Minutes 03-03-2015 - Laserfiche WebLink

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topics, Orange County and Chapel Hill are required to create a consolidated plan, and this plan is a tool to identify unmet needs and best strategies for filling that need for affordable housing. She encouraged the Board to use this tool to inform funding and policy decisions. Maggie West affirmed the previous comments. She requested that the plan include efforts to address the severe lack of properties accepting Section 8 federal vouchers. She said the community is in a crisis of finding landlords who are willing to accept these vouchers and house the families receiving subsidies. She said she is working for two women who are wheelchair bound and have no poor credit or criminal history, but they are having trouble only because of the vouchers. She said efforts need to be made to recruit and maintain relationships with landlords who are willing to accept these vouchers. She said, the GFC issue affected one fifth of the voucher holders in Orange County, and the relocation of these families caused problems for other voucher holders who were looking for homes. Chiraayu Gosrani is a student at UNC, and he works with the Community Empowerment Fund. He said the consolidated plan needs to involve stakeholders and people who are actually facing homelessness and extreme poverty. He said a concerted effort needs to be made to reach out to those communities to understand their needs and whether they are being met. He said communication with landlords is also very important. He said there is a lack of information with the landlords regarding what housing vouchers entail. He said many of the voucher holders are turned down because of a criminal record or lack of ability to meet other specifications. He said another issue is access to affordable housing. He said there is no central location to find information about options for affordable housing. He suggested the creation of a database to make this information accessible to caseworkers and organizations working to place members into housing. Allan Rosen read from the following written comments: Hello, I am Allan Rosen, project manager at the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (IFC). I'm here tonight for the housing and community development public hearing. I'd like to share some information about IFC's work that we believe will be helpful in preparing Orange County's Consolidated Plan. As most of you likely know, IFC is one of the principal agencies that address homelessness and hunger in Orange County. Throughout our history, IFC has relied on partnerships with community volunteers, congregations, businesses, civic associations, and peer social service agencies. For housing and community development issues, we actively participate in the Partnership to End Homelessness, the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition, and the Family Success Alliance. For the past thirty years IFC has focused its effort on basic safety-net programs including emergency shelter and transitional housing, free medical and mental health care for the residents of our housing programs, a community kitchen, food pantry and crisis intervention services for vulnerable individuals and families who are at-risk of becoming homeless. IFC has 20 full-time and 8 part-time employees. Our annual cash budget is $1.75 million, which is surpassed by $2.5 million in donated goods and services (including more than 40,000 volunteer hours). IFC is very appreciative of the support it receives each and every year from Orange County and the Towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill. This support is critical to keeping our programs operating.