Committee Hearing, May 28, 2002

But they're going to stay up in the plus-10 range probably for the next five, six, eight years. MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes. And then in terms of the administrative costs, you know, there was some discussion earlier about the proposed housing reorganization, but the reorganization which is going to take time is not going to show decreases in administrative costs immediately, that the long-range goal is to over time streamline the processes and streamline the administration and then that will come down. But again, that's not going to be seen in this year's budget.

Let me just -- this will be my last comment. I know it's not simple, but you've been talking about reducing these costs and specifically the reorganization since the spring of 2000. MS. McCOLLOCH: Mm-hmm.

And Now I think the earlier response was it will be at least 183 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 another months; is that right? MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes.

All right. 5 Thank you, Madam Chair. 6

Thank you, 7 Councilman Nutter. We're now going to -- 8 Councilwoman Tasco has more questions, but we're 9 going to defer to public testimony. We thank you 10 all for your patience. I'm sorry that you've had 11 to wait so long and that this is the process. 12 What we're going to do is call 13 Charles Wingfield, Mill Creek Development 14 Corporation. Please come up, Mr. Wingfield. 15 After that, we will call Lee Capkin, 16 Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals and 17 members of his board. I know you have to go. So 18 we will call you up next. Charles Wingfield, Mill Creek Development Corporation. Thank you for your patience. (Witness comes forward.)

And we appreciate you being here. I know it's been a long morning and a difficult one, but you look 184 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 well in spite of everything.

Good evening Councilwoman Blackwell.

Good evening.

Other Members of City Council. It's my pleasure to be here before you. It took a long time for them to tell us what they got in the books, but I don't believe it. I hate to say it, but just don't believe it. Every year we come here and listen to what they have to tell us. We wait till the end effort when it comes back to us and money we're supposed to get, and we wind up with nothing. I have a legacy. My legacy has been handed down to me since 1959 by the board members of Mill Creek Council. These board members were enthusiastic people for Mill Creek. They wanted to see a change in the lives of the people that fall through the cracks. I took up their legacy in 1972. Still in the army, I took their plans and started to run with them. For the last -- from three years in CD funds till now, CD 29, I've tried to put that plans forward. I listened 185 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to all the arguments and things that go down. And Mr. Nutter just brought up a fact just awhile ago about a community in West Philadelphia. Our Councilperson has fought hard, but it seems like every time there's money that comes through this city, it winds up downtown, part of North Philadelphia, part of South Philadelphia, but nobody gets anything at all. It seems like certain organizations get the money every year. Our little organizations get nothing. Just scraps of money. But I'm asking you people in City Council, the arguments we have here today in looking at their books, take another meeting instead of having a meeting with us and put our programs to you, get them in a meeting together with all of you City Councilpeople and let them tell you what they're doing with the money. Find out the facts where the money is at. Just like Mr. Nutter did, he's questioning them about where the money was and what they're doing with it. (Applause.)

Your financial manager, your financial Councilperson can't do it 186 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 all. It's up to you people on City Council. I've been around a long time, 4 years in the army and retired. Something's 5 wrong. I might be wrong by saying this, but I 6 believe we need a czar, we need a housing czar in 7 this city, one man that has every organization 8 that does housing in the City of Philadelphia to 9 report to him. Maybe we can get some housing 10 done. Maybe we can get some funding to the 11 communities that need it. Maybe we can do other 12 things we want to do. 13 I heard 'em talk about -- this 14 morning I heard 'em talk about a food market. We 15 had a food market in our area. It went. The 16 money went with it. The food market place is 17 still open. They want to build another one at 18 57th and Market Street. I can't understand it. 19 How they going to build one at 57nd and Market 20 Street and you got won at 57th and Vine Street 21 empty, a food market. Maybe we ought to take 'em 22 and brake 'em down to little small markets and 23 put them in each neighborhood here and there and 24 get rid of the big food market because somebody's 25 stealing the money somewhere along the line. 187 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 And as I said, I have a legacy. We as the community board of West Philadelphia Empowerment Zone, I've been here for quite some time. I went through the blight program. I went through another program that they had for evaluation of people in the housing, moving 'em around to different places. Then I went through the Empowerment Zone where I became the empowerment director and I got fired as a volunteer because I wouldn't let the money go where they wanted it to go. We had houses in 13 the Empowerment Zone in West Philadelphia with 14 four neighborhoods. I ain't seen 116 houses yet, 15 not yet. All the money is going and somewhere 16 else, outside the boundaries of the Empowerment Zone. Somebody better take a look at this thing because we're getting shot down the drain. You folks sit here and listen and wait to get a chance to talk, and I don't usually you go talk this long, but I sat here and listened to them tell you about where the money is at. We get a book every year. That book every says the same thing every year. Everything, the same thing, the same amount of 188 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 money, nothing's changed. Mr. Nutter brought it up. Something did change. He wanted to know where what, $30,000 was? I'd like to know, too. The Mill Creek Council was organized in 1959, a community-based organization, formed in architect workshop. We engage private developers to come into our area and private contractors and we've been doing this all along. We got five private contractors now in the Initiative Zone. I just heard the young lady say where the Initiative Zone's going to work. As a judge of general election I asked my people, which I shouldn't have done, is to vote for that money that they want to do to evacuate abandoned houses and abandoned lots. Now I found out that the initiative thing doesn't even come to Mill Creek. As Mr. Nutter said, what did the money come to in West Philadelphia? You better ask yourself what comes of your money in West Philadelphia. If you're a community organization like I am, what's it going to do for your community? Let me tell you, there's a lot of people out there that need decent homes. If you 189 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 look around in the City of Philadelphia, the houses are anywhere in between 80 and 90 years old. They're substandard. Let's give our people a place to live. That's all I'm asking. I don't have much to give you today, but I'm going to leave with you one book that I put together. " I don't have many of them. I passed them all out. This one book I put out every year, this was January 1, 2002. I had of them made up. I don't have 12 none left but one and that's it.

13 I want to thank you for listening to me. And I don't usually talk this long. I only stay five minutes, I'm gone, because I want to get out of here. I don't want to hold ya'll up because some of you are going to be longer than me. But it's my pleasure. City Council, my legacy to you is look over these books, find out where that money is at, find out where they placed the money at. See what the community's done. Since 1986, I got nothing. I'm funding my organization myself. My pension is doing it all. We have a Development Corporation 190 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 that's equal to none. We even give PHA the plans to do for the Hope VI when I was the director of infrastructure. But guess what? We're not even involved in the Hope VI, and we are the community organization right there in the middle of Hope VI. All I ask them is the Hope VI Program tear down the high-rises. When you tear them down, give me a chance to build my projects and then you can go ahead and do the rest of it. I want to thank you for listing to me. Sorry I took up too much of your time. )

Thank you, Mr. Wingfield. We have requested for you and Mill Creek for Jamison Court II, those properties on Lex Street that you've been interested in. And we have also requested in our plan the 4400 block of Lancaster Avenue that special needs housing that you want. Thank you. We appreciate you. We love you Mr. Wingfield.

Well, they have started tearing down in that area Jamison Court II is supposed to be built there, that's Jamison Court I that we built, 72 apartments. And right 191 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 now, I can tell you that we haven't lost a person in that 72 apartments in the last four years. And if we had anybody to lose, one lady told me, "Mr. Wingfield, you can't put me out here unless you take me out in the box."

It's beautiful. When toured it during our NTI --

I hope to build another one like that.

It's beautiful. Everybody loves it. Thank you so much and stay well. That's its Sarge, everybody calls him Sarge, Sarge or General. Mr. Lee Capkin, Executive Director of Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals and members of your Board. We welcome you, we thank you for your patience. We know that it is impossible for you to stay all day because you have to get your ride and we hope that we haven't created any problems for you.

Thank you very much for your cooperation and help.

Thank you. 192 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

Good afternoon Councilwoman Blackwell and Members of City Council. My name is Lee Capkin, and I'm the Executive Director of the Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals. We have submitted written testimony for this hearing and I would request that it be entered into the record in full. However, we have another presentation that we want to do make this afternoon. Our testimony covers all aspects of housing as it relates to people with disabilities and especially our continuing great concern over the lack of safe, affordable, barrier-free housing, especially for people with the lowest incomes who have disabilities. Our presentation, however, will focus on one very special aspect of this issue for us, which is the City of Philadelphia's adaptive modifications program. It is a program that is widely known to have great benefits, but also to cause tremendous hardship for the people who have to wait for a long time for the services. We are requesting for this year's Year 28 funding and for the succeeding two years an increase of 193 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 funding for the program from 2 million per year to 8 million per year. Joining me this afternoon are people who are going to tell you why this is necessary and highly beneficial. I would note that we have also provided to all Members of City Council and their chiefs of staff, a documentary film which, again, shows the tremendous accomplishments of the program for those who have been able to be lucky enough to benefit from its services, but also the tremendous hardships for those who are now waiting. I am going to first turn this program over to Dan and Marie Chuchman who are happy recipients of services from the program. And following that, we will hear from two of HCDI's board of directors, all of whom I want to express my appreciation to for coming out today at this very important time for both the life of HCDI and the life of the disabled community in Philadelphia. Marie.

Thank you. Mrs. Blackwell, as you know me a long time, and 194 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 I've took care of you in the store and we're asking you and City Council and Anna Verna for your help 'cause we need you. This is good program. As you know what Dan and me have been through, some of it. And if we can do it, anybody can. And if you can help me and people like me and Dan to overcome our problems and accept the things we cannot change and know the difference to go on and we can help ourselves if we just get a little tiny bit of help. And these people and their program the Adaptive Modification Program -- if I'm not saying it right, I'm sorry. They've made a difference in our home that Dan can take care of himself now and I can go out and do what I want to do. And maybe someday, but I don't know, I can go back to taking care of you again or just helping people like me to make a difference. So please help us. And most of all, look at the tape 'cause it shows you that we can live with just a little bit of help. It's a wonderful program. My Dan is blessed. With programs like this, it means a lot.

Thank you. 195 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Thank you. God bless you.

Thank you, Mrs. Blackwell. I know you'll do the right thing and help us if you can.

We certainly will. We support you.

Yeah, well we support 'em too, they're everything.

Councilwoman Blackwell, Members of City Council, my name as Daniel Chuchman, I'm a homeowner in Southwest Philadelphia. I appreciate you taking this time to listen and understand what the disabled people are going through. For example, I applied for the Adaptive Modification Program. It took me about two years on the list, the waiting period time. Now I understand it's longer. But just a few things of what the program has done for me. Number one, it made my kitchen fully accessible by widening the doorway to the kitchen, taking and lowering all of the apparatus for cooking, for washing dishes, and for storing dishes in the cabinets. Also , number two, they tore down a beautiful bathroom that we had and redid it and 196 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 made it adaptable to my needs where all I have to do is wheel in with a wheelchair and use the facilities. And I hope City Council and the people of Philadelphia will help, help the modification program to go on and to fulfill its destiny in which it is creating. Thank you very much. God bless.

Thank you, God bless you.

And remember, you make a difference when you help the disabled. And if you can't help the disabled, you have nothing. Please look at your tape.

Thank you. We will.

Councilwoman, Councilmen, my name is John Rowe and today I'm here in my capacity as Vice President of the Board of the Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals. I'm here to express my support for HCDDI and for the Adaptive Modifications Program. The Adaptive Modifications Program is presently funded annually at $2 million. It modifies about 90 homes a year for that amount 197 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 with some 800 additional people on the waiting list. The program is specifically designed to make adaptive modifications to a person's home, both renters and homeowners with such items as wheelchair lift to get from the house to the outside world, a stair glide to get to the bedroom and bathroom typically located on the second floor, and kitchen cabinet and sink modifications in order to properly prepare meals and other assistive measures, all geared to do allow a disabled person to live, quote, normally. The sobering fact is that if a disabled person called today, it would be at least five years before he or she would see any modifications made to his or her house and that is if everything within the process when as planned. And it is totally about the level of program is funded. Please support this program so that disabled people do not have to wait five years to live more like you or I. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell and Members of City Council. My name is Mark Claire. I am probably 198 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 the newest member of the HCDI Board of Directors. I'll be brief, but I'm really here to discuss the passion and dedication of the organization as related to their charter in servicing the community. HCDI is the oldest organization of its kinds in the region. I don't know if you're aware of that or not. It's also designated as a model organization throughout the United States. HCDI's contingency that it serves is really throughout the entire City of Philadelphia it's not just in West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, it's the entire city. The population that HCDI services is estimated to be about 300,000 people. That's quite a lot. Programs, of course, have expanded. Funding has decreased. The dedication is there. What I have seen first-party are the members within HCDI receiving a reduced or no 22 compensation at all for the services that is they perform, including day-to-day operations, reaching into their own pocket to pay for postage. 199 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 So I just simply ask that you seriously consider increasing your support of HCDI so that they can better service those in need. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Any questions from Members of the Committee? We thank you so much and thank you for your patience. The next individual is Rick Saur, Philadelphia Association of CDCs. Following them will be Joe Wingert and Blain Stoddert from the Partnership CDC. (Witnesses come forward.)

Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience. I need a Sergeant-at-Arms, please, for the testimony. Thank you. Thank you for your patience and good afternoon.

Councilwoman Blackwell and Members. 200 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

We also saw Frankford CDC, okay? But anyhow, You work it however you choose. All righty. Thank you.

Good afternoon Councilwoman Blackwell and Members of City Council. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on how City proposes to allocate its community development resources in the next fiscal year. My name is Rick Sauer and I'm the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Corporations, which is a citywide association of over 80 CDCs and other organizations involved in rebuilding communities and revitalizing our neighborhoods. While we're supportive of many aspects of the City's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, looking through these documents, we also have some serious concerns about how NTI bond fund and other community development resources such as CDBG are going to be utilized in the City's next fiscal year, especially with regard to acquisition and development activities. Along these lines, we have a growing concern that many CDCs will be losing their development 201 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 capacity that took years to build, and in some cases potentially even going out of business due to delays in moving proposed develop projects forward. CDCs have been and are critical deliver mechanism for achieving lasting neighborhood transformation. They are rooted in the community and respond to community needs over the long term. And they have the significant track record and have developed expertise in a number of areas vital to eliminating blight, increasing self-sufficiency of residents and rebuilding the physical and social fabric of our neighborhoods. Adequate resources need to be targeted to CDC projects and the neighborhoods they serve to build on and preserve the significant investment of public and private funds undertaken to date as well as support projects and other activities currently in the pipeline. We urge the City to build on this past investment in the local CDC industry and the neighborhoods they serve by continuing to utilize CDCs as key delivery vehicle for the 202 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 implementation of NTI and other neighborhoods very vitalization strategies. We know that there are a number of competing needs for limited community development funds. At the same time, there's an infusion of nearly 63 million NTI bond funds for next fiscal year which should enable City to free up a substantial amount of Community Development Block Grant funds to fill in gaps not addressed by these bond funds, such as support for housing development and neighborhoods economic development activities. Overall funding for these activities remain relatively flat, or even in some cases face cuts resulting in a serious mishmash between funding allocated to housing commercial development activities in our neighborhoods and the needs of these neighborhoods where CDCs are working to revitalize them. Further complicating matters is the proposed significant reduction in NTI bond funds allocated to support acquisition for specific development projects, as proposed in the initial preliminary plan that came out earlier this spring. 203 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 My following comments regard some specific areas in the Consolidated Plan and the NTI Program Statement. With regard to property acquisition, which has been a fair amount of decision today, we strongly support efforts to streamline and improve the City's property acquisition and disposition system. And particularly, we propose to support the proposed creation of Management Information System so that the City can better track the vacant property and development projects as they move through the City's acquisition and development system. Creation of such a system is crucial and it's long overdue. Equally important, though, to improving the system is to ensure that there's adequate funding to support acquisition activity that will enable housing and economic development projects to move forward in the near future.

Due to the low level of assisted condemnation undertaken by the City over the past couple of years, a significant backlog of projects for requesting land assembly has developed. And the City took an important step towards addressing 204 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 this problem by passing a transfer ordinance 3 earlier this year to enable about a dozen projects to move forward with acquisition. As mentioned, when the City released its preliminary Consolidated Plan in February of this year, we were pleased to see that nearly $10 million were being allocated for acquisition for specific residential and economic development projects. The new plan that's before you today actually bumps that up a little bit to about $11 million, but the concern is that there's been a dramatic switch in what acquisition will be prioritized and supported. Out of that initial nearly $10 million that were to go to support projects to move forward in the near future, that amount has been cut back to only $3 million with a much higher priority being placed on land vacant property for future development opportunities. And while we certainly support the movement from the current sort of more demand system to a more supply-oriented system by putting a land vacant program in place, we can't 205 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 just make that transition real quick overnight due to the fact that there has been a long lag time in doing acquisition for many projects and the fact that it will take a while for the City to get enough properties into its inventory to actually have developable sites to move forward on. We need to make sure that we continue to fund projects that are ready to proceed now. So we call on the City to restore funding on line item to at least a level of $7 million so that acquisition for specific development projects can proceed in Fiscal Year 2003. A couple other quick related concerns about acquisition. One is that we need the City to commit to acquisition for CDC projects early in the development process. There appears to be a growing trends towards favoring acquisition for projects that already have financing committed them. However, it's unreasonable to make acquisition for CDC projects contingent on having financing already in place since most funding sources require that you first have site control before you can go to them to ask for funding. So 206 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 if acquisitions that moving you can't go out and tap these other funding sources and leverage the additional dollars that we all want to bring into our communities. I think overall, there needs to be a more transparent process for how acquisition decisions are being made, and we certainly encourage the City to move forward with an RFP process for acquisition with clear selection criteria. Finally, we need to keep in mind that housing development, including the property acquisition process takes a significant amount of time. Without adequate funding for acquisition for current projects, the City's real estate production pipeline will continue to move forward in slow motion, jeopardizing a number of opportunities to address important neighborhood needs and advance neighborhood revitalization. There has already has been significant delays in moving projects forward. And if we want to see new projects completed in the next few years, we need to adequately fund the acquisition process now. 207 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 A couple of other areas within NTI that I want to address quickly: Neighborhood planning. We certainly strongly support the use of neighborhood planning to develop a future vision for the communities within our City to prioritize implementation strategies and to guide the strategic allocation of resources. We also believe that effective community-based planning needs to be bottom up versus top-down with the City serving in a support role rather than a lead role.

It's critical that community organizations and residents and targeted neighborhoods play a lead role in the planning process and not just review and comment on proposed plans being developed. At the same time, as was mentioned earlier, many neighborhoods have already developed neighborhood plans these plans, if there's new planning going on in those neighborhoods, should serve as the basis of those new plans, but at the same time since we already have some plans in place, there's a need to move forward and start implementation now. We can't wait another two years to go through a whole 208 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 other planning cycle before additional funds are allocated to housing production and economic development. We need to start seeing some results in the neighborhoods as soon as possible. With regard to housing production, there continues to be a need to streamline the City's development process and lower the high cost of housing production. Under NTI, there's a specific emphasis on encouraging market rate development. We know, though, that many of the same issues that inhibit the development of middle income housing in Philadelphia have served as road blocks to the development of affordable housing in the City for years. And so it's so critical that as City moves forward to streamline development process, it's done for all types of housing development. There is also a trend towards reducing the amount of City funding going into affordable housing projects to try to put in smaller subsidies and leverage more dollars from the outside. While at the same time we are increasing the amount of funding that's going to 209 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 support, quote, market rate development or market-oriented development, we're demolishing housing, we're acquiring land for those projects, we are giving them ten-year tax abatements, so let's not fool ourselves. We're subsidizing that market-oriented development as well. We need to make sure that we're putting adequate subsidies into the creation of affordable housing that are addressing the needs of lower-income folks in our communities as well. If going to meet talked-about goal of 3500 affordable housing units over the next five years, the City's going to have to allocate a significant amount of additional funding to support affordable housing production. With housing preservation, just one main comment I want to make. We certainly support efforts to stabilize vacant properties in our neighborhoods to prevent further deterioration to keep down rehab costs, to preserve those neighborhoods, it's critical, though, that these preservation funds are allocated not only to neighborhoods that are currently stable, but also to ,quote, stable 210 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 blocks in lower-income neighborhoods that only have a few vacancies, because if don't stabilize those blocks as well, we're going to lose all the public investment and the private investment that have gone into those neighborhoods in the last ten or twenty years. With regards to community economic development, it was mentioned. 5 million to that program area for the upcoming year. We believe that strengthening the City's neighborhoods commercial corridors is a very important part in the neighborhood revitalization process and very important to addressing neighborhood resident needs. 25 million in funding cuts to two key programs: The Commerce Department's Neighborhood Development Grants Program and PIDC's Neighborhood Development Fund. In addition, we need the City to effectively market its commercial corridors to businesses in the outside to attract those new businesses into those corridors. 211 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 My final point is about additional resources for housing community development. We know that it's a limited amount of funds to divy up among these pots.

We certainly look to the City to reallocate some of the funds among the existing line items, but there's other sources we can tap that we're not really tapping now. We can put additional economic stimulus funds on the streets to support projects in our neighborhoods. We can move up the CDBG program year by six months so it starts the next Year 29 will start January 1 versus July 1 of next year so we're not waiting nine an ten months to draw down the block grant funds that HUD already has there waiting for us. Finally, as the comment that mentioned by Councilman Nutter earlier, we're currently spending more than $31 million in block grant funds every year for operating costs. We could be reallocating some of these costs to the City's General Fund and looking at ways to cut back on those costs overall. The City's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative addresses many 212 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 neighborhood needs by focusing on property demolition, preserving neighborhoods, and setting the stage for future development. While we understand the importance of these activities, without the allocation of additional resources to support the development of new homes, businesses, and community facilities, the neighborhood transformation process in many of our neighborhoods will be incomplete. So we urge its City to continue to support of the local CDC community and to support projects happening in lower-income neighborhoods where they're working because without a that effective partnership, it will be very difficult to move neighborhood transformation forward. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Joe Wingert and Blaine Stoddert, Partnership CDC.

Good afternoon. My name is Blaine Stoddert. I represent The Partnership CDC. And I want to thank you, Councilwoman Blackwell, for inviting us to testify. And I also want to acknowledge the 213 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 other Councilmembers that are here. I just want to say a couple of things before Joe Wingert, our housing director, presents his comments. The first thing I want to say is that CDCs are in trouble. You probably heard that in different ways. And I think the CDCs that survive and do well will be the CDCs that are able to adapt to the marketplace and are able to come up with initiatives that not only meet the community needs, but keeps them financially viable. And one of the things we're doing in the Partnership CDC is we started a for-profit company. Now, CDCs have been doing these for years. As you know, Mr. Kenney Gamble has several for-profit companies in South Philadelphia. Impact Services, John McDonald had been doing it for years. Nora Lictash (ph) doing it with day care. We started a company called Cores. And Cores provides pressure washing, graffiti removal, housekeeping and painting services. We also clean public spaces in Special Service Districts. And we don't get any government 214 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 money. We receive, thanks to Mjenzi Traylor -- I saw him around somewhere -- or the Commerce Department. They gave us a one-time grant of $28,000 along at the time with Councilman Goode. 5 million. And we receive no government money whatsoever from the City of Philadelphia to run this for-profit subsidiary that actually takes people off welfare and put them to work paying them $7 to $13 an hour. So we're looking for work. So I'm going to Councilman DiCicco, I'm going to be coming to you looking for work for our people. And we hire people from the neighborhoods in which we get work. So if you want a park cleaned up or something -- I saw you on TV with the Frank Sinatra clean-up or something. If you want that park cleaned up, we'll come and clean up the park. We're looking for work. And we'll hire people from South Philadelphia to do it. In West Philadelphia, we hire people from the Councilwoman's district or from Mr. Nutter's district. And I just want to say that we have to 215 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 begin to think out of the box. Last but not least, the last think I want to say is the Partnership CDC is about to make some major acquisitions to plug into neighborhood transformation. I'm about to buy 168 units of housing, some of it affordable some not because we have to begin to have a mixture in the community. " And if we can't get that money through block grant or through NTI or one of the things we're talking about -- and Mr. Nutter you might like this. One of things we're taking about is don't give me block grant money, give me a loan from NTI and then use block grant this year -- use block grant money from next year's allocation to repay the loan that you gave me so I don't directly get block grant money. So what that does is it frees me up to provide to meet the community's needs without the bureaucracy or the HUD regs that normally would tie us down to one 216 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 thing or another. Whatever the needs are, we want to be able to be flexible enough to meet those needs. And that's the way we're beginning to think about the box. But I'm not going to go to the bank tomorrow and borrow this $3 million to by these 168 units of housing as well as spend $1 million on 40th and Market Street if I don't know that I can depends on the City to help me with grants or equity to make our projects work. Last but not least, we only want 30 to 35 percent grants or equity. We're not coming to the City saying "I'm going to build a $50,000 house for $250,000," like I've seen in the Daily News. We don't want to do that. So we only want 30 to 35 percent of grants or equity.

So if I'm putting up $100,000 project, we're looking for a $35,000 to maybe a $50,000 grant on average. So those are the things trying to do. We're trying to keep our costs down. We're trying to survive, but more than survive; we're attempting to go thrive as a CDC and create jobs at the community level. We have 75 people working in our subsidiary and only 11 at the CDC. So it shows you where our future growth is going to be. It's 217 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 going to be in creating services at the community level that people can purchase for a reasonable price. Thank you.

Thank you. And absolutely, you do a wonderful job and the community is really blessed and grateful to have you out there. Mr. Wingert.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure there's much else I need to say after Blaine, except that I can talk about the specifics of a couple of projects that we are working on and how the proposed plan affects that or could impact these projects. First of all, I'd like to say that I agree with much of what was included in the testimony by Mr. Sauer. We are going to touch on all of that. We want to talk about some specifics in projects that we're working on. I've provided written testimony. I'm going to paraphrase it as we go to try and keep it as brief as possible. The first topic like to talk about is 218 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 on the 4400 block through the 4700 block of Sansom Street in West Philadelphia. Currently, the area is known for drugs, crime, it's a very high-crime area. We're in a position to purchase properties in that area to start what we call 7 the Sansom Street project. The area's recently 8 recertified by City Planning Commission for urban 9 renewal, and the Redevelopment Authority is 10 currently working on a plan for the development 11 of that area. They're working with us in that 12 endeavor. 13 Our goal is to start that project 14 this year with the privately acquired properties. 15 We understand that with the funds that are 16 available from the City, the process of 17 condemning the properties through urban renewal 18 taking will take approximately one year. As far 19 as that goes, we are requesting that funds be 20 allocated for condemnation within this year, NTI Year 1, Year 28 As opposed to NTI Year 2, Year 29. Our plan is to start this project with 18 homes on the 4400 block of Sansom Street. We assume that these are full-gut rehabilitation 219 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 houses. They're targeted towards single families. The income levels range from low-income families up to what we typically call market rate. Those would be middle-income families. We've already secured funding from the federal -- excuse me. We haven't secured it yet, but we have a good application into the Federal Home Loan Bank which we feel will help to offset some of the acquisition costs. W. Smith Foundation. We anticipate starting construction -- concluding the acquisition and starting construction and marketing before the end of summer. Our hope is that as we get this project going, enough interest is generated that by the time the funds kick in and condemnation work kicks in, that we will be able to seamlessly move into the next phase. We planned the project in four phases over three years by block basically. And it's critical that we pay attention to this this year because this is a real project. It has a real plan. There's a lot of community interest. There's support from some of the 220 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 community associations. It's also at a key crossroads or between two major arteries that go in and out of the City, so there's an area of opportunity here. That's mainly what I'd like to say about this project. We're asking for support. We're asking to have the condemnation issues addressed this year as well as demolition. On the construction side, however, full-gut rehab is an expensive process in the City of Philadelphia. Doing business in construction is a very expensive process. We've run numbers that show what this project would cost in the middle of Bucks County, and as far as we are concerned as a community development corporation is concerned, it would be about a break-even proposition. In the City, there are a lot of other issues and costs involved. We end up by the time we're done with 68 properties, we have a gap of about $4 million. We are hoping that that will go down if there is enough interest in this project then we can raise prices towards the end of the project to address the needs of middle-income families that gap should 221 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 reduce. But conservatively speaking, it's a big number.

And I think no matter how you look at it, it's still going to be a big number. This is where we get into what Blaine was talking about, leveraging funds. The total cost of the project is about $15 million. We expect that we'll see or $12 million to 9 towards the sales of these homes. Thirty of them 10 new construction. The balance are complete 11 rehab, gut rehab. The remaining number, we're trying to fund through innovative ways by investment over the long term. Blaine mentioned drawing on some NTI funds as a possibility. We're also working with some local banks for this purpose as well. I'm going to move on to some other projects that we're working on through the HRP program.

Could you simply tell us what it's going to cost per house to build and how much we're looking to sell it for?

Average sales price over the life of the project is about $150,000.

Sale price? 222 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

Average sale price. At the low end it's $85,000 which represents current market value.

Right.

At the upper end with the new homes that we construct and they're in the final phase. The sale price could be roughly $190,000.

And that's -- I'm confused. How much does it cost to build them?

Okay, the costs depending on how you weigh it --

Well, new construction on one hand, and then full-gut rehab on the other.

Full-gut rehab with cost of doing business in the City will be roughly $200,000.

What does that mean, the cost of doing business in the City?

You're talking about wage restrictions and administrative costs.

What administrative costs? 223 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

Let's say, you're getting home through the RDA, you have a lot of --

They charge you?

No, they don't charge you, but the administrative costs are typically higher.

What are they attributed to?

The costs themselves?

Yeah. If you have to give them a check, I'm sure you're going to ask what it is they're doing for it.

Relative to the total cost, it's a minimal amount.

But you said that impacted on the cost of construction, it was one of the factors in the $200,000 for the full-gut rehab.

That's correct.

The full-gut rehab cost at $200,000 to do, you're going to sell them for how much?

We're going to sell 224 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 them for whatever the market value is?

What's that?

Depending on where you are in the project. If we sold that first house today, it would be $85,000.

Councilman DiCicco wants to know is that $200,000 construction cost also include acquisition?

Yes, it does.

So acquisition, construction, 200 grand, we're selling it for 85?

That's correct.

It doesn't sound like a good formula, does it?

The Sansom Street project is a hybrid. There's a couple things going on near Sansom Street. One is on one side of the street is the Penn School Zone. So if you're on the south side of Sansom, you're children can attend this new school built by the School District and the University of Pennsylvania. So that's driving the market, the market rate of houses in that area. If you're on the north side, the houses won't sell as high 225 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 because you're not in the Penn School Zone. These houses over a four-year period -- over a three-year period are going to start out at the low end, at $85,000 and move up towards $190,000 because $190,000 will be built on vacant land with driveways and side yards and so on. But yeah, the fact of the matter is, it is a $200,000 per unit investment and starting out the gap will be larger because that is what the market will bear. Let me also say this. In term's of the partnership CDC's Affordable Program, this is a hybrid. This is not normal. Normally our houses sell for 45 to $75,000.

Same cost of construction?

No, no. Typically our houses can cost anywhere from $100,000 to 150, 160. Now, duplexes cost more.

But the gap still is substantial. It's about the same gap.

Using the HRP Program, the Homeownership Rehab Program, which was started eight years ago by, I think, John Kromer 226 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 and the staff at the RDA. The cost for the HRP program to build a house is a lot less versus using home funds or block grant funds under other programs. There we only get a $25,000 subsidy and we have to leverage that to build a house. Excellent program, by the way, which Joe is going to talk about in a minute.

I know the realities of what we're dealing with, but every time I hear it, it's even more starkly annoying. I'm sure there are people in the City who are looking to move up in the City, middle income, upper-middle-income people who would love to buy a $200,000 house for 85. I mean, I know I would. But I just can't figure out these numbers. And I know I've been here a while, but I still can't understand them. I didn't mean to interrupt, I just wanted to get an idea what --

I want to address your question of cost directly, and this is an excellent question, Councilman. What I've proposed is that we take the HRP Program to the $25,000 fixed subsidy and on some projects, depending on the size of the house, add $15,000 227 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to that subsidy, making it a $40,000 maximum subsidy for the house, and then with a matching program -- so if I raised an additional 10,000, the City would give me 10,000. So I could raise, say, 60,000 max to build a house and add that to the sales price of the house. What it would do to the City is it would put a cap on these subsidies. Again, I'm not saying -- just for the HRP Program. I'm not talking about all the other myriad of City programs. But I propose that we look at the HRP Program in terms of expanding it, setting a cap on the subsidy on these houses and force developers like the Partnership CDC or private developers that use these programs to basically give us a cap and allow us within that cap to build this house.

I think it's remarkable that your testimony indicated on one side of the street which includes the Penn sponsored charter school the value of the houses is substantially higher than the other side of the street which would theoretically, I don't know if it's possible, lead me to conclude that we ought to take all of the money we're doing and 228 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 spending on all this stuff and just fix the schools and the tax structure and all of this stuff NTI and everything else would take care of itself.

Schools and crime and jobs make a huge difference in the community.

Just apparently in this particular testimony, schools itself make a huge difference if the price can be jacked up on one side of the street to another because it's in one School District as opposed to the another, to me it's not even crime and jobs; it's schools.

It's the same issue between Philadelphia and the other side of City Line Avenue in terms of housing value.

Where it's cheaper to build.

That's true. But in terms of housing value, the schools make a huge difference.

I'm sorry. Go ahead

I just have a follow-up, Madam Chair. 229 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

Councilman DiCicco.

We'll let you finish.

All right, Councilman.

You talk about $200,000 for a completely rehab. What's the cost of new construction for the new constructed homes?

The new construction will be approximately 150 to $175,000.

That's not including acquisition.

It would be, yes.

It would include that?

Yeah.

What are your acquisition costs?

One dollar. The new construction of 30 homes at the western end of the project area, these houses we're asking the RDA to condemn.

Are they 230 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 occupied?

There might be two or three occupants.

How do you get them for $1? We've been going through this at Jefferson Square. I'd like to know how you're doing it for $1. You have relocation fees for the occupied homes and -- MS. McCOLLOCH: The cost is not $1. The cost is what it is to acquire them. What Joe is going to request is that we only charge the CDC $1, but the real subsidy in the project --

Is deeper than that. MS. McCOLLOCH: -- would be deeper than that because the acquisition cost is going to be --

The acquisition, the relocation fees and all the things that I've become educated with in the last five years. MS. McCOLLOCH: That's exactly right. For his development project, the cost may be $1, but the real subsidy is going to be deeper than that because the acquisition cost is greater than 231 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 that.

So, I mean, theoretically, if you look at some of the other costs, I have to assume it's not far from the Jefferson Square acquisition which could be anywhere from $25,000 maybe up to $40,000 depending on the size of the property. MS. McCOLLOCH: And particularly if there's a location involved. I don't know if Herb's here, but if there's a relocation involved, it's going to be a $30,000 relocation.

Yeah, minimum 25, 30,00. So you're over 200,000. MS. McCOLLOCH: Correct.

So we're in line basically with the other housing developments would be. MS. McCOLLOCH: Yes.

And are these Stick-built homes, traditional construction?

The new homes will be stick-built, yes.

Have you looked into modular homes? 232 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

No. It has come up that we should look at it, however, it's in an area that -- we're getting pressure from the community to try to keep with the local architectural styles.

Well, you can build homes that are architecturally fantastic, I mean, in some cases even better. I just got this this morning from a project manager at Jefferson Square which is a South Philadelphia development. You can take a look at this. This is a modular-built home.

Sure. Be happy to. So it's not out of the question.

As far as the esthetics, I think that can always be worked into the development. The real problem we have is the cost of doing it or if we're going to be allowed to do modular homes. These homes are going to 128 to 142 for the best and most elaborate house which is a modular. To build that stick-built, it's going to cost you at least $200,000.

See a savings there, yes. 233 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

I'm just kind of following up on Councilman Kenney's questions that if it weren't for the cost of construction in the City of Philadelphia, we may be able to get some of these projects -- they may be on their way today.

Yes.

So you're having the same problems that we're having?

Yes, we are.

Unless we get the building trades in this city to do construction at what people refer to as the B rate as opposed to the A rate, we may be talking about the same problems next year. At the very least, if begin building, we're not going to be able to build as many of the homes we'd like to because the cost of doing it is going to be higher and we've got to reduce, we can do a lot more than we can do under the current rate of construction building homes in the City of Philadelphia today.

That's right.

I just wanted to 234 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 make sure we're all on the same page because I was a little bit concerned.

Deborah is correct when you account for all of that, it does take the cost way up.

Thank you, Councilman. Thank you very much.

Well, I'll wrap it up, Councilwoman. The comments Blaine was making about the HRP we consider a separate issue and I want to make sure that there's a distinction made between the Sansom Street project and the HRP programs. That is traditionally what the Partnership CDC has done over the last several years for homeownership projects and it's a very good program. Some of the difficulties we're running into now, though, is that it seems that the program is better suited towards smaller homes that approximate 1,000 to 1200 square foot. A lot of the projects that we are currently proposing in the Garden Court area and in Walnut Hill, the houses are typically larger and the 235 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 dollars are fixed. It begins to put pressure on the construction costs. Bottom line is that they become less feasible. So this is something that we're asking to be taken into consideration as we propose these projects.

One more follow-up question.

Yes.

What are the size of the homes you're talking about in square footage.

Some of them are about 2100 to 2200 square feet, they're four-and five-bedroom.

And those are the ones that you suggest you're going to build for about 150,000, forgetting the acquisition costs?

That's correct.

Who's builder?

We have several that we're talking to right now.

Because the cheapest price we've gotten to date is about 156, 236 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 and we had to scale back on a number of the amenities that we'd like to see in the project. I'm not talking about the modular. The modular is state-of-the-art. You get a lot more for modular. But we're only talking about a 1700 square foot -- 1550 to 1750 square foot house. So if you can get it done for 150, I'd like to know who that contractor is.

Okay.

Please have him call me.

Will do.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. And certainly, after you review that, would you return it to the Councilman. That's his only copy.

All right.

So look at it, and I'm sure he'll be glad to share it with you afterwards.

Thank you, Councilwoman. 237 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Thank you very much. Jeff Brown, AFSCME Local 1971. We're sorry to hold so long. We know you have to go. We missed you last year; we don't want to miss you this year, too. Two years in a row would be too much. (Witness comes forward.)

Thank you very much for your patience. We know it's been a long day, everyone. We thank you for your patience and we certainly want to do give everybody the courtesy of having their statement heard. All right, Mr. Jeff Brown, AFSCME Local 1971.

Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson. My name is Jeff Brown. I'm President of AFSCME Local 1971. Next to me is Caswell Curtis, Vice President of the Local. And I'm here today to testify about the CDBG Year 28 Consolidated Plan which includes NTI activities. As I've testified before, Local 1971 represents employees at the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation, the Office of Housing 238 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 and Community Development and the Redevelopment Authority. I'm not going to explain what the agencies do. You've heard it enough. But basically, they implement the plan that's being heard today. And all of these employees must live in the City of Philadelphia. Most of these employees have dedicated their careers to eliminating blight and preserving and expanding affordable housing in the City of Philadelphia and they're all affected by the plan and the NTI both as residents of the City and as workers. Let me begin by pointing out very clearly that Local 1971 does not object to the City's NTI proposal. The employees we represent live and work every day in the City's neighborhoods and we're well aware that some of the neighborhoods require dramatic improvement. Because we're housing professionals, when we first heard about the proposed blight elimination program, even before the current Administration took office, in November '99 I wrote to the Mayor's transition team offering services and expertise to the City but never received a response. 239 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Information about a potential housing reorganization as part of the NTI began to surface in the media last spring. Based upon our three decades of experience that equates reorganization with layoffs, the union became concerned. Therefore, since May of last year, Local 1971 has been writing and attempting to discuss with City officials any reorganization of the three housing's agency resulting from the NTI. We've offered our expertise in services to work with the City Administration to ensure that any reorganization occurs smoothly in order to help improve living and working conditions for all of the citizens of the City. We've repeatedly requested that the City inform the union of and afford us an opportunity to have input into any housing reorganization on a continuing basis prior to it being finalized and not present us with a fait accomplis. We've also explained that we wanted to ensure that any organization would not adversely affect the rights, benefits, and working conditions of the employees that we represent. However, despite two meetings with the City, the union's been 240 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 delayed, rebuffed, and informed that NTI officials will not speak to us about programmatic matters, and labor issues should be dealt with through our attorneys. We have been presented with the a fait accomplis. The decision has been made to create two new City housing agencies without any union or bargaining unit employee input. As you know, the Consolidated Year 28 Plan indicates that the City intends to reorganize and integrate many of the City's housing and community development functions within a new Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation under the leadership of a cabinet level secretary. It states that under the proposed NTI reorganizations, the functions carried out by OHCD, PHDC and the Redevelopment Authority will be assigned to this new office and goes on to briefly talk about the reorganization streamlining the processes. We did receive in December a copy of Housing Agency Reorganization Project brochure. To my knowledge, there has been no changes in what the City is planning to do with regard to 241 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 reorganization since that time. Therefore, I'll summarize the issues and concerns raised in previous letters that I've sent to the City and copied everybody in Council, by the way, and previous testimony.

First of all, NTI officials proposal to eliminate, totally eliminate, OHCD AND PHDC in order to create two new city agencies, which is the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation and a Land Bank, two of them, will merely shift work from two current union agencies to two new non-union agencies while laying off and disrupting the lives and the working conditions of experienced housing agency employees. The NTI officials' intention to gut the Redevelopment Authority will strip the Authority of staff necessary to carry out significantly increased eminent domain, housing bond and relocation workload. And the union also believes that it's of questionable legality since it proposes the administration of the Authority's State-mandated functions by municipal employees, thereby raising issues about the Authority's independence which is required by the state law 242 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to pursue eminent domain an its ability to issue housing bonds. NTI officials plan to reduce staffing levels at the current three agencies from approximately 359, of which approximately 250 are represented by the union, to 291, counteracts the City's proposal to significantly expand blight elimination activities. Employees, whether people want to hear it or not, employees are needed to do make the housing and blight elimination programs function. More work in the field can't be produced by having fewer and fewer employees. There's a point of diminishing return. Even if some current experienced employees are hired at the new agencies, the transition from one agency to another, the issues about job titles, wages, benefits, hours, working conditions will cause disruption and delay, so will the hiring of new and inexperienced employees to perform blight elimination functions. I've lived through at least seven housing reorganizations over 33 years of Redevelopment Authority employment. I've 243 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 repeatedly seen how layoffs and staff reductions result in decreased productivity. They cause an enormous amount of disruption. They require an inordinate amount of time to be spent on bureaucratic functions and dealing with laid-off employees which reduces the time and energy that should be spent on blight elimination. Add to that the problem of establishing two new city offices, hiring staff, finding space, obtaining furniture and equipment and supplies in a timely manner and integrating all of that into the City system, and you compound the delay in implementing the NTI by many months and perhaps years. Despite claims from NTI officials that the active participation of the union and its members would be critical to the success of the NTI and that the City's committed to assist these employees in every possible way to smoothly transition them at the positions in new organizations or elsewhere in government, they've neither asked for nor accepted any union input into a housing reorganization. Neither have they informed the union which current employees will be offered employment where, what thier wages, 244 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 hours, benefits and other working conditions will be or who will represent them. The admirable desire to streamline land acquisition, disposition, and relocation services, which we would agree with, requires changes in Commonwealth legislation and/or federal regulation. At times, the Union's been told that NTI officials don't intend to seek revisions in state legislation. Other times they claim that they will pursue such legislation. I don't know exactly what changes are being sought or if they would really end up significantly reducing time frames to acquire or dispose of land.

But meanwhile, the NTI officials could have and should have begun streamlining processes under the control of the City when the Administration took office, and they should have contacted the union to obtain union and employee input and support in the beginning, but they didn't. The NTI proposes lands acquisition not just market-rate housing, but for affordable housing, commercial, industrial, recreational and other lands-use development. Why, therefore, 245 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 does the NTI completely avoid any reorganization or streamlining of PHA if they want to do streamline things or the three main agencies that deal with nonresidential development, the Commerce Determine, PIDC or PCDC? In conclusion, AFSCME Local 1971 has repeatedly indicated that we'll work with the City to ensure that NTI is successful in eliminating blight and improving the living and working conditions for the citizens of all of the neighborhoods in the City. Local 1971 has continuously ly asked both as housing agency professionals and as union representatives to have input into the NTI, particularly any proposed housing agency reorganization prior to its being finalized. Local 1971 has stressed that we'll work with the City Administration to improve, reorganize, or even merge the three existing housing agencies if that's what the City wants to do. However, we've been delayed, rebuffed, and ignored. NTI officials have done exactly what we implored the City Administration not to do. They've presented the union with a housing reorganization fait accomplis with no 246 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 input from the union or bargaining unit employees. The union is extremely concerned about the employees we represent. NTI officials have not said what current housing agency employees will laid off, who will be hired by the new agencies, if and where employees not hired for NTI will be offered employment, where the employees be assigned, what their titles, wages, benefits, hours working conditions will be or who will represent them, if anybody. Although we do have a meeting scheduled with City officials on June 6th, based upon the union's experience in dealing with NTI officials up to this point, we're exceedingly apprehensive about the future employment, working conditions of our union members who are both housing agency employees and City residents. Therefore, as the exclusive representative of the bargaining unit employees in the three housing agencies, we must take whatever action is necessary in order to fulfill both our legal and our moral obligation to represent the employees as best we can. Local 247 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 1971 has the experience. We have the funds. And we sure as hell have the determination to fight to represent our union members. We are fully prepared to litigate and take any other action on behalf of our members and to accept the consequences. Hopefully, it won't come to that, but thus far, NTI officials have given us no 9 alternative. On behalf of the affected employees, Local 1971 and District Council 33 request that City Council require that the City Administration work with AFSCME Local 1971 to ensure that any housing reorganization does not adversely affect the wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions of the employees we represent and that Local 1971 continues to represent these employees wherever they may be located. Once again, Madam Chairperson, we at Local 1971 and District Council 33 thank you, the Finance Committee, and City Council for your support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. 248 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Miss Wilkerson, would you come to the podium? Thank you, Gentlemen. (Witness comes forward.)

What we ask you -- because we went through this last year. Can we ask you for your commitment to make sure that Jeff Brown is included in these negotiations? We don't want to go through this another year. And certainly, understand that he has to represent his membership to make sure that they're included in the process so they know where they stand and what's going on.

Yes, we will. Mr. Brown, I think that the planning is not as -- has not progressed as far as Mr. Brown's concerns would indicate. And we're mindful of our obligations under the collective bargaining agreement and also respect the expertise and so as the process moves forward would look to have Mr. Brown and representatives from his membership involved in the process.

Thank you very much. And we're always available. 249 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Thank you. Joanne Jackson, Advocate CDC; Steve Culbertson, Frankford CDC; and Dr. Ramsue, Snyderville CDC. That should CDC us. (Laughter.) (Witnesses come forward.)

Next we'll have Andy Frishkoff, Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. And after the Urban Affairs, GPUAC is Gloria Guard and Jennifer Lewis, PEC. Thank you very much for your patience. We're going to get to all of you and we're trying to do this in a timely fashion. Some of my colleagues had other meetings; they stepped out. So we'll try to get you through it quickly. They will be back. Thank you so much. Thank you for your patience. We're sorry to hold up everyone so long today. Joanne.

My name is Joanne Jackson, I'm Executive Director of the Advocate Community Development Corporation in North Philadelphia. Councilwoman Blackwell and Members of 250 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 the Committee on Finance, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address the committee and very briefly address some of the concerns of ACDC. All of us at ACDC are proud of the accomplishments we have made in our North Philadelphia neighborhood. What we have done would not have been possible without the support of OHCD and City Council. We need that support to continue if ACDC is to continue to redeveloping houses as well as to preserve the investment that has already been made in our neighborhood. In addition adequate funding, ACDC's biggest concern is acquisition. Others have voiced their concerns about that today, and I don't have to re-say that. ACDC also strongly supports its concept of neighborhood planning to develop a cohesive vision and promote orderly development. And we are pleased to have been included along with the Beach Interplex, Habitat for Humanity, and others in one of the new NTI neighborhood planning districts. However, we would have like to have been consulted during the designation process and we would like to know how 251 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 this designation will affect ACDC. Although don't get me wrong, I believe what Councilman Nutter had to say, that it's better to be on the list than not. The final point I wish to address is the cost of construction. Given the limited number of CDBG dollars and the scarceness of other resources for housing development, it seems that OHCD, City Council, and the Mayor must address the high cost of housing construction in Philadelphia. No matter what else is done, if construction costs are not reduced, we will not be able to transform our neighborhood in the manner we all hope for.

Thank you, Joanne. Reverend Ramsue. REV. RAMSUE: Good evening, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell and your Committee Members, all other City Council. I am here today. My name is Reverend Carolina Harris-Ramsue, and I'm here today representing Snyderville CDC as the President and CEO. As my colleague just said earlier, 252 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 that, you know, we look at the designation in the NTI book and we see that we come under Jefferson Square. And so we were surprised. We wanted to know how we got there. And to clear record, also in the NTI book, it says that Seventh Round Table developed the Comprehensive Plan, when, in fact, Snyderville CDC was very in a part of this development of the Comprehensive Plan. The reason I'm here today, because as I look at this document, I see that there's a serious concern in regards to site control. And site control can be a big problems for CDC in regards to housing development. Also, we look at the whole structure of developing housing and also to do the neighborhoods we see here neighborhood transformation formation, CDC, like somebody said earlier, CDCs are in trouble. I mean CDCs -- I've been coming here for the last 18 years, and CDC needs to have some support. They need to have some operating support. You have all kinds of monies all over the different place, but you can't operate, you can't transform a neighborhood if the CDC doesn't have operating support. Like 253 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 somebody said earlier, we've taken our monies out of our pockets, we've gone out and begged, we've done everything to support CDCs. And I think that if the City is truly serious about transformation, they need to also look at the operation of CDC and how we survive as an organization. Economic development is really a concern of ours in regards to the Seventh Street Commercial District. If a neighborhood doesn't have businesses that is alive and well and functioning, that neighborhood is not going to strive [sic]. So we are here today to let you know that we want to allocate -- put that money back in the Commerce Department so that they can look at and other organization that is deal with small businesses so that they can come and begin to develop those corridors so that the community itself can begin to live and be alive and have jobs that produce within the community. Lastly, I would like to thank the City for the public safety support that they have been giving to these neighborhoods and ask that City Council move to support the Safe Streets and 254 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to allocate some funding for those programs because, I'm telling you, this Safe Streets Program is the best thing that has happened to us so far. So we are saying that City Council should really become an intricate part of the shaping the destinies of these neighborhoods. And most of all, you cannot shape these neighborhoods if you don't look at land acquisition and how the process of acquiring these lands and how the length of time and, you know, you have to like skip through hoops and hoops an hoops to get a piece of land to develop. So you have to begin to look at the whole issue of neighborhood development and look at land acquisition, land development, economic development because you can't do housing without economic development. You have to have -- if you want a community to be alive and well, you have to look at all of its parts and then begin to look at its parts and say, okay, how do we bring this community back alive? And so I just want to thank you, Councilwoman Blackwell, for this opportunity to come here today. This is my 18th time to come 255 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 here and to tell you that the South Philadelphia community is alive and well. We're not going anywhere. If we have to beg our way through, we're not going anywhere. And so what we're saying to this Council today is to begin to look at the whole package.

It's a big package; it's not just a little piece. And begin look at what are the things that we need to do to create more jobs for our youngsters that are on the corners. We cannot tell them to get off the corners if we don't provide a means or jobs for them so that they can go out and work. Because if we don't provide those jobs for them, they're going to go back and they're going to find another means to sell their drugs an to do what they're doing in our community. Thanks again for this opportunity to come and to speak to this Council and to let this Council know about our neighborhood 'cause, see, we need to speak to people who knows about these neighborhoods and let them tell you what really is going on in these neighborhoods. Thank you very much. ) 256 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

Thank you very much. And certainly, we thank you for your work not only in South Philly, but in West Philly and in the Northwest. We've worked with you on all these fronts, Dr. Ramsue and we appreciate it. And please tell my friend Steve Culbertson from Frankford CDC that we're sorry he had to leave. GPUAC, are you here? Andy Frishkoff?

Yes.

Is PEC still here, Gloria Guard and Jennifer Lewis? Are you here PEC? Okay. We have GPUAC then Gloria Guard. (Witnesses come forward.)

Thank you so much for your patience. Please identify yourself and begin your testimony. Can I have a Sergeant-at-Arms for the for the testimony? Thank you very much.

Madam Chairwoman and Honorable Members of City Council, I thank you 257 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Andy Frishkoff. I'm the Interim Director of Community and Economic Development for the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. For the past 33 years, GPUAC has worked in Philadelphia to fulfill its mission of bringing together business and community leaders to solve urban problems. I'm represent GPUAC here today to commend Mayor Street and City Council for bringing about the dawning of a new day for Philadelphia's neighborhoods. Many of us were unsure this day would ever come, but now that it has arrived, we all want to do our part to make sure that it lasts for a long, long time. With that thought in mind, I would like to touch on two issues that are essential for long-term success of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. The first issue is neighborhoods preservation and the second is it importantly role the community development corporations in neighborhood transformation. Three months ago, GPUAC's president Sharmain Matlock-turner and James Connor of 258 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Beneficial Savings Bank presented to you GPUAC's plans for addressing predatory lending and neighborhood stabilization issues Philadelphia. I'm happy to report to you today that we are progressing towards our objectives, especially the primary objective of establishing an affordable loan program that can help Philadelphia's homeowners to repair and improve their homes without falling victims to predatory lenders. GPUAC is not tackling this problem alone. ACORN and the Home Ownership Counseling of Delaware Valley have led the call for consumer-friendly home improvement loans that can complement the RDA's existing PHIL Loan Program, and both organizations are helping to guide our process. The Delaware Valley Housing partnership, whose members include Beneficial, Citizens, Commerce, Fleet, First Union, M&T, Mellon, National Penn, PNC and Sovereign Banks, is developing draft underwriting guidelines. The Reinvestment Fund's research into predatory lending can guide the marketing of loans in the program. Most importantly, the Mayor has 259 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 proposed using NTI funds to develop exactly the type of home improvement loan program that we are seeking. We are in discussions with NTI and RDA staff, and we are hopeful that we can develop a joint program with the City. I'm here today to ask that you support and try to increase the proposed line items in the Year 28 budget that would allocate $2 million in NTI funds to the RDA to expand the PHIL Loan program and $750,000 for anti-predatory lending initiatives. Funds in both line items will allow to us develop new home improvement loan products and help to stabilize fragile neighborhoods throughout the City. Please be advised, however, that a serious commitment to preserving Philadelphia's neighborhoods will require significantly more dollars during the next several years. I assure you that the payoff in healthy communities and an end to predatory lending will be worth the investment. The second issue I wish to address, the importance of CDCs, is related the first. If we are to succeed in preserving our communities as healthy places for families to live, then we 260 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 need strong community institutions in place. With the help of the City and the private sector, CDCs have emerge during the past years as 5 essential community institutions and as effective 6 agents of neighborhood revitalization and 7 preservation. I fear, however, that the City is 8 stepping back from its historic support of CDCs. 9 Here are two reasons for my fears: 10 First, the City is virtually frozen 11 assisted condemnation for several years, leading 12 to a backlog of requests for land assembly for 13 CDC development projects.

The proposed budget 14 for the upcoming year would direct fewer 15 acquisition dollars to specific housing and 16 economic development projects than the City 17 allocated in the past. A decrease in 18 project-based acquisition funding for the coming 19 year equals a decrease in completed community 20 development projects two years from now which in turn means very little neighborhood transformation. Second, there appears to be an increasing tendency towards requiring developers to have firm financial commitments in place 261 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 before the City will acquire land for them. This may work for some developers, but as we have heard, it is unreasonable to expect or require CDCs to have financing committed to do their projects prior to obtaining site control. In this catch-22 scenario, CDCs would be frozen out of land acquisition assistance from the City. In addition to increasing the acquisition funds for CDCs and eliminating funding contingencies for CDC acquisition assistance, City Council should also develop a policy statement that promotes CDCs and other community institutions as preferred partners and contractors for NTI. If NTI funds are available for activities such as greening in a CDC's service area and that CDC has proven capacity in performing those activities, then it should receive priority in any bid for services. From development to preservation to beautification, Philadelphia's CDCs have proven themselves as high quality agents of neighborhood transformation. When many others had given up hope on our neighborhoods, they remained steadfast beacons of hope. Now that the rest of 262 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 us are rallying to support their vision, let us commit resources to them to ensure that they continue to shine for the next years. 5 Thank you for this opportunity. 6

Thank you 7 very much. 8

Councilwoman Blackwell, 9 other Members of Council, I appreciate the 10 opportunity to testify before City Council today 11 on the City's Year 28 Preliminary Consolidated 12 Plan and the NTI Program Statement and Budget for 13 Fiscal Year 2003. My name is Jennifer Lewis and 14 I am providing this testimony on behalf of two 15 affiliated organizations. The first is People's 16 Emergency Center, the State's oldest service 17 agency for homeless families which offers 18 comprehensive continuum of care to address the 19 housing, employment, and social service needs of 20 homeless families in Philadelphia. The second is PECCDC. Since its inception in 1992, PECDC has leveraged $14 million of investment into the West Powelton neighborhood of West Philadelphia. In Fiscal Year 2003, it is important 263 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 for OHCD to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to the development of affordable and decent housing for homeless and special-needs populations and that CDCs are supported in their effort to comprehensively revitalize neighborhoods. Accordingly, on behalf of PEC and PECCDC, I would like to make the following comments and recommendations for Year 28. First, we urge Council to support Office of Housing and Community Development's recommendation to maintain the homeless and special needs sets-aside and increase the allocation for development financing for homeless special needs housing to a total of 3 million. It is critically important to maintain a specific set-aside as CDBG funding for homeless and special needs house to better serve homeless individuals and families, people with AIDS, and people with physical disabilities. We commend the City of Philadelphia and OHCD for past support of our Imani Homes Project which provides critical support of rental housing. Second, we urge the City to continue support for the Greater Philadelphia Urban 264 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Affairs Coalition Blueprint to End Homeless. The blueprint remains an important convene, repository of information, and policy and advocacy resource. Third, we urge the City allocate substantial resources for acquisition and site preparation and commit to acquisition for CDC projects early in the development process. We strongly support the allocation of $11 million in NTI bond funds for property acquisitions but have significant concerns about how these funds will be utilized. While we agree with the need for the City to be more proactive in assembling land for future development opportunities, including affordable housing development, the $3 million allocated for acquisition for specific residential and economic development project is totally insufficient to address the current backlog. This is especially the case due to the low level of assisted condemnation undertaken by the City over the past couple of years. We urge the City to allocate bond at least 7 million in NTI bond funds for acquisition for specific developments projects for Fiscal 265 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Year 2003. Specifically, PECCDC has targeted approximately 90 strategically located properties for future development, projects which would result in ten more affordable homeownership units and 68 to 80 affordable rental units to help the City meet its goal of producing 3500 affordable housing units over the next five years. It is imperative that the acquisition process begin now so that we are in the position to secure the required development funding in a timely manner. Fourth, we urge City to increase affordable housing production and preservation by CDCs. CDCs have had long-term commitment to identifying ing and meeting neighborhoods needs and have an impressive development track record. We support efforts to lower housing production costs, including the proposed use of CDBG float loan to reduce construction costs and expedite payments to developers.

However, if the City is going to better respond to the growing needs for affordable housing and meet its stated goal of 3500 affordable units over five years, it also needs to allocate sufficient additional funding 266 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to support affordable housing production. Fifth, we support the allocation of NTI bond funds for encapsulation and stabilization of properties to prevent further deterioration and keep own rehab costs, as well as efforts to assist homeowners and preserve the City's aging housing stock. We encourage the City to allocate preservation funds not only to stable neighborhoods, but to blocks with few vacant in lower income neighborhoods so that the preservation activities can complement housing development work by CDCs and maximize the neighborhood impact. Sixth and final, we strongly support the allocation o funding to programs that support CDC efforts to strengthen the City's neighborhood commercial corridors. We greatly appreciate the past City Council support, OHCD, RDA, the Commerce Department and other City agencies have provided to PEC and PECCDC and the local CDC community. We believe that we have consistently provided an important return on this public investment. Thank you again for the opportunity 267 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 to provide comments for your consideration.

Thank you very much. We thank you for your testimony. At some point before we recess today, maybe we should ask either Mr. Wetzel or Pat Smith to respond to the issue of CDCs and property ownership, so you can consider that as we move forward. Terry Mushovic, Neighborhood Gardens Association. Are you here? Is Theresa Morris, Executive Director and Carol Hemmingway, President of ACORN here? (Witness comes forward.)

TAG, Anthony Henry, Executive Director, Tenant Action Group, TAG? Tag is next, okay? ACORN left. Sorry ACORN. We tried. All righty, Miss Mushovic, please identification yourself and begin your testimony. ACORN left and they are gone. Next will be Tenant Action Group, TAG, Anthony Henry, Executive Director of TAG and all of your folk. Thank you.

Good afternoon, 268 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Councilwoman Blackwell, and to everyone else here in the room. I'll try to speak loudly and maybe keep you awake. My name is Terry Mushovic and I'm the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Gardens Land Trust. And I'm mainly here to submit a statement but mainly two words can kind of sum up why I'm here. I just wanted to say thank you for the money we received during Year 27. It was the beginning of what we hope will be a continuing support to Community Gardens that are in the land trust for them to make physical improvements. Although gardens are self-maintained by residents throughout the City, it's important in some cases to make larger capital improvements to them such as sidewalks, maybe new street trees and water service installation. And it's difficult for many community gardeners to put those kind of funds together and so we're very grateful to have community block grant money to help that and to also help us raise other funds to do that kind of work. These gardens serve as resources in their neighborhood. They improve, we believe, 269 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 the quality of those neighborhoods in addition to the housing stock that's there. And so we believe it's important to try to support them. Although there are only gardens in 6 its land trust at this point, we are hopeful that 7 through the neighborhood transformation process, 8 there may be other neighborhoods around the City 9 that would like to make the community gardens 10 that they have in existence or that they're 11 starting a permanent part of their neighborhoods 12 and community. This is our primary purpose. And 13 as a non-profit here in the City, we do try to 14 help any and all people take a look at the 15 possibility of maybe making Philadelphia a 16 littler greener in different places. 17 So thank you a lot for giving me a 18 chance to speak here today. 19

Thank you so 20 much. 21 TAG. Then Allison Hughes, 22 Homeownership Counseling Association. 23 (Witnesses come forward.) 24

We thank you for your patience, and we like your T-shirts. 270 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Thank you very much for your patience. Please identify yourself for the record and then begin your testimony.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I'm accompanied this afternoon by Francine Wilson and Delores Baxter, both of whom are tenants who are active in TAG and they will speak after I give the written testimony here. My name is Tony Henry, I'm the Executive Director of the Tenants Action Group in Philadelphia. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today and comment on the proposed Consolidated Plan for Philadelphia. TAG is pleased that the Office of Housing and community development is attempting through this plan to improve the housing stock in the City and provide adequate housing for its citizens regardless of their status or situation. We are, however, concerned about the proposed budget cuts in two programs which play a vital role in reducing blight and preserving our housing stock, specifically the cuts in funding for housing counseling and emergency repairs in residential housing. 271 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 Tenants Action Group began 29 years ago as a citywide coalition of tenant groups committed to improving rental housing conditions in Philadelphia. For 29 years, TAG has been committed to advocating that all Philadelphians have decent housing and to equalizing the political, economic, and legal relationships between landlords and tenants. A key part of this process has been our housing counseling program. By counseling and educating tenants about their rights and about the housing resources, we reduce housing deterioration and tenant homelessness. Too many tenants TAG encounters Landlord/Tenants Court have not been counseled and know little about laws that protect them. TAG reaches out to those tenants by offering eviction defense workshops several times a week in the Municipal Court building and in our office. TAG even helps tenants caught in immediate crisis by assisting them and paying their rent. We also conduct tenant rights workshops so that tenants may know their rights 272 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 and responsibilities. Through our telephone hotline, we answer the questions of thousands of tenants each year who call in for counseling. Tenants who receive such counseling obviously fare better than those who do not and are less likely to find themselves in slum housing or worse, out on the streets. In this way, TAG preserves the housing stock of the City by enlisting tenant action and halting its deterioration, a superior and far cheaper way of preservation than trying to clean up the mess after the housing has fallen apart. In light of these vital services, we perform in fighting blight and protecting tenants, we were disappointed to learn that OHCD plans to cut its housing counseling budget from $4,147,000 to $3,800,000 in Fiscal Year 2003. As part of this cut, TAG's own housing counseling program is reduced by $100,000. But just as startling to us is the cutting of funds to the Department of Licenses and Inspections for emergency repairs by more than half, from $500,000 to $200,000. This is all the more astounding since L&I is even now unable to keep 273 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 up with emergency calls it gets from tenants. All year long, especially in the winter, we at TAG receive an endless stream of complaints from people, disproportionately children and women, about no heat, broken water and sewer pipes and cutoffs of electricity or gas. In almost every case, the problem could have been solved by the landlord paying for repairs that he or she is legally obligated to make but unwilling or unable to do. Such repairs are often inexpensive. This is where the City should step in with a few hundred dollars, sometimes a few thousand dollars, to restore heat, water, or electricity. But all too frequently, no one steps in. Tenants call the City, we call the City, emergency repair money is not spent and the problem is not fixed and the misery continues. You will hear testimony from tenants today confirming this lack of responsiveness from L&I.

We at TAG fear what will happen when there is even less money available. The current L&I allocation is not being adequately used for existing needs. We need to know why before we 274 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 can consider any reduction in its budget. In conclusion, we call on this honorable committee to ensure that housing counseling is adequately funded and to recognize that the need for emergency repairs is far from being met. This situation will worsen with the proposed budget cuts. We must ask you to join us in finding ways to maintain these vital services for the people of Philadelphia. Thank you for your time. Now I'll turn to...

Good afternoon. My name is Francine Wilson, and I do thank you and appreciate you giving me this time to speak. This is my first Council hearing that I've ever attended so this is a little new for me. But what I would like to bring to the Council's attention today is a property at the 1300 block of Lindley Court which is called the Lindley Court Apartments. That property started off with minor repairs; and because those repairs were not dealt with in a timely fashion, they became major. From June or July of last year, 2001, the tenants had no hot water until March of 2002. 275 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 The heating system, which was a steam heat system was replaced October the 1st to baseboard electrical units. The units were, from the beginning, installed improperly which raised a major concern. There were several calls put in to L&I to come out to look at the conditions of the property because there were other problems going on at that time and other repairs that needed to be made. There were at that time, about a month ago, about 28 families still living on the properties. We had gone into court with the landlord. The judge granted us a 60-day unfit notice where we had 60 days to vacate premises which is coming up this June 18th. Out of the 28 families that were still there, there remains about 18 families. The Tenants that have moved out, moved out in fear that the City would not help us. OESS is at this time assisting us with relocation. We were told that they needed 60 days in order to get us relocated. We are low income. The average income for any household there is under $23,000 a 276 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 year. Because of that, we needed the low-income housing. All of our utilities are included in our rent. Our rents range from $425 a month to $600 a month, and that's efficiency, one bedroom, and two bedrooms. There are at this time is about adults and about 30 to 35 children on 8 these premises. There are other violations. I 9 don't want to get into all of the details of 10 that, but just to bring you abreast as to what 11 we're dealing with at this present time. 12 OESS is at a point now, we have two 13 weeks to vacate these premises and they're not 14 able to get us affordable housing through Section 15 8 or PHA because of the time frame that it takes 16 in order to have the applications processed. 17 Now, we are faced with having to try to go back 18 into court on June the 14th to get an extension. 19 But keep in mind, the premises are still not safe 20 for our families, but we still have nowhere to 21 go. The only alternative we have at this time is 22 a shelter. We work for a living. Even though we are low-income, all of the families are working families except for maybe about two or three that 277 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 are disabled. We have handicapped. We have elderly people on the premises. The elevators don't work so everyone walks the steps. We have people that are on crutches who cannot get out of that building. God forbid that a fire would take place there. There would be some casualties. I am here today hoping that our Council, upon hearing and knowing what's going on at this property, that somebody will step in and see to it that we can get the assistance from the City that's needed in order to relocate us. When we started with this before it ever went to court, my main concern was, will 60 days be enough to get us Section 8 vouchers so that we can move into housing that's affordable? If we take on use utilities at this time, we are going to be either evicted or out on the streets with our children and nowhere to go because we cannot afford 4 and $500 a month rents even though we're getting assistance from TAG and other agencies to help us get into places. But right now, we have 18 families and we have about 30 to 35 children and nowhere to go. And I hope that this will open the 278 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES.

020285 hearts of all who hear this. If there's anything that anyone can do in this Council, I would honestly and truly appreciate it. Thank you.

Where is this property?

This property is at 1300 Lindley Avenue. It's called the Lindley Court Apartments. Councilwoman Tasco -- Marian Johnson, yes, she was at a meeting that we did organize and I'm here representing the tenants. And also Rosetta Youngblood's office was there for representation. We also had someone from the Law Department -- I'm sorry, her name is Jalaine Stokes from the Law Department for L&I. Everyone is aware of this property at 1300 Lindley. This has been ongoing for over a year and a half, maybe two years because I know the last year and a half I have called around and called around. And when you get the runaround enough, sometimes they hope you give up. I can't give up. I have a son. The other families that reside on this property at this time have three and four children. When I considered myself, I considered 279 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 them as well. I wouldn't want no one to go through this. And it was unfortunate because some of the children did become sick through the winter months. I mean, the dead cold. We're heating our house with a stove, a fan, or an electrical heater which is just as deadly as the stove. And you're using the fan to pull the heat from one room to the other, not even considering the structural problems that existed from them changing this heating system over. There are big gaping holes throughout the property itself because of this unit, which is inadequate for heating as well.

Mr. Henry, how is it this gentleman -- and we had a lot of problems with the owner of this property and I can't recall the details right now. Marian Johnson handled this. But how is he allowed to continue to get the occupancy license from the City to operate this facility?

This points out our concern about cutting L&I by over one half --

Oh, I agree with you on that. I agree with you on L&I. The L&I, 280 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 for me, is one of the most important departments in the City because of what we have to deal and the situations and other enforcement issues in the City of Philadelphia, and I just do not agree with the cut in L&I at all.

Actually, L&I don't need to cut; they need to add.

I agree.

They need someone to oversee to make sure that these issues are dealt with and handled in an proper fashion. (Applause.)

This landlord in particular has about a two- or three-inch stack of violations. It should have never gone that far. And just unfortunately, the tenants are the victims. And to address your issue as to how he still has his license, L&I has not condemned this property unfit even though it was court-ordered unfit before Judge Silverstein in Room 275. They still have not listed this property unfit.

Since 1975? 281 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285

No, in Courtroom 275. I'm sorry. But L&I, for whatever reasons, I don't know, have not listed this property unfit or moved to have this property condemned unsafe. And as it is now, if a fire should take place on that property because the doors -- the locks on the doors are not the proper locks for exterior properties. And anyone can from the inside can let someone in. Once a person gets in, they can go wherever they want. The property is like 75 percent vacant, anyway. You have out of the 14 families that are still there -- 15

Who is the 16 landlord? 17

His name is Ron Nahum. 18

Do you know how to spell the last name. MS WILSON: Yes, N-A-H-U-M.

Okay. I just wanted that on the record.

Thank you. And there was a time where there wasn't no locks on the door. The locks were just recently put on, but 282 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 they're interior door locks; they're not security locks. And when the alarms go off, it goes off within each apartment but it does not register with the Fire Department. So you have to call the Fire Department. They have made several records of the fire code violations. No one seems to be interested in this property or the conditions of it and nothing's being done.

And we understand that and it is very difficult. We're asked the same question as to why L&I has not moved on this property. I think you put it on the record today and we may have some movement on that. We'll follow through with that.

I sure hope so because we only have till June the 18th to be off those premises.

Thank you. May we ask Pat Smith if she would see that Rob Hess gets involved in this issue?

(Nods head.)

If you would give your name and number to Pat Smith, then she can give it to Rob Hess so we can have ongoing 283 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 dialogue to try to help you with this matter. We will also keep in touch with Councilwoman Tasco and ask that you do that since her office has been involved and we will support her and you in trying to make sure that these people are secure and that they get decent housing and that during the interim, that they're fine. Thank you. So make sure you give your phone number to Miss Smith. Yes, ma'am?

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, all Councilmembers present and to all others present at this time. I'm Delores Baxter and I'm here to hopefully persuade you and give you some insight as to why it's extremely important that you continue to fund Tenants Action Group and also why it's important for the community of Philadelphia as a whole that they have additional funding and certainly not be cut in any way. I can echo the testimony that you just heard from my previous residence. A host of violations, not paying their bills so that people 284 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 were in jeopardy of having water cut off, also of having the gas cut off, the need for repairs that the owners refused to do. And the point that I'd really like to make is that this is a realty corporation which owns numerous buildings in the City of Philadelphia. Out of those numbers of buildings that they own, I'm aware of at least five buildings that have violations on them and that people were in jeopardy at different times of not receiving those items which they were paying for such as heat, hot water, proper repairs, and things of that nature. The building that I lived in was a four-story building with two parts which housed approximately 90 apartments . The elevators were not working. As she stated, people who lived on the fourth floor, if there were a fire or anything of that nature, they would not be able to get out of the building even though I know you're not supposed to use elevators in time after a fire. But even in case of an emergency, they would not have access to the elevator. This elevator has been out for years. 285 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 But more than that, I'd like to express the attitude of the ownership of this building. They would prefer to carry people to court and evict them than to make the necessary repairs. And this is something that I find inexcusable. I myself was very fortunate through TAG to find out the steps and procedures that I needed to take in order to make use of my rights as a resident and also to put protection on myself to make sure that I had all of my documentation. I made an effort to organize the people at this location, but the problem was that so many people were just totally unaware of their rights, afraid to go to court sometimes in the position of having withheld their rent and needed to spend it for whatever reason. In this location also, people use the gas stove for heat. Some people went out and they brought space heaters. But these people had us in jeopardy. And I can tell of one day in particular that instincts just said to me -- and this is why I say the Creator is always watching over when you're trying to do the right thing. " 286 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 When I looked out, there was the Water Department or either the Gas Department, I think, out in the front. They were about to turn off the water. They had one gentleman inside speaking with management to see if they could make arrangements to get a partial payment in order that they would not have to turn the water off. But I'd like to impress upon you the fact that this is only one realty corporation in Philadelphia. And that people across this City don't know what their rights are. And without having TAG fully funded -- in fact, from my perspective, funded to the Nth degree possible, people will be in jeopardy of being homeless, of not having their rights protected. And with L&I, you have to wait weeks before they are able to spend someone out even to investigate the violations within individual apartments. And this building, in addition to having the violations with individual apartments, they also had fire code violations, violations on the front door, violations on the entire building. And this just ripples across the City. So I'm hopeful that you will take all 287 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 of this into consideration.

And even though you're just hearing about two buildings in particular, kindly understand that this is something that people could echo across the City if they had the opportunity to give testimony and to give you insight as to what people have to deal with. The last day that I went to court with this particular realty corporation, because I was in court with them on two different occasions, because I did have my documentation and I had all of my paperwork together, the Court ruled in my favor. But I would like for someone to explain to me why one corporation would have a listing of requests for evictions on one day 17 and within that number of evictions, they requested three continuance. Myself and one or two other people appeared. And the rest, which was approximately 11 or 12 individuals and families that were under eviction chose not to appear. And in truth, many had already moved but the mentality of this particular realty corporation was that they don't even know who's in their building and who has already left the 288 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 premises. And even after I went to court and was found just in the withholding of my rent, they continued where they left off with the same billing, the request for the same amount of money, the continuation of late charges on all the payments that were requested. This is the attitude that they have. An even one of the individuals out of their office explained their mentality. "Well, if they don't like it --" they said this about someone who had done some painting for them they hadn't finished paying the people. " And this is what people are up against. And when you don't have the understanding of how to put protection on yourself, what your rights are, how to go about being in touch with L&I, being in touch with their clerical department so that you can get documentation that you can show in court where you have been violated, people are just in jeopardy and there really is an epidemic in this City of people being homeless and without proper shelter. And for a city like Philadelphia, the 289 5/28/02 - FINANCE - BILL 020275, RES. 020285 City of brotherly love, you know, an important city in this nation, this should not be the situation for anyone. And I thank you so much for your patience and this opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much. We thank you all for coming and appreciate the job you've done over the years. We've worked with you forever. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Allison Hughes, Homeownership Counseling Association. (Witness comes forward.)

Is Alicia Christian here, Dignity Housing? Dignity Housing, are you here? Christine Verrier, Director of Blueprint to End Homelessness. (Witnesses come forward.)