issue related to your disability preventing you from following through, then we will assist. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  How do others do it?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Our MFP contract requires that we do the options counseling, the coordination with the transition, and then we follow up for a year, doing face‑to‑face meetings every month or more with that individual up to a year.  After that they can still remain with us for independent living services.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Others?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'm sorry.  I don't have ‑‑ this is not ‑‑ this is not in response to your question, this is in response to the lady who talked about the MFP program.  I'm curious.  (Inaudible) I'm curious.  When that participant enters into the money follows the person program, you were saying that you follow up with that person until year two or three or four or ‑‑ I just want to know that structure.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  The MFP contract requires us for one year, but our CIL, if they want to remain with us, we follow them forever. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Okay.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Others?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Our state is not ‑‑ our legislature has not finalized the money follows the person legislation.  However, we have various bills ‑‑ I'm sorry, various waivers, and so the assisted person is requiring the waiver.  Once we've done that, we help them to set up all the community services that they'll need.  We also have about six vans, and (inaudible) 5110 program, so with those vans we're able to help those individuals coordinate their moving assistance, and once along the way ‑‑ of course we're having them do as much as they can do with coordinating in their community needs, but those things that they have difficulty with, we have to facilitate that, and once we're doing ‑‑ done with that, you know, continue to do follow‑up with them, follow them through.  And of course an independent living program or plan never exists unless a consumer wants that to be the case.  And so, you know, once they told us they're done and gotten whatever they need, of course, you know, you make sure that they understand that they can reenter the program at any time they want to, continue on, whatever they want to do, but wherever possible, we assist those consumers to ‑‑ with those services.  Sometimes throw a fish at them and ‑‑ 
(Laughter.) 
And teach them how to fish as well. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Good.  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In New York we have the nursing home transition (inaudible) it's been around four or five years.  It's a thorough process.  The service coordinator is co‑leader of ‑‑ the service coordinator participates (inaudible) team meetings, so in terms of the transition, additional providers might include a moving assistance vendor, community transitional services vendor, an environmental modifications vendor.  Then once everything's approved, they would proceed with purchasing the assistive technology, purchasing moving assistance, and pursuing the modification to the (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Anybody else?  Anybody back there at that table?  Are you not doing anything yet, or you don't know how it's going to work?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  You're just trying to start. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Uh‑huh. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody else?  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I want to add one thing.  We allow the person to ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  You allow the person to. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We allow the person the luxury of failing, if that's the way they want to go. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Anybody else?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So we're in New York.  So we also do it ‑‑ you know, the nursing home (inaudible) waiver, which is very intensive services, but as I kind of mentioned yesterday, we have vouchers (inaudible) we don't have to go through that cumbersome process, and some folks really need it, you know, some people really need the intensive case management but on the waiver you have to take the case management so if you are really very independent, that becomes, you know, something that people really don't want. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So for those folks, we go to the nursing home and meet with them, interview them, and really I try to make sure, and our staff tries to make sure they've got transportation when they get out.  They've got safe link, free cell phone service, all those different pieces that you guys were talking about yesterday that need to be in place, and we do help with the locating of the housing.  (Inaudible) voucher, helping with all that stuff.  We're close with the nursing home.  Once they get out, it's up to them to contact us if they want more assistance.  We don't have anything formal.  We really try to make sure they have a good transition.  They're in a nursing home.  They can't do many of these things too independently.  There's too many restrictions, but once they're out, its up to them to reach out and they can get the help they need.  If they don't, they're good to go. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody else?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yep. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I hope that someone will be at Access Living tonight to explain our process.  We have a very large deinstitutionalization team, and we start a process with a group of individuals.  We call them and meet them.  Usually around 10, 15 people come over, and we tell them as a group what the process is, and how we're going to work with them, one‑on‑one and other group meetings that are going to be ‑‑ that they're going to have to come as a group.  And we have three people that work one‑on‑one with them, and then we have persons that go out there looking for the units, finding the unit.  We got people to take them out, that bring furniture and all of that, and ‑‑ but we do everything in house.  And we have the organizers that work with Chicago Housing Authority to provide the vouchers, so once they're ready to move out, we bring in the Chicago Housing Authority into our center, and they do the debriefing for the vouchers there, and then they do another one to issue the vouchers at the same time.  So I don't know ‑‑ I don't work in that unit, but they take people out on a program called community reintegration program that is funded by the State of Illinois, and also with a money follows the person program.  We also have a modification coordinator that we have with the Chicago Housing Authority, a contract to provide home modification for people with the vouchers, and since the people coming out are receiving vouchers, they're also entitled for modifications, so that's not a one time thing, but they can do two, three different modifications in one year.  
I wish someone would be there.  I don't know.  I'm not organizing this thing for you guys.  I'm just going to have fun.  That's my job with you guys. 
(Laughter.) 
But I don't know what's on their agenda for you guys.  I may be cleaning afterwards too.  I don't know.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So I guess the reason I asked this, because I figured everybody was doing things a little differently.  And I don't think this really matters how you're doing it, whether you're doing it or if the person is doing it.  There are things that need to happen, right, for a person to move out and then to be successful, right?  Moving out doesn't just ‑‑ it don't just ‑‑ you don't just decide you're moving and then the next day you're out in the house and everything is smooth and happy.  It don't work that way.  
So what are some of the things that ‑‑ and let's go back to Kay.  Kay was ‑‑ so we've talk about her whole situation.  We talked about what it is she wants, what it is that she needs to have as far as money is concerned.  And so now she's decided she's moving.  What do we need to either make sure Kay understands or has information about or we need to do on our own?  And I'm trying to make it flexible because some people are doing ‑‑ saying Kay needs to do everything and other places are helping Kay to move.  What is it ‑‑ I mean when should she start thinking about how she's ‑‑ this whole move and what's going to happen and when should we be thinking about it?  A month before, two months before, three months before?  I mean how is it that you do your process?  Is there a time line that you use, or is it everybody's independent or individual, and you just kind of wing it?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I would say particularly in New York State, with the coordination of services and needing to get the services in place, we have a six‑month ‑‑ six to eight month wait before anybody can even get on the waiver.  It's such a process to get them on, each (inaudible) waiver.  So I mean it's more a matter of kind of like what we were saying earlier.  It's a matter of getting all those things to happen at the same time.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It depends on how you're springing them, you know?  
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I like that.  Helping them break out. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah.  I mean if you're going through waivers, waiver services, in my county in particular, it takes quite some time to even get that initial interview with the RRDC, the governing body that says, yes, you know, this person's good to go on a waiver.  So it kind of depends. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We started out going out and doing the assessment the and if it looks like they still want to go forward, we start that process right away.  We have documents that we use at our state ‑‑ that are state approved that does a pretty intensive thorough assessment of what the needs are, and we get together a team of everyone that's involved and go over that and if it looks like all the needs can be met in the community based on what those needs are then we move forward.  If not, we look at barrier removal or whatever you need to do to meet those needs.  But we start that process right away.  We don't do everything for the person.  We encourage them to (inaudible) we have a program called steppingstones.  It's an eight week course that everyone goes through and it's just to help ‑‑ plus we have other classes, different class ‑‑ cooking classes, that sort of thing if they wanted to that I can take them, a lot of different resources so they're ready when they move out, but there's no time frame.  Some take 30 days and some take eight months.  It just depends on the situation.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  So we got Kay.  And so Kay found a place, right?  So let's just assume Kay found a place, wherever that place is.  We had some debate about where she was living. 
Kay was the person we were working with yesterday, if people remember, in the case study.  So she's found a place, and everything ‑‑ all the stars have aligned.  Everything's good to go.  We're five weeks out from when she's going to move.  What should be happening at five weeks out?  I mean ‑‑ and whether Kay does it or we assist with Kay or we have an assessment with Kay ‑‑ oh, they gave it to you. 
(Laughter.) 
So what should be happening?  What should Kay be working on?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So of course there's like (inaudible) of the move, but making sure that any kind of personal care attendant services are in place that she might need.  As I remember, she had a (inaudible) it seems like that would be a bigger piece for her, in addition to her mobility.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Troubles.  So I think that that would be key.  So getting personal care attendant, and that would be big. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So having a personal care attendant, getting that all set up early is going to be a good thing at five weeks out. 
What else?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  One of the things that we do, we have a little checklist that we use, and we actually start working on budgeting, how much the rent's going to be, how much the utility's are going to be, how much money you'll have for groceries, and we start working on that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's a good idea, is to start talking about budget at that point.  
What else?  Yes, sir. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We would help to be going over the details of the lease. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Going over the details of the lease is good.  What else?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Assistive equipment. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Assistive equipment and making sure that's there when she moves into the apartment. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In New York that process starts before eight weeks.  Sometimes it starts at 12 weeks.  Some of the architectural removal (inaudible) the consumer can't get out of the nursing facility until all modifications are done.  So there's a constraint there about how long the project takes. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So in New York you have the issue of construction to deal with and making sure that the place is ready for that person to move out.  So it could take at least 12 weeks.  And knowing construction, it could take longer.  
What else?  
So she's got to understand what's in the lease.  She's got to sign the lease.  Right?  Probably a security deposit needs to be paid.  No?  
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  That is something that's paid by one of the grants that we work with.  The transition to life grant.  We use that grant to pay the deposit for the person, or we use the transition assistance grant to pay the deposits for the utilities and for the apartment, and the application fee for the apartment. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  So you got a grant that pays all of that.  I'm assuming other people have grants that pay that?  Because most people do. 
What else?  Anything else that Kay needs to be thinking of?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Transportation.  After she gets into the community, sometimes, because of a person has been in a nursing home, their transportation cards have expired, so we have to get those renewed.  
We also have a plan of what happens on the day that you leave.  Actually we have to assist the consumer to take their discharge summary from the nursing home to the Social Security office in order to get their Social Security started at the amount that it needs to be. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Because they are leaving the nursing home. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was waiting for that.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And also we do work on opening a banking account and making sure that their check is directly deposited.  We also fill out a card for a change of address for the nursing home to forward their mail.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Do you have to give anything in writing to the nursing them to let them know this person is leaving?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Actually the home healthcare companies ‑‑ I mean the health maintenance organizations that we work with that are representatives of Medicaid, they actually give a notice to the nursing home.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Anything else?  
When should Kay start thinking about the practical stuff, like furniture, and she's moving from a nursing home, which means she probably doesn't have much, right?  So when should she start thinking about that kind of stuff, like ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We usually do that a month ahead of time, and that is done through the transitional assistance grant.  We actually give Kay a checklist of the items that she might need, and sit down and talk to her about the floor plan in the apartment.  We usually try to get a floor plan.  And we actually have her furniture delivered the day before she leaves the nursing home, and we have to coordinate that with the apartment complex. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anything else that five weeks, four weeks out, Kay should be thinking of?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Pardon?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Safety issues. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Say more about that.  What do you mean by safety issues. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Like if there's a fire, get the fire extinguisher, when should she do in case of emergency, what number she can have, how to set up her (inaudible) so she can take it with her if she needs to leave the house quickly, and what happens if she falls or injures herself, what does she do.  That's something we discuss.  Who can they call.  They can come over to their home if they don't answer the phone or something like that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So having a safety plan about ‑‑ that incorporates anything physical or something to the unit?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes.  Whether it's fire, injury, break‑in, whatever.  We try to get those all set up so that they would know, and give them an action plan on how to do that. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Anything else she needs to be thinking of?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  She might need additional PT or training for managing a medical condition.  She may not have done her own medication for a long time or medications may have changed in the nursing home.  She may need to have the medication reviewed so when she leaves the nursing home she may not need all six stool softeners and the acid reflux medication that she's been on, and she may need PT therapy to make sure she'll be successful. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  What else?  Because I mean there are a lot of things to think about.  Kay may not be thinking about these things.  And Kay was already feeling a little beat‑up, so she might be overwhelmed now, right?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  One of the biggest problems that we run into is trying to ease their anxiety about leaving.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Because they're so anxious because they've had these things, in place, some of them have never lived on their own or were newly injured and don't know how to live as a person with a ‑‑ as a person with a disability.  So in the last couple of weeks, they're very anxious, calling every day, so that's something we do, in providing that peer support. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yeah.  People get very nervous, and I've met with a lot of people who get into their unit, and realize that they're kind of lonely.  They haven't thought this all the way through about, you know, they're not going to be (inaudible) in a group of 60 people to being one.  
What else?  What else does Kay need to be thinking about?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  One of the things that I know is that our coordinators talk to individuals coming out as a group, and one is to ‑‑ they supply them with information about medical equipment, medical supplies, information on where to get it, 24/7, and also they talk to them about landlords and tenant rights, and also fair housing rights, either under 504 and under the (inaudible), amendments act. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And that's one of the things that it's not only important to have her ‑‑ have all of these things.  Now she ‑‑ I think what Kay ‑‑ Kay lived once by herself?  So there needs probably to be a review of what her rights are, and also what her responsibilities are, right?  She may not know or she may not have had to deal with that.  So what are her responsibilities?  And you had a ‑‑ go ahead. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Well, she's also going to need to find a physician. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes.  Well, and I would think she would want to know what was in the community so in case she wanted to go someplace, what's around there.  Where is the library.  Where is the grocery store.  Where's the Starbucks.  If she has a caffeine problem.  
(Laughter.) 
So what are her responsibilities as a tenant?  What are you going to tell her?  Follow your lease?  What does that mean, though?  What are people's responsibilities as tenants?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  To pay their rent on time. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Pay for it on time.  
Pardon?  Keep it clean.  What else?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  No damage.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Don't allow people to spend the night more than seven nights or whatever the lease says they're visiting. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So to prevent those guests that come and never leave, and we know that's an issue.  And it's an issue a lot.  And I know you're letting them fail, but it's still ‑‑ I mean at the same time, some programs are realizing that if they fail, then we are going to have to just help them a second time. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  No, I'm not.  I may be misunderstood.  We provide them the information and the means to succeed, but if at some point they decide that's not where they want to go, we allow them not to go there. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, absolutely.  I agree.  
And I mean I do think that, you know, I have a saying that I always tell to ‑‑ when I had case managers, I would always tell them is don't take responsibility for their success, which means you don't have to take responsibility for their failures.  People need to own that.  They need to own their own successes and own their own failures.  So I'm not saying that.  But at the same time I want to make sure that we are giving them all the tools so that they can succeed so if they choose to fail, that's on them.  
>> ANN DENTON:  I think it might be useful, you all were talking about fulfilling the requirements of the lease, but all of us in this room or many of us in this room have had lots of experiences with people moving into apartments for the first time or the first time after an injury or the first time in many years, and people do things sometimes that are just ‑‑ that just seem astonishing to us.  
(Laughter.) 
And I use this all the time.  I had a home ‑‑ we had a homeless person one time who built ‑‑ couldn't figure out how to use the stove so she built a campfire on the floor of the kitchen.  And she ‑‑ 'cause she could.  I know.  She put bricks down, she put bricks down, you know what I'm saying?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  She did it safely. 
>> ANN DENTON:  She put bricks down.  She put a little edge around the bricks, because she knew how to cook that way.  She didn't know how to cook the other way.  The landlord was a little upset about that. 
So for the people who have the experience, for the people who are new, it might be useful to think through what are some of these things that people do out of a lack of knowledge, out of a lack of knowledge.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  Yeah.  I could tell stories about some of the things that people have done in their units that, you know, the toilet wasn't working.  I'm not going to finish the story. 
(Laughter.) 
But it wasn't pretty.  Just instead of telling the landlord that there was a problem with the toilet, they came up with a creative solution.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You know, we have actually gone through the checklist that the apartment complex gives you to test everything, so we take that opportunity to do an orientation to your apartment, how the stove works, how the water works, what is the hot, what is the cold. 
>> ANN DENTON:  How the shower works. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah, we'll just figure we'll do the whole thing with them.  We usually spend the whole day with that person.  So while we're there, and the furniture is being moved in and things are being done, then we take that opportunity to do some on‑site training.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's very important to go through the ‑‑ the other thing is while you're going through the unit, if you notice something isn't working, you can document that and give it to the landlord so that person isn't held accountable for it, and the landlord can fix it or deal with it, and that person doesn't get charged for something that wasn't their responsibility.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We actually show them how to call the landlord.  We developed a list of current telephone numbers, what they're for, your doctor's number, your pharmacy, where your pharmacy is located, your home healthcare company, your caregiver is usually there on that particular day.  We talk about hours that that person is going to spend with them, how many hours.  We have a nurse that does the medications and actually set up a medication reminder for that person.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  
Anything else you can think of that you need to make sure Kay is aware of?  
>> ANN DENTON:  And I would just ‑‑ if you don't have one in your system already, there's a checklist in here.  It's on page ‑‑ I'll find out what page it's on, but it's called the example move in, move out checklist, and a lot of apartment complexes, like what you're talking about, you've got one already or you've got one that the state's approved or whatever, but this is just to keep things in mind, because as I set up there in ‑‑ said up in there in the slide, there's nothing like moving into a unit and take the fun out of it by getting in there and finding out something is wrong or something is missing. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  This is good information when you're actually moving people.  We have nobody moving in our counties because of the housing problem, unless it's older folks going to an assisted living facility, which is a whole different thing and we don't usually ‑‑ we aren't involved with it.  But we literally have had three people move in the last two years.  That's where we're at.  So I'm wondering if you could talk for a few minutes and maybe other people have ideas of I've decided to start a group ‑‑ we have about 20 people we're working with that live in facilities that want to move out that are waiver approved and we're just not going anywhere yet, so I'm going to do some maybe monthly, maybe not sessions for them at our CIL, talking about what it's going to be like when you move.  What are some preparation things that you can do that won't be wasted, because maybe it's two years before they move, but that kind of discussion. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So basically you have people in the nursing homes who say they want to move out, but it's not happening for whatever reason, and you're wanting ‑‑ 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's not happening because of housing. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  It's not happening because you don't have the housing. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So it's going to take a while. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And you're trying to keep them. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Involved, motivated, engaged, thinking about it, using their mind to ‑‑ yeah. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody else dealing with that?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In Phoenix we don't have any vouchers, we don't have any money follows the person, we don't have any of that.  But what we do as far as referrals and such, is to take folks that have previously moved out and they go back to the nursing homes and talk to other residents, and so when our coordinator goes out to the nursing home, at first if they're talking about life in the community, and maybe it's life in the community for the first time since a disability, that resident might look glazed because they may be thinking that's life on Mars.  They just can't visualize life in the community.  But if we talk to folks that have already moved out, then they are the greatest source of referral than anybody else can be.  And so when you have other residents who are in the process of moving out, or who have already moved out, they then become the greatest source for those who never even thought about it yet.  And that's ‑‑ even though Phoenix is about 3.6 million people, our one coordinator has about 20 people that moved out last year, again without any type of voucher, any type of money follows the person, any of that assistance that you all have been doing.  But in answer to your question, ma'am, the previous residents are the greatest source of referrals for folks that are just starting to think about it.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody else?  Anybody else working on that?  
>> ANN DENTON:  It's a delicate balance between giving people things that are worthwhile to work on versus sort of stringing them along.  It's a real delicate balance and I would say the main approach is to be really honest and say, you should have done ‑‑ or you could have done the work around, you know, housing needs and preferences, you can talk about what potential budgeting might be.  It may be that the person's only choice is to wait.  But then it's your job also to hustle, which I can tell you're doing from all the things that you've said, but to hustle and make sure that the pipeline is as full as you can make it for housing resources, and it may be, you know, sometimes programs help people move to a less desirable setting, with the idea that they'll be there for a year, six months or a year.  And then while you're waiting for something more. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  And, you know, you may have somebody who's really ready to move out, and you can also, you know, bring up the subject of roommates.  Not always popular.  But if you ‑‑ you could also have a roommate system where people get to choose their roommates.  Makes it a little bit more desirable than I'm just going to be matched with somebody, and it might not be a good fit.  
And that's a whole process if people want a roommate and just trying to figure out and get a good match and then developing a way for them to be roommates.  You know, whose role is what, blah, blah, blah, because somebody didn't clean the toilet or clean ‑‑ oh, we do have a handout about this. 
There's a handout about that. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  I'll tell you what page. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So I mean it's ‑‑ 
>> ANN DENTON:  It's page 152, 153. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So I think giving people ‑‑ trying to say here's the reality, here's ‑‑ you know, there are things that we can do right now if you're interested but if you're not interested, it's going to take a while, while we're doing that.  And I would also ask them, like are there things that you want to discuss or things that you have thought about that you want to have somebody come in and talk about.  Trying to start ‑‑ looking at some of the things that they may need or some of their concerns that they have about moving out may be helpful. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Another thing that we do is work with the person about the things they've accumulated in the nursing home.  We talk about downsizing and getting rid of some of the clothes that you might not need, and donating those to different people or organizations.  And we also talk about gathering boxes and, you know, getting ready to move.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  Anybody else?  So everybody else is pretty good?  Are you flush with housing?  Not having to wait to get people in?  
I'm just trying to brainstorm.  Yes?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I think it's an after lunch slump.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm there too but I'm trying to keep going. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'm not sure but we have a program in Vermont called home care and it matches people who are ‑‑ actually sometimes in financial difficulty, maintaining their home, and they're willing to accept someone to share the home with, and it kind of benefits both parties.  We've had some success with that.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh.  All right.  
>> ANN DENTON:  We talked this one into the ground. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So ‑‑ so there are some really good handouts in the book that we want to point out to you that you can use to work with people, in terms of both the preparation for moving and also the implementation.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Right.  I mean I think, you know, no matter how your program does it, the materials are going to help either you or help the person or help the agencies that are working with the person.  And I know some people have, you know, memorandums of understanding with someone who's actually going to do the services.  Using some of this to make sure it's happening.  I know some places ‑‑ things aren't always happening at all of the money follows the person programs.  People were being sent out into housing and all sorts of things were happening.  We've had, you know, there were a couple of deaths.  People got into the housing and started just drinking non‑stop, and taking meds and had accidental overdoses.  So things happen.  I mean it's really important to have those discussions up front because we're talking about people who might have been in nursing homes for a very long time, and get out and have this freedom, and also, you know, I think the couple of people that that happened to were bored and were sitting there and there's something to do to not think. 
What else do we need to be thinking about?  We got Kay, we've talked about the ‑‑ we've talked about her lease.  We've talked about things that need to happen.  We moved Kay in.  We're done, right?  We walk away and we feel good.  Kay's got a place and we're happy.  No?  
>> SPEAKER:  So after the first day?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  What happens?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Well, we actually talk about a schedule.  What you're going to do with your time.  When are you going to start some activities.  What time is your caregiver going to be here.  What time are you going to spend (inaudible).  When are you going to see your doctor.  We just try to do a schedule with them, and they're the ones that give the input about I'm going to do this now and we just kind of write it out for them and put it on the (inaudible) and we then assume a monitoring role.  You know, give us a call and let us know how you're doing, and during that time I will prompt the person, like have you reordered your meds.  We actually give them a calendar. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I could use you. 
(Laughter.) 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We put it on the calendar.  I mean, you know?  And we ‑‑ you know, I have a copy of the calendar and the person has one, and they get in the habit of calling me once a week because they know I'm going to call, okay?  Well, I called you before you called me. 
(Laughter.) 
Are you worried about me?  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Just want to ask, what organization are you with?  'Cause it sounds a lot like case management. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I'm with reach of Dallas.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Reach of Dallas.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  It's an independent living center.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  And you get funding to do case management?  
>> ANN DENTON:  I bet they don't call it that. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We actually call it monitoring, because we do it for the first 90 days, and we are contracted with the area agency on aging to do that.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Okay.  So that explains it.  Thank you.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  I'll be over there in a minute.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah.  So I mean I guess you guys are talking about that fine line place.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Uh‑huh. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  That you get to, and the getting to it is what I find I work with ‑‑ I work with our staff a lot on, because some of us with disabilities have the expectation that somebody else is going to take care of that for them.  And some of us have the expectation that they have to do it all themselves and don't know when to ask themselves.  So there's a fine line you walk between enabling somebody by doing too much, and ‑‑ so I guess I would be curious to hear how people incorporate the philosophy of independent living into those actions so that we don't become part of the problem and we remain part of the empowering solution.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Good question.  Yes, sir?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In Phoenix we ‑‑ after ‑‑ in Phoenix, after a person moves out (inaudible) into the community, then we tell them, you know, that they have our number, and if they need us, they can call us.  We don't do the level of case management that our friends have over in New York, and so they ‑‑ our fine line is that they know that they can call us and that we're always there, but they have to initiate.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah.  So our center doesn't refer to it as case management.  We refer to it as service coordination, and while the service coordinator is working with the consumer and various other service providers, the consumer is aware they have a number of other resources available to them versus the waiver, such as community (inaudible) counseling, independent living skills training, mobility training, a variety of services that can be used to complement the independent living plan and the service of diversion and integration.  So I think that's critical. 
Also just out of curiosity, I want to say we've had three consumers where after the fact, after the transition, we ended up having our service coordinator had to spend a lot of time doing special needs trusts.  Is that something that should we have started sooner?  
>> ANN DENTON:  What was it?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  A special needs trust. 
>> ANN DENTON:  A special needs trust.  I don't know if that ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was going to say what is a special needs trust?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yes, that does need to be started before.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Can you explain to us what it is?  With the microphone. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I think everybody knows what they mean. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Indiscernible) actually work with someone to put to together (inaudible) I actually have one.  
It is something that ‑‑ it's obviously a legal document that can be ‑‑ that is drawn up that you can use to ‑‑ that in this situation can primarily used to protect assets from ‑‑ to ‑‑ in order to maintain Medicaid and/or Social Security eligibility.  And you can ‑‑ but you are ‑‑ but you are restricted in terms of who can ‑‑ the types of contributions that can be made to the special needs trust and who can make those contributions, and who has control over ‑‑ who has control over disbursements from the trust, and what those disbursements can be used to fund.  It's becoming more ‑‑ a little bit more broad, but it's generally that those ‑‑ that funds from the trust can be used to provide for needs related to the disability or other basic needs that the individual may have.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And, yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So we have something through CD‑R called the pool trust, and it's only available for folks who do have disabilities.  I mean I'm not a financial expert by any stretch, but let's say that the cap for getting Medicaid is $800, but your income is $1200.  They take that 400 gap out and put it in the pool trust.  At that point that $400 is still in control ‑‑ the person who's that $400, they're still in control of that money.  But it can only be paid to a third party.  So for example, if the person says pay my rent on the first of the month, pay my cable bill, pay my ISP, you know, whatever they want to use the disbursable funds for, but it doesn't need to be medically related, and that's an alternative to paying a Medicaid spend‑down basically, is the way that works. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, yes. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I think this must be different in each state. 
(Laughter.) 
Because in Maryland, you cannot use it for ‑‑ it's like ‑‑ you can't use it for shelter, food, clothing.  It's essentially has to be used for things that you could not get any other public assistance to pay for should you be having public assistance.  That's how our law is written, and so it's very specific, and the person has no control over it frankly.  It's an executor or I forget the other thing that they use, but there's another ‑‑ what's the term?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Trustee?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Not a guardian, a trustee or something like that.  It's usually a family member.  But we're talking about people who have money here. 
(Laughter.) 
>> ANN DENTON:  (Inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I was going to say. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So answering the original question, at the very least, if someone is planning on moving out, they need Medicaid to be able to move out and to be successful in the community, whether that's for a waiver program or just for maintaining health and wellness.  They're going to need at the very least ‑‑ research the available options for a supplemental needs trust and they're also going to need to be looking at resources they have, whether it's worse out, what other things can be used towards the spend‑down that would make more sense.  How are their medication costs going to change.  Could they pay for staffing and would that be more beneficial to them so that financial aspect needs to be discussed with the person, and if there are other players, like a child who has power of attorney and has been controlling finances or there's something like that it definitely needs to be discussed before they're in a apartment and they don't make their spend‑down, they lose their eligibility for whatever services are supporting them, definitely need to start thinking about those things in advance. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In Alabama, we kind of have a unique situation in the way we help people to transition.  As I mentioned, we talked a little bit about the waivers that we have.  And we have several waivers.  But in addition to those waivers, and I'm not dating myself.  This is just history that I know. 
(Laughter.) 
Because some of you all may remember George Wallace, and all his crap.  
(Laughter.) 
And so he ‑‑ after he became disabled, he set up a special fund.  They called it the homebound program back then, but they've since changed it to the state of Alabama independent living services, but it's different from independent living.  So many different ‑‑ we have like three independent living divisions in Alabama. 
In any event, he set up a program where ‑‑ like $4 million goes into ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Wow. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah.  $4 million goes into this trust, and if you are spinal cord injured or head injured, then you can receive various moneys from that trust to assist you with remaining in the community.  So we have that, and so we're able to then ‑‑ vocational rehab actually dispenses those resources.  So we tap into those resources along with the waivers.  
And as the young lady said using their Medicaid and/or their Social Security benefits, we're able to assist consumers with using those funds. 
So we have several ways that we tap into resources in the community and help people either transition or prevent them from going into nursing home situations, and pretty much everything that you all have said, you know, although all of us kind of do it differently, I guess, but you have to do service coordination ultimately, you know, and we believe in the dignity of failure as well, or whatever you want to call that, and if the consumer says, you know, this is not for me, I thought I wanted to live in the community, I'd rather live in a nursing facility, they have that option as well.  You know, independent living is about viable options, and unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, nursing homes are one of those options. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I agree. 
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I was just going to add one more piece, and if you ‑‑ if your state has one, and if employment at some point is a possibility, what somebody ‑‑ once somebody transitions out, the Medicaid work incentive or whatever it may be called in your state, is another option that could possibly give you ‑‑ give the individual a little bit more flexibility when it comes to income and asset rules and regulations.  Plus (inaudible) to additional services. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Right.  Employment.  I'm glad you brought employment up.  I think that's really important. 
I wanted to bring us back to the fine line discussion.  I have an actual question. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  That's what we're doing now. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Yeah.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  We were going to come back to that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  But I have an actual question for people in the room, and then I'll leave you alone.  But ‑‑ which is on this question of the trusts, you know, that protect assets or shelter income or whatever you want to call it.  I heard two things.  I heard explore options, and I thought I heard help someone set it up.  So back to the fine line.  Where do you all fall on that?  Let's say someone wants to do some kind of a trust like you talked about, individual, by state, blah, blah.  Where do you fall?  Do you help somebody explore the options, which I'm assuming is the Vermont approach, or do you actually help set it up?  Which do you do?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In New York City, (inaudible) what we do is we link them to an agency that can serve the role for them, and then just advise them as to what is expected.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So there's two different kinds of trusts.  There's the pool trust, and then there's the supplemental needs trust.  The pool trust is more the kind where if your disability benefits is way over that SSI limit, that she's talking about from CBR, you know, we'll set that up usually.  Our center will do that.  
>> ANN DENTON:  You actually have to set it up. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Yeah, we actually do the paperwork and set it up.  Supplemental needs trust really has to be done by an attorney, so we have a couple of attorneys we have good relationships with and we'll refer folks there, but supplemental needs trust is more folks who get inheritances and a trustee doles out that money so it's a little bit different.  And that really needs to be done by an attorney, so we give them the options and if they need the supplemental needs trust, if that fits better, we'll refer them to an attorney. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  In Maryland we send them to an attorney.  We have a list in our state of people who do special needs trusts.  It's a legal situation signed by God and everyone.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  But I guess what we're trying to get to is where is that line?  Or it's independent versus doing for.  Is it clear for everybody where that line is, or is it blurred sometimes?  And where is the confusion at?  There's no confusion for you?  You're clear?  
Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I mean for our office, it's basically you advise them, and they can make the decision. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You know.  They have the right to make the wrong decision. 
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  All we can do is advise them. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  So you advise and let them make the decision?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Right.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  What if I came and I said ‑‑ you advised me, and I said I need help?  I really need help with this.  I'm not quite sure of how to do this on my own.  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What kind of help?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We could go through the steps with them, but we wouldn't do the paperwork.  We would send them like everybody said to an attorney or to an agency that can play the role of (inaudible). 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Okay.  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Are you ‑‑ you're talking about broader than just a special ‑‑ 
>> PAT TUCKER:  I'm talking about broader.  I'm talking about much broader.  Just in general, how do you ‑‑ you know, make that ‑‑ when do you do for and when do you say this is something you have to do, or is that line kind of blurred or is there a line?  Yes?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I mean it goes back to the individual consumer and what their needs are.  I have a consumer who basically I have to hold her hand to pay rent every month.  And this has been going on for six months already.  And she comes to me.  Okay.  I know my rent's due.  What do I have to do?  And I go through the process.  This is what you have to do, and then when she gets the receipt that she pay paid the rent, she comes into my office and says I want a copy of the receipt so they won't evict me because I didn't pay my rent.  (Inaudible) we have consumers that once we started, that's the end of it.  We don't see them. 
>> ANN DENTON:  I had a guy one time after he moved, say to me, I got a girlfriend and cable.  I don't need you. 
(Laughter.) 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Well, at least he put the girlfriend before the cable. 
(Laughter.) 
Anybody else?  
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We decide where the line is based on the individual.  And there are organizations and agencies with expertise in all the areas we discussed, that have the funding and resources that can serve the person better than we can, and we need to treat everyone as an individual and recognize that when referring that person is to the benefit of that person, and then they have a choice whether or not to accept that advice.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  Anybody else?  I mean ‑‑ because it's not always that clear.  At least at my experience, it's not always been that clear.  
>> ANN DENTON:  We've got about ten minutes left before the break, and I don't want to quit without directing your attention to the rest of the handouts. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  No.  And what I was going to suggest is if you could go through the handouts, and then we can talk about what we're going to do for ‑‑ after the break.  So if you want to go ahead and talk about that. 
>> ANN DENTON:  Let me do that. 
Well, I just want to point out, these are tools that you can use, and it sounds to me like people have some of the steps in the transition pretty well outlined, so these are things that are only offered for you to look at and consider.  But we have in here a long handout called getting along with your landlord, how to be a good tenant, its page 145 through 148.  And it's in the book.  It's in this (indicating). 
And it's in your notebook.  But it is intended to be a plain language sort of walk through of things that might come up, you know, beyond the simple lease provisions of pay your rent, don't destroy your apartment, don't set a fire in your kitchen kinds of things, that is based in some way upon situations that have happened or that are common.  
The other one is how to ‑‑ getting along with others, how to be a good neighbor, and that's on page 149 through 151, and again I haven't really heard a lot of discussion about this, and ‑‑ but I will say that, you know, an observation that we've heard from housing specialists in the past is that people get in, and then they're either hermits and they never come out of their units or they're overly out all the time, and so this is just sort of something ‑‑ a tool that can be used to sort of help people think through in a non‑judgmental way how to interact with others.  
And then finally I know you've already pointed it out, but I wanted to do the pros and cons of house mates and talk about what you can do, sort of in advance.  It's really to sort of figure out, and this goes with the cost of assistance worksheet and it goes with the spending plan, you know, having a house mate does cut costs and if you don't want to wait X number of months or X number of years for a voucher and you want to move, then a house mate is potentially one of the ways that you can do that.  Not in assisted housing of course. 
So we just ‑‑ I want to make sure that you got a look at the tools and where they are.  
>> PAT TUCKER:  And after the break, what we're ‑‑ what the plan is, unless you have different thoughts, and we're open to suggestions, our plan is to basically take questions, look at the questions that everybody had that they wrote over lunch, 'cause we don't want to leave all of those for, you know, the people for tomorrow, since they were questions for us, and if you have any burning questions or anything that you want to cover that we didn't cover, we left some time in the agenda so we can take that and not have you walk out going we really wanted to cover that and nobody ever mentioned it.  So please think about questions, think about things that you want to ‑‑ or you want to poll the audience and see how people are doing about certain things because we have a lot of experts in the room, so we have a good hour and 15 minutes to do that.  So take advantage of it.  Think of things, think of questions.  We're here until they kick us out.  
>> ANN DENTON:  And because we are who we are, we have questions prepared to spark discussion. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Oh, exactly. 
>> ANN DENTON:  If you don't want to be tortured by that, come up with your own. 
>> PAT TUCKER:  Exactly.  I was going to say, if you don't have questions, we'll have some for you.