Background:
The FY 2019 Adopted Budget included $1 million for a Housing Risk Mitigation Fund to provide housing relocation and emergency housing assistance to qualifying families. The Department's Affordable Housing Business Plan included the development of policy to guide the use of these funds. The Fund and policy address and minimize the effects of housing displacement-they do not address the root causes of displacement. Staff work over the coming months will continue the effort required to develop policy recommendations and funding levels needed to fully address the root causes of housing displacement.
Housing staff began developing the Risk Mitigation policy in the first quarter of FY 2019, as scheduled, and on February 20, 2019, the Comprehensive Plan Committee (CPC) approved forwarding the proposed Housing Risk Mitigation Policy to the full City Council.
There has been an extensive public outreach effort used to develop the recommended policy. Nearly 1,700 individuals in all 10 City Council Districts have been involved in public outreach efforts. The engagement included five public meetings with at least one in each geographic quadrant of the city. The meetings were professionally facilitated and focused on gathering input on community priorities and shared ideas through participatory exercises. All meetings were live streamed on Facebook.
Additionally, surveys were used to obtain policy input and feedback. The surveys, in both English and Spanish, were made available online and paper copies were distributed to City Council Offices, Senior Centers, Haven for Hope, San Antonio Housing Authority, and COPS Metro offices. Over 230 surveys were completed and returned for consideration in the policy development.
Staff also convened three technical working group meetings with developers, housing service providers and property management companies. In addition, over 10 one-on-one small focus group discussions were held to gather specific concerns from fa...
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