ANN DENTON: So the reason that Tim is sending you the action plan is that today, you know, there was a couple of comments yesterday about, okay, let's dispense with the preliminaries and get down to it. Right? Now we're down to it. So remember the action plan is divided into three, it's divided into multiple sections. And we took the liberty of putting some goals in there for you. And one of them, the first one is partnerships and collaboration. And we're going to talk about that today. So I'm going to lead off by telling you about some of the partners that you can look for, and I want to hear from you about partners, good partners, bad partners, good experiences, bad experiences, all of that with partners. Because you can't do this alone. Goal 1 is partnerships and collaboration. The second one is advocacy. Advocacy is essential. We've got all this money coming into our communities, and it gets spent. All too often, to build housing that are, that is too expensive for someone on SSI, and often too expensive for someone on a full-time minimum wage salary. It is not fair. And so there's advocacy opportunities there. We started talking yesterday about planning. Opportunities, the consolidated plan. There are things that you can do around advocacy. And so that's in there as a second goal. The third goal is, how to get the resources themselves. Right? So how do you find resources, how do you access those resources, how do you make it easy for the people who control the resources to do the right thing and make them available to you? All of those things are under the resource goal. Then there's blank pages where you write in your own goals. Karen just said to me, we don't know your communities. You know your communities. So you know what you need to do, probably knew what you needed to do coming in here, and we're just giving you extra ammunition. So the rest of this time is about that action plan. Our goal is for you to leave here with an action plan that is, you know, that you can actually take home and go, "Okay, somebody came up to us this morning and said, "My ED is doing the agenda for the staff meeting on Monday. And I've asked for 15 minutes. " That's the kind of energy we're hoping for. That's the energy we hope for, that you go home fired up and ready to annoy all of the housing people in your community. [Laughter. ] That's the goal. So all of that to say, when we break into the small group work, Darrel and Karen and I are going to be coming around. If you want to talk about, talk to Darrel about partnerships, because he's going to do a huge thing today about how they did what they did. And if you have not seen or looked up Ability 360, I'm telling you, you need to look at it. I've been there. It's amazing. So they did that, and he's going to give a lot of detail. So hopefully it can spark ideas for you. The other thing is, it's a message of hope. They did not start out where they are today. They started out as a small organization. Right? So if they can do it, you can do it. But as we go around, if you're working on something, and you're deciding you want to talk to us about how to access these resources, well, okay, that's not today, I don't care. All right. I'll sit down. Let's talk about it. How do you want to do it? We have internet in this room. If you want to look up the consolidated plan for your community, which, because I'm a complete nerd, I was looking people's consolidated plans up yesterday, sitting up here. I'll help you do that. We'll help you do that. If you want to talk about advocacy strategies or how do you nail down a partnership so that you enter into an agreement with a housing authority and then they don't turn around and cut you out later. Right, that kind of thing. Talk to Darrel -- we'll come around and do whatever you want. We'll give you information about partnerships and collaboration. That's what you're supposed to be working on, supposedly, but we'll help you do anything you want with the action plan. Our goal is to make that functional. Speech over. Let's talk about key housing partners. We've said a couple of times, you know, think outside the box. Look for unusual partners. Look for unlikely partners. First of all, let's look who's in the box. Who are the customary, who are our customary partners? This is my favorite thing, follow the money. If you're not sure who's doing what in your community, figure out where the money is and who controls it. And then right behind that, figure out who's using it. Who's using that money. And what are they using it for? So yesterday when I looked at Detroit consolidated plan, I noticed that they had identified, that there was a significant poverty issue, and people, they had severe cost burdened households and all of this stuff. When I looked at their plan they were doing all of this public, economic development, and public infrastructure and blah-blah-blah. Well, I looked at that for 10 minutes. So I don't know. But my suspicious guess is there's people who are typically using the dollars to make money for themselves, which I have no problem with, to do the kinds of things that are in that plan. And that those people are somehow -- they're accustomed to using that money for stuff that they are already planning to do and they're just, you know, they're just doing what they always do. The city is contracting with who they always contract. You know. And there's always the possibly that those people are snuggled up to the politicians, and that they -- and that the allocations are somehow being influenced in that way. It's not fraud exactly, but, you know, if the mayor's brother is running a concrete company and you want to build a parking lot, right? So who holds the money. Who uses the money. And who else has an interest besides you? The answer to the question who else has an interest besides you could lead you to a potential ally. Also a potential rival. So you guys are CILs, and you have an interest in this money. Okay. There may be also the homeless community has an interest in this money. And maybe the mental health services community has an interest in this money. Right? Now, you could break off into warring fragments and start screaming at each other, which I would suggest you not do. Do you know why? Why? Come on. Wake up. If we work together, we're good. If we fight -- I can't tell you how many times I have heard stories about decision makers saying, "Well, if I give it to you, your CIL, then I can't give it to the mental health people, and the homeless people here are more politically connected. So why should I give it to you? You guys need to get your act together and decide what you want before you come back to me. " So I'm saying get it together. And decide what you want as an alliance. I'm just suggesting that. There are some communities where you can't do that. Right? Where somebody -- early, early, early in my career I worked on the homeless consortium in Austin, Texas. And we -- it was decades ago and the homeless money was just starting to come out. And we were working, everyone in good faith, on putting this application together. And there was this other pot of money right next to it that we decided we weren't going to go for. And at the very last minute, one of the providers took our draft, all the pieces that they needed for that other money, and submitted it and got a million dollars. I tell you what. And we were, and we didn't get funded for what we put in. And so people were very angry about that, me included. It felt like a betrayal. It was a long time before that organization was included again. They had to have a change in leadership before they were really accepted. They could come to meetings, but nobody was really talking to them. It was like middle school. [Laughter. ] So who has an interest in the money will tell you who your potential allies are. How do you find out these things? Well, you find out by looking up your consolidated plan that tells you, like I did for Detroit, #1, who's controlling the process, and #2, how they've spent the money in the past. They have to list the organizations. Okay. Likely allies. So you think -- let's think logically. We want to have affordable, accessible housing. We don't want just a trickle. We want enough to at least reasonably address the need that we have. Right? That's what we want. Right? And we want streamlined access to it. And, you know, and we'll all be -- and everybody will be happy. Okay. Who else is likely to be in support of that kind of an agenda? In your community. I'm really asking. Say again? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Economic development. ANN DENTON: That's a great one. I actually would put them in the middle scale, but yes. Economic development would be -- it's good. Who else? Who else are your likely -- who are you likely to be in good, you know, congruence with in terms of your goals and values? In your community. I think we need to distribute coffee. [Laughter. ] The people being affected! Thank you! Thank you. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Reno -- our housing -- [inaudible]. Reno's area, because we have such a housing shortage and rents are skyrocketing, a lot of the homeless people and church groups have gotten together, and they have a Facebook group, and I've gone to a few meetings, I need to get more involved, but they're doing a grassroots, storm the mayor's office type of thing. We're trying. They're trying. ANN DENTON: Who else -- that's great. And who else is a likely ally? Homeless groups, the people who are affected themselves who don't have housing. There's nothing more powerful than -- than somebody coming to -- before a decision-making body and saying, "I'm homeless," or "I'm stuck in an institution because you won't do anything for me. " Maybe that's a little aggressive. I don't know. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Colorado has a lot of vets because of Fort Carson being close. We partner with Verterans of America, the VA and any small group -- like Wounded Warriors, we've actually gotten a hold of them and seeing how we can create a relationship with them and get them into the housing, and maybe if they knew somebody, because they're always interacting with newer vets than what we know of. And of course, we have a huge homeless. ANN DENTON: I think -- that's an excellent point. The whole veterans community should be well aligned with what our goals are. And the thing about VOA, she talked about VOA. VOA has a long, long history of developing and providing housing. They are experts. Now, they've done it in a way that I don't always approve of, which is all sort of clustered housing. But they have gotten better. I've talked to VOA people in recent years, and they're all about getting people affordable, accessible housing. And they know how to do it. And they are starting to do a more scattered site model with what they are doing. They are an excellent partner. Okay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was going to say that we have a local community action agency. ANN DENTON: Yes! AUDIENCE MEMBER: And they're a good partner as well. ANN DENTON: Yes. They're on a slide! [Laughs. ] They're coming up. Community action agencies are excellent. Can be excellent. Yes. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Developers in your area. We have a local developer that's one of our largest multiresidential developers, and it's run by a husband and wife team, and she has cerebral palsy. So those kinds of things. ANN DENTON: Those are great AUDIENCE MEMBER: Connected to the disability field in some way as well. ANN DENTON: Right. Others? Okay. So other groups that might share your interest. Local groups focusing on ending hunger, improving health care, and advocating for a living wage. You may have people in your community that are fired up about poverty. I have a friend who serves on the Lutheran church advisory board to the world hunger commission or something like that. That's the kind of person that could be a potential ally for something like this. Somebody who's already got that social justice advocacy for people mindset. Health care is a lot of money in health care. A lot of money in health care. They're doing their health care consortiums that have been developed. Medicaid is interested in innovative ways in which health care can be a participant. The stuff that Julie talked about yesterday, the social determinants of health. That has the health care system sitting up and taking notice. If they are now on the hook for health outcomes, you know, they get penalized if people go back to the hospital within a certain period of time. Right? They get penalized for recidivism and all that stuff. They have a monetary interest, and a -- hopefully humanitarian interest, and now that we know housing and jobs and all of those other things are powerful predictors of health outcomes, they have a vested interest. United Healthcare, one of the big companies has been pretty innovative around looking at housing in communities. They have, there's money they've put up for partnerships. There is a consortium of large foundations, including Dell, and the Gates Foundation, which are two gigantic ones, that are looking at social impact bonds, which is a way to fund a development of affordable housing. So there's all kind of stuff going on with health care and poverty that you could tap into, potentially. I said yesterday about the business associations. We have a downtown, we have a thing in Austin called the Downtown Austin Alliance. When I was running programs, we had a man who was kind of famous, he's passed on now. But his name was Leslie, and he would be downtown in high heels, a thong, and, you know, maybe a boa. Right? And soliciting passers-by for money. The Downtown Austin Alliance, the business owners were unhappy. They were unhappy. [Laughs. ] They were unhappy with him. And other people saw the success that he had, and were doing similar sorts of outrageous things. It was kind of a little epidemic. And I can remember when I was running programs, I got a call from this man, and he said, "You need to get somebody down here right now. " I'm like, okay. Could you tell me who you are? Anyway. And he was -- Leslie was doing something on the street and they wanted somebody to come get him. That's the interaction I had with the downtown Austin alliance, and I immediately put them in the enemy category, right. They don't understand. If I was homeless, I would want to be outrageous too. He's a smart guy. He doesn't like you guys and he's messing with you. I liked him. So they're in the enemy category. Really? They have money. They have a lot of money. They had a lot of money. And so part of what we needed to do was engage them. And I remember a few years later, I had a different job. I wasn't running programs anymore. I was doing more community stuff. And it occurred to me that I needed to pull them in to our plan. Okay. I want to tell you, I would rather have had a root canal than call these guys. Really? I didn't want to. I didn't think it was going to work. I didn't like them. And really, I was kind of scared to do it. Because I thought they were going to yell at me. Anyway. So a friend -- I sent an email. We made the call. And over time, what happened is the Downtown Austin Alliance ended up funding a street outreach case management team that was multidisciplinary, had somebody from health care, somebody from my old outreach program, somebody from the mental health system, somebody from the VA. And then a couple other people. A nurse, I think, a part-time nurse. And it was great! But my initial resistance, what I'm saying, thinking outside the box means looking again at people that I've put in the enemy list. Saying, again, like you said, that's why I put economic development -- those economic development guys. You know? They're all about jobs. My guys -- Leslie can't get a job. You know? Well, he could. He would be on stage. But, you know. Who are these people? They just want to make money. No. We need to think again. Slow down, think again. Who are they? Can they help us? The same thing with developers. Who are they? Can they help us? I think your point earlier, people have connections to the whole constellation of disability issues that we may not know anything about. May not know anything about their private lives. They may have a relative, whatever. We just don't know. Okay. Then the Feds. Let's talk about the federal agencies. So you have -- HUD seems like -- [laughs. ] HUD is interesting. Right? They're very bureaucratic -- they're highly bureaucratic, and they're a little bit . Their motivations seem obscure. How is that, that was a nice refrain, right? For some people, they're in a necessary but unpleasant category. They have to deal with HUD but you wish you didn't have to. The truth is, there are people buried all through all of these bureaucracies who are us. They're us. Right? They just took a different path. And so finding those people -- and here's a way to think about doing it. There are lots of people in the national office, the central office, who are like us. Right? Used to be more of them than there were now. Some of them jump like rats leaving the sinking ship in the last few years. But there's still some people there who are really interested in fair housing and social justice. And making sure that what they're doing is making an impact on social justice issues. If you don't find those people, you've got regional leadership. You should know who -- if you're going to do housing, if you're going to do any kind of development or you're going to be on that side of it, you should know who your regional administrator is. Know, are they -- are they up or down? Thumbs up or thumbs down? What do other people think? What do your other allies think? Right? And if that doesn't work, or -- also, or also, your field office. You have a field office. Now, I used to say the San Antonio field office was the worst field office in the country and I could prove it. They had a change in leadership, and it's no longer like that. You have to stay on top of it. You need to know who's there, who are the key people, and what are they like. USDA. We share the building today and yesterday, and I think for the whole week with USDA. They're doing a supervisor's training right over there. USDA, those of you who are -- who's tapping into USDA housing in this room? One, two . Four, five, maybe six people. Six or seven people. Okay. How many people are in rural areas not using USDA housing? So a few. But -- so USDA is -- is a -- in many cases, an untapped resource in my line. You guys are pretty savvy, and so you're using them, but USDA has developed thousands and thousands of units all across the country in rural areas. Was it you yesterday who made the point, people don't want to live -- they can't get services? Somebody said they can't get services, get to the doctor -- transportation is the problem? That was you? No? It was somebody -- I forget. Forgive me. And that's an issue. Let's not sugar coat that. But the truth of the matter is, it's also subsidized housing. And it means if somebody is on an SSI check or SSDI check, they can live there. Okay. So then if that's what the person wants to do, then let's work our patooties off, solving the transportation problem. But not right off out of hand that those resources are out there. Subsidized housing is like gold. Right? Because subsidized housing means that the tenant pays 30% of their income for rent no matter what it is. And somebody else pays the remainder between what the tenant can pay and what the fair market rent is. So subsidized housing is like gold. Here's how to find -- again, this is about partnerships. Now, tomorrow we're going to -- we're going to be looking at these websites for actual resources. But this is how to find the people. Actually, I would go across the hall and go, who's here from Colorado? Right? [Laughter. ] May I speak to you? You're going to be a supervisor. But anyway, it's about knowing the people. If you're in a rural area, I would suggest you know. They may be hopeless. They may not help you. But let's at least explore it. State housing finance agencies. Almost every state has one. Everybody know their state housing finance agency? Yes? Hands up? Okay. If you don't know your state housing finance agency, see one of us after the -- after this, and we'll show it to you online. We'll help you find it. These guys, you know, sometimes they're all about -- there's a lot of money to be made in affordable housing, and they're all about, you know, they're snugged up with the developers, and everybody's making money and they're all happy, and the money -- and the housing that they're making is -- you know, slightly affordable to people at 80% of median family income. Right? So it doesn't help us at all. That's the case sometimes. Now, if that's the case for you, you can start a campaign of determined advocacy. I wouldn't expect to see any results immediately. But you can, you know, like water on a stone, you can wear them down. You're really -- ultimately, you're going to need them. And so I would make -- I would find out who they are and make friends with them. I would go to their consolidated plan hearings. I would go to meetings that they have. I would go to their board meetings. Again, you have to decide where your priorities are for you, but if you are going to have anything to do with a development stream, or really, anything around advocating for additional resources for rural areas, like additional housing vouchers for rural areas, you're going to need them. The other thing that state agencies do, they control the low-income housing tax credit process. It's a federal funding source. It's the primary funding source for development. So that means that they control what is developed. And the instrument for that, I'll talk about it again tomorrow, is called the Qualified Allocation Plan or QAP. And the Qualified Allocation Plan sets out what the priorities are for development, and then usually they attach or there's a separate document that shows how applications for the funding will be scored. How they score the applications is where you need to be. Getting something in the QAP that talks about prioritizing affordable, accessible housing. Deeply affordable housing is the current language for what we want. Deeply affordable meaning that some of the units developed are going to be affordable to someone on an SSI income. Extremely low income households. But these guys are the ones who control that. And it's their website where you will find the QAP for your state. It's their website where you will find the already developed tax credit property list. So you need them. Okay. I already said all this! If you don't know a lot about this, and again, we can't do this alone. That's what this is about. If you don't know a lot about this, find out the people in your state -- who else is going to the board meetings? Is there an advisory committee to the board that advises them on affordable housing issues? A lot of states have that. People will complain and whine and blah-blah-blah, so they will make an advisory committee, and they think they're dismissing you. Okay. Put me on your advisory committee. I dare you. Right? [Laughs. ] Because then you're in. Then you get board materials ahead of time. You've got an in. They may think they're just appeasing you, but you can make that into something. But if they've already got something like that, get the skinny from those guys. What is -- how well are they doing? What's wrong with the QAP? Why aren't we producing more units than we should be? Why don't we have better access to the housing vouchers in rural areas? Why isn't this working? Okay. State community development agencies. So that's -- can be a slightly different thing. There's a state housing finance agency, and some states there are two agencies. One is state housing finance. Other one is state community development. In some states, there's one agency, and they do both functions. Okay? You'll have to look up for that for yourself. And if you need help, we'll help you. Right? That's what the planning process is about today. But the community development organizations, I dismissed them, community development, right? That doesn't sound like our stuff. And they had used community development block grant fund in my community to build an employment training center, which I was too young and naive to know that that could be a real asset. Right? Over on the east side, which the low-income part of town. And I was like, okay, well, they're just going to build streets and sewers and convention centers, and I don't care about them. Because they're not doing what I want them to do. Au contraire. I needed to look again at what the community development agencies are doing. They run the community development block grant for rural areas. The community development block grant can be used for what? What have you guys used it for? Home mods! What else? Ramps! Yeah! Yeah. And that employment training center that I was -- as a young woman, I'm like, that's not housing. I'm not interested in that. Oh, my God. What a resource that could be. So community development block grant funds are very flexible, and the community development agency controls that for the rural areas of the state. The more urban areas get their own money directly. Okay? The other thing that the community development agencies does, the community services block grant. That's the main funding source for the community action agencies that have already been mentioned. Community action agencies, y'all know those, right? They are great allies. Great allies. Also, Area Agencies on Aging. Great allies. Okay. Public agencies locally. So you may have -- well, in your community, you're going to have public housing authorities. Right? So how many people here are already working with your public housing authority? Almost half. That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? So public housing authorities, we talked a little bit about them yesterday, but what can they do? What do they do? What do public housing authorities do? Subsidized housing. Housing choice vouchers. The tenant based rental assistance, and public housing. They run public housing units. What else can they do? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Section 8 vouchers. ANN DENTON: Housing choice vouchers. Yes? AUDIENCE MEMBER: They can develop new units -- ANN DENTON: Yes! They can develop new units. Most people are not, well, one, many public housing authorities are not doing that, and a lot of people don't know they can. But they can. The other thing that they've done in the past around, you know, sort of in our world, is they have the ability to take some of their Section 8 housing choice vouchers, make them -- use them to support mortgages for people who are extremely low income. They don't -- they don't -- it's not a common thing that they do, but they still have the authority to do it. So the old home of your own program? Anybody heard of that? The old home of your own program, sometimes was able to tap into the local housing authority resources to help support people's mortgages. AUDIENCE MEMBER: [Inaudible]. ANN DENTON: Yeah, we need a microphone here. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a question about that. Is that an existing mortgage, or is that a new mortgage? ANN DENTON: You know, I don't know, if it makes a difference. I don't know. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. ANN DENTON: The other thing that they do, and this is related to development, they take, now remember, when I say they can take housing choice vouchers and turn them into a different purpose, we're talking about a pool that's already oversubscribed. I'm not saying it would be easy. But they also can do -- they can also project base some of their housing choice vouchers, some of their Section 8, and use those to support development. Yes, ma'am? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do have a question. I didn't ask it yesterday because I had to think about this. When we were talking about why public housing authorities would not apply for more vouchers, someone said, #1, it's more work. They have to administer it. But somebody else said that they lose money on the voucher program ANN DENTON: They do. AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- that's what they do. If they lose money, how do they sustain themselves? ANN DENTON: That is a great question. As a board member for our counties housing authority, I can tell you that what my housing authority does, they get an influx of cash from the county. They get an influx of cash from the strategic housing development corporation, which I also sit on the board of, that does development and gets developer's fees. And that organization provides the housing authority with operating funds to make up of the deficit. But the housing choice voucher program, HUD genuinely underfunds that. They do lose money. And so they're just adding more to their -- it's not an insurmountable gap. I think they get 88% of what they need to run it. It's not like -- it's -- it's feasible. Otherwise, housing authorities wouldn't do it at all. So they're doing it. They just getting resources from other areas to cover it. When you ask them to apply for, like, mainstream vouchers -- we have a hand up over here -- when you ask them to apply for mainstream vouchers or vast vouchers which they don't have to apply for, and you need to be cognizant of the fact that you're asking them to take on something else. That, you know, and a lot of them do. ANN DENTON: I had the public housing authority in my community on the -- on the quasi-enemy list for a while, because they were uncooperative, and they were, they were a pain in the patootie. But they got new leadership. This is the city, I am on the county board. The city housing authority is totally turned around. And they're a good friend now. So you just have to pay attention. You know? Back when they were not friendly, we decided to leave them alone. And stop bothering them. Because we had -- we had more likely opportunities somewhere else. So we did. We went to the county. And now that they're friendly, people are coming back to them. You just have to know. AUDIENCE MEMBER: So to answer the question about the mortgage vouchers, from what I understand, that would be a new mortgage because you need to be on the Section 8 rental voucher for a year, and then you could possibly transfer over to the mortgage voucher. ANN DENTON: Thank you. We have another question over here. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, in terms of the community development block grant program, and I wanted you to clarify what types of housing subsidies that can fund. But in some communities, in some very isolated, backward, rural communities, the governments don't even want to apply for community development block grant funds. We've had a problem with this in Georgia, where the attitude is like, "Well, we don't want to be in a position of giving money to poor people. And we don't want more work." And they are very underfunded, in terms of the rural county government structures, and they don't even want to bother with the community development block grant application. And so it does become an educational challenge, to help them see how you can be an ally for making the community better if they are willing to figure out how to do it. ANN DENTON: And what I would say to that, I mean, that sounds pretty daunting, but I would say that one possible course of action is for you to get smarter about it than them, which you already are. And then educate them, and then do everything you can to make it easy for them. Say, "We'll hire a grant writer to come in and write that." And what is the administrative burden? It's half the administrative burden, blah-blah-blah. Can we do that for you? That kind of thing. And the CDBG does not do housing vouchers. That's the home program. I mentioned that yesterday. It's also under the consolidated plan, can do housing vouchers. But CDBG, you can spend up to 20% of CDBG on housing. They can choose to spend up to 20% of the allocation on housing. AUDIENCE MEMBER: [Inaudible]. ANN DENTON: Usually that's some kind of a contribution to a development. It's local matching funds for tax credit, for example. Or sometimes CDBG will take on the development of streets and sewers for new -- new housing developments. Yes, ma'am? [Laughs.] AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm sitting here thinking, and I'm going to go put my CIL hat on for a second. I don't know about other directors here in the room. Our budgets are so tight, and I love it when I hear, well, "You can hire a grant writer." What I'm wondering though, if it wouldn't be prudent for us as we are thinking about these plans, alongside that, it seems like you need a development plan for this particular project. And then are you aware of any interest or -- interest of anybody out there that's providing funding that would like to focus in and come alongside projects that are looking at this particular problem? And then perhaps we could disseminate that information to this group and others that are looking to be a part of the solution. I just know in my budget -- ANN DENTON: You don't have it. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I ain't got it. ANN DENTON: I knew it when I said it, but the truth is the basic answer is, do I know funding -- no, I don't know. I don't know. But it's funding's like everything else. You have to scratch for it. And so as you explore these new alliances, you may find out, you don't need a lot of money. If you have $10,000, well, that would hire a grant writer to write the CDBG program. And that's $2,000 of the you have $8,000 left. I'm not talking about a huge funding source. And you might be able to approach the local health care system. I would start -- the local health care, they have an investment in keeping people out of the hospital. They know that housing is a powerful source of determinant of health. You know, and they have oodles of money. So I would just scratch around and see, if you're asking somebody for $10,000 or $20,000 or $50,000, for some of these organizations, that's pocket change. But it would make a huge difference. But I don't have -- these two may have a better answer. But I don't have -- I wish -- I wish I knew that the Gates Foundation had $5 billion set aside for independent living. Right? But they don't. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I guess -- [inaudible]. I know. It's -- like that. [Laughs.] I guess a follow-along question, in my head I'm always looking at economy of scale. And, you know, we've got a lot of people who are talking about trying to do the same thing. And if they're -- does that makes sense, that perhaps something could be developed that we could -- you know I'm going to pretend for a second that we all are on the same page and we could all contribute $2,500 to, so that we actually got a decent amount -- ANN DENTON: We all being the local allies. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right. ANN DENTON: Yes. AUDIENCE MEMBER: And then we have somebody who can, you know, shoulder that task. ANN DENTON: Yes. Actually, I'll have to think about specific examples, but I've seen communities do that. Where everybody kicks in a thousand dollars. And then you have a fund that could be used to hire grant writers or to -- you know, whatever you -- looks like you absolutely need to have. To put up -- to put in a thousand dollars for home mods because somebody will match that so they could have 2,000. So yes. Yes. That's a perfect idea. And it doesn't have to be a bajillion dollars. It can be a modest effort at first, and when it's successful, use it to leverage into more money. Look, this worked and we have 25 more people we want to assist in this way, will you help us? And it starts to roll. AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's what happened to us when we went to the housing authority when the last funding announcement came out -- I got a hold of them right way, and they had zero interest unless we wanted to write the whole thing. And it had to be submitted by them. And they got extra brownie points if they were working with the center for independent living. But they wanted us to write the whole thing and I just didn't have the capacity to do that. ANN DENTON: What if you were in alliance with a whole group of people community and lets say one of the big supportive housing agencies has a grant writer on staff. Right? You want them to apply for mainstream vouchers, you want them to apply for 50 vouchers. Well, if you want 25 and you'll give 25 to them if they write the grant. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right. I see that. ANN DENTON: 25 is better than zero. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Get -- Thank you very much. ANN DENTON: Part of this, I was getting the partnership sort of really nailed down. It doesn't -- I mean, I always like to put things in writing. It might be a declaration. Not a signed contract or anything like that. But some sort of an agreement in writing about what you're doing, what the goals are, what you expect to achieve, who's participating, what each person's role is, what each organization's role is. And then at least you've got it in writing. If somebody, you know, jumps off the ship and does their own thing, well, so be it. But at least you were clear. Uh-huh. Okay. So urban -- urban communities -- we've been talking a lot about rural. The community action -- I mean, the housing authority, the most housing -- state housing agencies run housing voucher programs for the rural areas. So if a city -- if your community does not have its own public housing authority, you probably have access to some level of vouchers through the state housing agency. If you have your own housing authority, you don't get the state ones. But -- there's that. And then the state agency, either the community development agency or the housing finance agency, or the single state agency, if that's your structure, also runs consolidated plan funding for the state, and what that means is for all the communities that are not big enough to get their own consolidated plan funding, the state administers the funding for those communities. Everything we will talk about tomorrow under the consolidated plan, all of those funding programs, if you need access to those and you -- not big enough, you get it through the state. So we've talked about rural. That's called balance of state, usually. And balance of state also applies to the homeless funding. So if your city or community is not -- is not participating in an application that is generated in your community or in your region, for homelessness funding, then you are under the state, balance of state, continuum of care homelessness funding. Same kind of structure. For rural areas -- we'll talk more about that tomorrow when we get to resources -- but just in terms of looking at who your partners need to be, who else is going to be going for those balance of state dollars? That could be your potential allies? And you need to know who's doing that at the state agency. Who are the people? Darrel's going to talk to you about partnerships is about people. So -- but for urban areas, and I'll just say it, and I'll say it again tomorrow -- for Continuum of Care funding, which is homelessness assistance funding, that's -- that's . that is dependent on the activity of a consortium of agencies, a coalition of something, some kind of a consortium of agencies that's writing an application and doing a comprehensive community plan around homelessness. So all your big cities are going to have that. And about -- I think a third or a half of you yesterday said you were working with your local Continuum of Care. These are the guys that get money from HUD for addressing homelessness. And they're great allies. The other thing that local -- that comes from HUD to the local government is your consolidated plan resources. So this is your home funds. Emergency solution grants. Housing opportunities for people with AIDS. If that only comes if it's a high prevalence of AIDS in your community, and the CDBG, Community Development Block Grants. The consolodated plan governs all four of those funding types. CDBG has been greatly useful for this group, around home mods, and as I said earlier, there are other things you can try for. Home funds do owner-occupied housing assistance, which is people who are in their own homes and who need -- this is partly where home mods might come from -- and who need assistance. It's sort of the typical picture, the grandma who lives by herself and is on a fixed income and her roof blows off. It's home repair. Habitat For Humanity uses a lot of this funding. The other things that home funds are used for is rental project development. When we talk about the tax credit program, it's completely different. It's operated by the state. Big money, developers and all that. They need local commitment. And so a lot of times people tap into rental project development money under the home program as local match for these big tax credit programs. Okay. So if you can't -- so the advocacy thing -- I'm jumping all over the place because we're talking about partnerships, advocacy, and resources all in one. But the advocate thing is if you want to change the way your tax credit program is working, and the qualified allocation plan at the state level is immovable. It's completely locked down by politics and everybody hates each other and they're not going to listen to you any way. Okay. You're in a big city. You got a million dollars in home funds coming in. Those developers want that money for local match, for the tax credit. You can't influence the tax credit but you can probably influence what it says at the local level for developers to get that money. So it's a fall back position. If you want tax credits to be different, you can't move the state, move to locals. We'll talk more about that tomorrow too. So the urban communities, the people who -- again, the first slide was, who controls the money. Who has an interest in the money, blah-blah-blah. Who controls the money. You have in your city governments, you have somebody who's controlling the consolidated plan. You can Google consolidated plan. If that doesn't work, you can look up community development, city, office of community development, or sometimes city office of neighborhood housing. Remarkable number of city departments that run the plans are called neighborhood housing. I don't know why. If you can't find it, come to us. We'll help you. But who's running that money at your local level? These are -- these are people you need. Okay. National organizations. I'm almost done, Tim. These are great. These are my favorites. The National Low Income Housing Coalition. Anybody already looking at their website? When you're doing advocacy, and you want to make the case that housing is not affordable in my community, and it's not about disability. It's about poverty. Right? National Low Income Housing Coalition has all the data. It's a report called "out of reach." Out of reach. If you haven't looked at it, I invite you to Google it. When you're putting together advocacy materials and you're recruiting partners, these guys are the poverty guys. I love them. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Don't be put off by mental health. They have a whole package of resources on fair housing law. Michael Allen, who I mentioned yesterday, is one of the heroes of ground breaking legal advocacy, taking it to the man. Right? He was -- for many decades at the Bazelon center. A lot of the stuff you find will have his name on it. Great resource. And if you -- there's something legal that you don't understand and can't get an answer locally, you can call them, it might take a while. But somebody -- they're interested in helping. The other one is the Technical Assistance Collaborative. I love them. My friend Ann O'Hara, who is retired now, all of us are retired now -- she's the person who single-handedly crusaded the change in the 8-11 program, the HUD section 8-11 program used to build small enclaves of apartments, and I'm not saying people can choose those those are great but they were building little small enclaves of apartments that people all -- everybody who lived there had a disability. Okay? I mean, my preference is to do integrated housing. I'm not saying those are bad. But I'm just saying that that was all they did. And my friend Ann O'Hara made it her personal crusade to change that, and the changes that came to the 8-11 program in 2011, really largely due to her work. And so the Technical Assistance Collaborative, which is her organization, even though she's retired, they still maintain a website about the 8-11 program, and there are -- the 8-11 program is not in every state. Again, tomorrow we're going to have websites up. I can show you whether or not your state's in it. And many states will have a property list of properties that have had units in their development stream. What it does, it adds money to the development to support deeply affordable units. Up to 25% of the units are made deeply affordable, AKA, affordable for someone on an SSI income. So that -- that -- if I had a magic wand and could make something universal, that's what I would do. Right? So that's genius. We just need to figure out how to take that to scale. So they're a great source of information about that program. We've talked about all of this already. I'm going to keep moving. And then find a champion. This is related to your point. Find somebody who has some connection to this. Has some passion for this. Has the social justice initiative. Has -- has some -- you know, something. Who's on the board of directors of other organizations? So for me, who's on the board of the local homeless coalition? Okay. Those are -- the local homeless coalitions are looking for people who are powerful people, money people. You know, people with influence. We already know they're friendly to homelessness. Who are these people? Right? Do a little investigation. Look at the leadership of groups like the junior league. I had the junior league on the enemies list. Right? Because, you know. They're all about -- right? Yeah. They're all about, you know, cute hairdos and whatever. I don't know. Buying teddy bears, which I'm not saying my -- anyway. [Laughter. ] But they weren't helping what I thought needed to be helped. Au contraire. The junior leagues and organizations like that, it's all about people. Finding the people. If you tap into somebody like the junior league or the garden club or whatever, and you find that person, that could be the -- or churches. Churches are amazing organizations. Find that person, and they could be the catalyst -- because all of a sudden you've added legitimacy in a -- in a very culturally specific way when you have church leadership. A fellow board member that I sit on the housing authority board with is a -- is a leader in his community, and he is a leader in his church. And he brings to our board a perspective and a legitimacy that we wouldn't have otherwise. So looking for those people. And then meeting with political leaders. You never know. You just never know who is going to be unexpectedly sympathetic. So that's my rah-rah speech, and I think we're at break. Anybody got any questions? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a question from Missouri. We're rural slash suburban county. We're in the balance of state. And in our county, there's an entity that's a great partner of ours that handles the consolidated plan for the count. ANN DENTON: Okay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: But you mentioned that there's a possibility that there are state funds, state-wide funds, balance of state? Could we try to tap into those funds in addition to, say, going to MHDC, which is our state agency that would handle those, I believe. ANN DENTON: You said you had a consolidated plan that's county based? AUDIENCE MEMBER: We do. ANN DENTON: Then the answer is probably no. You're covered but your local consolidated plan, so no. But I would look into the -- do you have a housing authority? AUDIENCE MEMBER: We have a local housing authority. ANN DENTON: Yeah. AUDIENCE MEMBER: They -- no. ANN DENTON: I know. [Laughter.] Okay. But then you're not covered by the state there either. So you're just covered by balance of state for the homeless funds. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.