Agenda - 08-19-2008 - 4a - Laserfiche WebLink

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8 1 County won two of them. One is for the Inspect Plus program to help inspectors go paperless 2 in the fields, from their laptops. The program was developed in- house, thanks to the staff. 3 Orange County staff Susan Mellot and Dan Bruce were present to receive the award. 4 The second award is one for "Embracing our Diversity", a Spanish- speaking proficiency 5 tool. Working with the Chapel Hill Institute of Cultural and Language Education, the County 6 developed this assessment tool. The purpose of the tool is to further accessibility to all County 7 services for Spanish- speaking residents by helping to assure that County employees have 8 sufficient knowledge of the language and culture of the Hispanic community. The Human 9 Rights and Relations Department accepted the award. 10 Human Rights and Relations Director Shoshannah Smith thanked Marlena Valeiko who 11 developed and implemented this program. 12 Susan Mellot thanked the Board of County Commissioners, Craig Benedict, and the field 13 inspectors. 14 Commissioner Carey said that former County Commissioner Steve Halkiotis raised the 15 possibility of this paperless system several years ago. 16 Chair Jacobs thanked the NCACC for recognizing that Orange County has creative staff 17 that is willing to be innovative in providing services to the residents of Orange County. 18 19 d. Presentation on Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Report 20 The Board received a report from Donald B. Eager & Associates, LLC on the Analysis of 21 Impediments to Fair Housing Choice study commissioned by the BOCC on May 16, 2006. 22 Shoshannah Smith said that April is Housing Month, and as part of that effort, there is a 23 housing fair on April 19"' from 11:00 a.m. — 3:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the Food Lion at 600 24 Jones Ferry Road. She said that this report is required for the CDBG grants. She introduced 25 Donald Eager, who prepared the report. 26 Donald Eager said that they are celebrating a 40 -year history of fair housing on the 27 federal level, and he has been doing this for 30 years. He said that the abstract gives a good 28 outline. He said that one point is that he has been doing these analyses of impediments for 29 about 15 years all over the country, and the Planning Department website and the County's 30 website were two of the key resources that were used in this report. He said that this really cut 31 the research time. He said that Orange County is no better or no worse than any other 32 communities that he has researched. The issues and problems that Orange County faces are 33 the same issues and problems that other communities face. Regarding foreclosures, there are 34 not near as many in Orange County as there are in Ohio where he lives. He said that there are 35 a number of impediments and for every one they found, they gave a response as to how the 36 impediments can be addressed. Most of the impediments came from a survey that HRR staff 37 generated. Regarding fair market rents, he found that for someone to be able to afford to live in 38 a two-bedroom apartment in Orange County, they would have to make $15 an hour. He said 39 that it becomes a major issue when the very people that work for the County to protect it can no 40 longer afford to live here. The issue of having affordable housing available is extremely 41 important. 42 The other issue is that there are over 200 lenders in Orange County for mortgages, 43 which is a lot of lenders. Over 68% of applications received came from Caucasian people, just 44 over 14% came from African Americans, and less than 3% came from Hispanics. He said that 45 this shows that education and outreach within these communities become more and more 46 important. Predatory lending in the area has not been as bad as it was five or six years ago. 47 Commissioner Foushee asked staff about recommendations and how that would come 48 back to the Board of County Commissioners. Laura Blackmon said that this came through HRR 49 and will go through the Housing department for a resolution to bring back to the Board of 50 County Commissioners.