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6 <br />March 28, 2001 <br />Chairman Steve Halkiatis and the Board of County Commissioners <br />Orange County <br />Hillsborough, NC 27278 <br />Dear Chairman Halkiotis and Board Members: <br />This letter is intended to explain why Orange Community Housing Corporation <br />(OCHC) decided to at least temporarily discontinue our administration of the <br />Urgent Repair Program (URP). In addition, we offer an option for restarting the <br />program later this year. Please understand that this decision was not made <br />lightly. The board and staff of OCHC have supported the program since its <br />inception in late 1997. We recognize that URP offers much needed assistance to <br />some of Orange County's neediest citizens. <br />The decision to discontinue administering the program was based solely on <br />circumstances at the time the decision had to be made, which was in December <br />2000. The circumstances I refer to include the following: <br />Our rehab manager announced he would be unable to continue with the <br />program after May 1, 2001. He is the third rehab manager to leave the <br />position in three years. The main reason he is leaving is the program <br />requires taa much time for the compensation provided. <br />The rehab manager's decision to leave carne after we learned that two othear <br />employees would be leaving early in 2001. We already knew that a third <br />employee would be leaving in early 2001 to have a baby. Thus, we were <br />losing 2'/s of our 3 ~/z staff members in a two-month period. <br />Faced with this staff turnover, and an extraordinarily busy period <br />(completing and closing on 1~ townhomes on Legion Road, marketing and <br />closing on 4 homes an Milton Avenue, and completing our ZCP <br />requirements for Meadowmant -- all scheduled for the first half of 2001), we <br />were compelled to step back and assess haw the organization could meet <br />these challenges. <br />It was during this critical self-evaluation period that it was deternvned that a <br />merger of OCHC with the Community Land Trust was necessary in order <br />`for either organization to function effectively and achieve its mission. <br />It was also during this process that we realized that in order for URP to be a <br />truly sustainable program, we would have to have afull-time rehab <br />manager on staff. However, since URP is not afull-time program, and since <br />we da not engage in much rehab work, we questioned the need fora ~full- <br />time employee. <br />Ultimately it was decided that we did not have the capacity to manage the <br />URP given our workload and staffing. <br />