Minutes 10-05-2021 Virtual Business Meeting

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19 Staff from the Orange County Housing and Community Development Department (OCHCD), Tax Department, and Finance and Administrative Services Department met over the summer to coordinate, design and begin implementing the proposed program. Staff created a draft program application (Attachment 1), a proposed plan for reviewing and approving applications and outlining each department's role in process (Attachment 2), and a proposed communications and outreach strategy to share information about the program with County residents (Attachment 3). Housing and Community Development Department staff will be primarily responsible for administering the LHA program — collecting applications and supporting documentation from applicants, and verifying program eligibility for each applicant. The Orange County Housing Helpline will play a key role in assisting county residents with completing applications and gathering documentation. The Tax Department will provide some of the eligibility verification details to Housing and Community Development Department staff during application review. Once an application is approved for assistance, Housing and Community Development Department staff will coordinate with the Finance and Administrative Services Department and Tax Department to issue a credit towards the taxpayer's property tax bill. The program has a proposed launch date of October 8, 2021. All applications must be received by 5:OOpm on December 15, 2021 to allow time for processing. Corey Root, Housing and Community Development Director, reviewed the background information for this item. She said $48,400 is 80% AMI for a single person and $69,100 for a family of four. She said the current proposal allows people to layer different types of assistance, and thus could qualify for the Jackson Center program, as well as this program through the county. She said, due to tax deadlines, the goal is to have this up and running by October 8, 2021 if approved. She said staff will have online and physical copies of applications available in multiple areas of county for easy access. She said partner agencies will be available to assist residents with completing applications, and applicants can also receive assistance by called the Housing Helpline. She said due to a conflict of interest, the Tax Office cannot receive these applications, so the Housing and Community Development Department will play that role. She said there is currently no award cap, realizing that could be an equity measure. She said staff has a robust communication plan for the program, if approved, to get information to residents who need it. Nancy Freeman, Tax Administrator, said the amount of the award would be based on the difference in the amount of county tax from 2020 to 2021, as opposed to it being based on the full tax bill. She said this program seeks to cover the county portion of tax bill, which was impacted by the revaluation. Chair Price said when she proposed this program back in June, she was thinking of ways to help homeowners regardless of age, because the goal is neighborhood preservation, in addition to keeping people in their homes. She said with criterion here of having to own the home for 10 years, the youngest anyone would probably be to benefit would be about 30 or 31. She said she is thinking about younger families, and wants to be able to protect them as well. She suggested eliminating the age requirement and moving forward with the other criterion. Commissioner Fowler asked for clarification that there is no limit to the value of the home for assistance. Corey Root said that is not currently part of the proposal. Nancy Freeman said capping the value of the home was not something staff observed in other programs while researching.