Housing Authority Buys Home Park for Fire
Victims
By: Tony Boom
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The Housing Authority of Jackson County has purchased the burned-over Royal Oaks manufactured home park, a 21-acre site north of Phoenix, for $6 million with a state grant to provide home sites for Almeda fire victims.
“The development of Royal Oaks is for the purpose of home ownership,” said Jason Elzy, authority executive director. His organization is working on an agreement with the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department to assist with securing homes for residents. It is too early to speculate on timelines for the Royal Oaks project, he said. About 120 modular homes will be placed on the site. The housing authority intends to remain as owner and operator for quite some time and will partner with OHCS and other providers to ensure long-term affordability, said Elzy. “We utilized a grant from Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services, which was authorized by the Legislative Emergency Board in response to the Almeda fire,” said Elzy. “We are pretty early in the process.” Another $5 million out of $25 million awarded by DAS to the housing authority will be used for rebuilding the site. Use of the remaining funds to assist with housing in the county has yet to be finalized, Elzy said. Further Royal Oaks details will be available when the housing authority and OHCS finalize plans and details through an intergovernmental agreement, said Elzy. The two groups have been through several versions of the agreement already, he said. “There are uncertainties with redevelopment of the manufactured home parks because they are private and investor-owned parks,” said a statement from OHCS. “The goal is to acquire parks where there are willing sellers and secure the parks with public funds to ensure affordability for returning homeowners.” OHCS had contracted to purchase 140 modular units when delays in securing manufactured homes emerged as the pandemic slowed the supply chain at the same time a number of homes were lost in wildfires. A total of 120 of the OHCS homes will be coming to Royal Oaks and are under construction in factories, said Elzy. Details as to how ownership of the units will be implemented will be worked out in the intergovernmental agreement, he said. The housing authority will work with the ACCESS Center for Community Resilience to provide marketing, outreach, homebuyer assistance and referral services to potential homeowners. ACCESS established the center to provide housing case management after the Almeda fire. “Access will be helping find survivors and navigate them into these units,” said Joe Vollmar, housing director with ACCESS. Potential purchasers would work with the ACCESS home ownership team to meet the eligibility requirements. ACCESS has a homeowner’s center that has helped people for many, many years to achieve home purchase, said Vollmar. The agency can provide a lot services to help the purchasers. “We are looking to qualify buyers who are looking to purchase a unit and to ensure they can be successful in that project,” said Vollmar. “It’s a great opportunity for us to collaborate. A lot of this is still really early on.” There will be community long-term recovery groups and culturally specific community service organizations that the housing authority will work with, said Elzy. They will help to ensure outreach and services to the Latino community with an emphasis on equity, according to wildfire.oregon.gov. Housing authority design and engineering teams are working on an application for development of the site. The application will be submitted to Jackson County, because the area is not within city limits. Site development will require full reconstruction of the park, including utilities, paving, concrete, landscaping and covered parking. “I believe there are a few different processes because it was a former manufactured park lost in the fire, but I can’t speak to the specifics. Our application to the county will be following the guidelines,” said Elzy. He said the site had been cleaned after the fire in coordination with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “We will be utilizing fire-smart, fire-resilient standards in the site plan application,” said Elzy. Plans call for a community center building, which will have a site office inside. Extra parking spaces will also be created. The agency began looking for a site for such a project shortly after the Almeda fire, Elzy said. The housing authority provides nearly 1,500 affordable homes throughout the Rogue Valley. It also has a home repair loan program for homeowners and administers 2,100 housing choice vouchers. ACCESS has developed more than 200 affordable housing units, and its housing program includes rental assistance and certified Housing and Urban Development counseling.
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Easy, Inexpensive Cybersecurity Tips That Work
By: Amy Hourigan, HAI Group Marketing Director
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Cybercriminals continue to target public and affordable housing organizations at an alarming rate. The good news? Protecting yourself doesn’t have to be complicated—or expensive.
HAI Group’s Amy Hourigan sat down with cybersecurity expert Jonathan Hochman to get his best advice for housing organizations that are looking for better ways to safeguard their systems and data. Hochman, the founder of CodeGuard, a website security company, and Hochman Consultants, a boutique search marketing agency, holds two computer science degrees from Yale University and regularly serves as an expert witness in disputes involving online reputation and other computer-related issues.
HAI Group: Thanks for talking with us today, Jonathan. Our policyholders and members are juggling multiple responsibilities on limited budgets, yet they want to make sure they’re also protecting their organizations—and their residents’ data—from cybercriminals. What advice would you give them?
Jonathan Hochman: There are five things I recommend: patch your software, secure your business email, retire your obsolete systems, make sure your data is backed up automatically, and inventory your hardware. All of these activities fall under what we call “defense in depth.” No single defense is perfect, but taken together, they work. You can think of each cybersecurity measure like a piece of Swiss cheese. If you take the pieces and layer them on top of each other, the holes won’t always align. Add enough layers and eventually, those holes will stop.
HAI Group: I like that analogy. Probably because I like cheese. OK, so let’s talk about your first recommendation. Since software companies regularly issue updates that fix security vulnerabilities, patching as a cybersecurity measure makes sense.
JH: It’s critical. Cybercriminals target known vulnerabilities. Making sure your software is up to date goes a long way toward helping keep you safe. If you have Windows, type Windows Update in the search bar (look for the magnifying glass next to the Window icon in the bottom left corner of your screen. If you use Apple products, you can learn how to update your Apple software here). Make sure to set it for automatic updates so the system will just update itself. Then keep an eye on it to make sure these updates are happening.
HAI Group: Can’t organizations just rely on antivirus programs?
JH: Antivirus programs, which try to stop the bad stuff from getting on your systems, aren’t perfect. Sometimes you’ll get something on your system called an advanced persistent threat, or APT for short. It’s software that’s just sitting on your system snooping on your network and collecting data. It’s not actually doing anything you’ll notice, but it’s gathering and sending out your data, which somebody somewhere is accumulating. Eventually, they’re going to use it against you. For this reason, it’s important to periodically scan your systems for malware. There are a variety of vendors you can use. The simplest one is called Malwarebytes, and you can download it for free. Run it and see what you’ve got.
HAI Group: Sounds easy enough. OK, so we’ll patch our software and scan for malware. What’s next? What did you mean when you said that housing organizations need to secure their business email?
JH: Email hacking is a huge problem for businesses. An easy way for cybercriminals to send you harmful attachments and links is through fake emails that look legitimate. Having everyone in your housing organization practice good password hygiene is a simple but powerful defense. You want everyone to use different passwords for different accounts, choose phrases that are easy to remember but hard for others to guess, and enable multi-factor authentication. Even better, use a password service like LastPass. There is a bunch of these types of password lockers, and they enable you to have a unique and complex password for each site you use. I have no idea what any of my passwords are; they’re like 15-character strings of gobbledygook that I couldn’t possibly remember.
HAI Group: So, password lockers like LastPass don’t get hacked?
JH: Well yeah, they could get hacked. It certainly is a worry, but the theory is to put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket very carefully. I protect my Google account, which is where the passwords end up stored, with two-factor authentication. You should enable multi-factor authentication for all of your important accounts. Read More.....
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Boise City Leaders Looking to Create More Affordable Housing in the Treasure Valley
By: Tristan Lewis
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Housing agencies and city leaders in Idaho are creating more affordable housing projects, as the need continues to grow each year. In a unanimous decision by the Meridian City Council, The Housing Company, a local non-profit through the Idaho Housing and Finance Association, was approved to build 52 units of affordable housing on Ustick and Linder Rd in Meridian. It will be one of the first affordable housing projects for the city. "A healthy community needs all kinds of housing, otherwise there's a shortage of workers," said Kathyrn Almberg, the Vice President of the Housing Company. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), affordable housing is defined as housing where the occupant pays no more than 30 percent of gross income for housing costs, including utilities. It's based on the area median income, family size, and rent in the area. The Meridian affordable housing project will be for people at sixty percent of the area median income, according to Almberg. There will be seven buildings with one, two and three-bedroom units with several amenities like a park and laundry. "Affordable housing is important everywhere, and as the Valley grows and housing is increased 30 percent in a single year as we saw," Almberg said. "Meridian is a prime location for access to jobs and commuting shorter distances, which long commutes also factor into housing costs." Almberg added the farther someone has to live out of the area for affordable housing, the more expensive it will get for commuting and transportation costs. The Meridian City Council President Brad Hoaglun said the Treasure Valley continues to grow and acknowledges the costs of rent and housing are skyrocketing with that growth. "We saw an opportunity to put affordable housing in Meridian by approving the project," Hoaglun said. "A two-bedroom unit in Meridian is now around $1,800, yet most young couples, for example, can only afford about $1,000. We hear that and we want to be responsive where we can." Hoaglun said the cost of living in the area has lost the City of Meridian essential workers. Last year, when the city was recruiting firefighters Hoaglund said one declined because of affordability. "We want to compensate our firefighters and our first responders adequately for the work that they do but then to hear that they can't afford to live in our community was eye-opening," said Hoaglun. Read More.....
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Are Cottages Like This a Fix for WA Housing Problems?
By: Daniel Beekman
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In a roundabout way, Thien Ly Bui owns her home partly because of a zoning change. Had Seattle not updated its land-use regulations for certain streets three years ago, Habitat for Humanity wouldn’t have been able to replace a single-family house and a vacant lot near Highway 99 in the South Park neighborhood with 13 condo cottages, including the home that Bui now owns. That’s the argument that a local Habitat for Humanity chapter is making, at least, as state lawmakers consider bills that would allow somewhat denser housing to be built in communities throughout Washington that are currently reserved for single-family houses.
Proponents of the bills backed by Gov. Jay Inslee say cities large and small need more “middle housing” options — dwellings like duplexes, town homes and cottages that are neither single-family houses nor apartment complexes. Foes and skeptics are raising concerns about overdevelopment and making the case that cities should maintain local control. The House bill in question cleared a key hurdle Monday, passing out of the Appropriations Committee by a narrow margin. Not all middle housing is particularly affordable: There are high-end town homes selling for close to $1 million in some Seattle neighborhoods. But Habitat’s local chapter, which creates housing to sell at below-market prices in King and Kittitas counties, has lobbied hard for the middle housing bills because, according to Ryan Donohue, the organization’s policy and advocacy director, multifamily projects are the only projects the nonprofit can afford to build in a region where real estate costs have soared. “Traditionally, when you thought about Habitat, you thought about single-family houses with yards and white picket fences,” Donohue said. “Nowadays, that’s not what we do at all.” Habitat points to its South Park cottages as a success story that should be replicated. The two-level, two-bedroom homes (some attached, some not) surround a courtyard with a towering evergreen tree. They were priced for families earning below 80% of the area’s median income. Bui, a 40-year-old insurance agent, moved in last October. She was desperate to buy a place, partly because she wanted to be able to pass down a home to her son, who has special needs. Read More.....
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What Home Means to Me Calendars on Sale Now! |
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NAHRO is now offering pre-sales for the 2022 Housing America “What Home Means to Me” calendar. The calendar contest is part of the Housing America public awareness campaign, which seeks to raise national awareness of the need for and importance of safe, quality, affordable housing through education, advocacy, & empowerment. As the country & world continues to grapple with the impacts of the coronavirus, the importance of having a home gained renewed recognition. |
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Leadership Lake Martin Partners With Housing Authority on Afterschool Center Revamp
By: Siri Hedreen
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Kids doing homework at Springhill Youth & Adult Center may notice the smell of fresh paint.
Last month, Leadership Lake Martin, a program of the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce, partnered with the Alexander City Housing Authority to spruce up two of its community centers for afterschool use. The project aims to give more than a mere fresh coat.
Leadership Lake Martin, with just over a dozen participants this year, is essentially a combined civics class and networking opportunity. Every year a new "class" must log a certain number of hours learning the functions of the community, from the utility board to Edward Bell Career Technical Center. For chamber membership director Liz Holland and Darold Sterling who are "not from here" — a permanent handicap, in some small-town communities — it's a way to learn and make the rounds. But anyone stands to benefit. Andi Burks, accountant and payroll administrator at Central Alabama Community College, said she's lived all but two years in Alexander City but until this year, had no reason to learn the intricacies of how it operated. "We went to the wastewater treatment plant — I wouldn't have gone there on my own," Burks said. "We went to the airport — like, I had no idea how much stuff was going on out there at the airport. And like I've said I've been here my whole life."
The other takeaway, which city employees will likely appreciate, is the money and red tape behind every public function.
"Everything is much more difficult than you realize," Holland said. "There's a process. There's an amount of money it takes."
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Learning about the community is one component, but to "graduate" Leadership Lake Martin, participants must also develop a stake in it. That means coming up with and executing a service project in teams of six or seven.
For Sterling, interim executive director at Alexander City Housing Authority, it wasn't hard to identify a need. The housing authority had recently upgraded its Springhill and Laurel Heights community centers, used by dozens of kids as an afterschool program and, lately, virtual learning center, when local schools go remote due to COVID-19.
The housing authority receives federal money for its basic operations and a few other initiatives, but it often takes local money to see them through. As such, the agency could only purchase 10 laptops per center — the old desktops were not compatible with Alexander City Schools' required programs — despite being equipped for 20 each. Meanwhile, the art room had turned into "an abandoned closet," Holland said of the Springhill location, and needed refreshing. Read More.....
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Professional Development in the New Year! |
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This New Year, consider the resolution of training!
NAHRO Professional Development has a variety of quality trainings upcoming in 2022. Give a friend, colleague, or even yourself the opportunity to learn something new or sharpen your skills!
How does it work?
When registering, please use code: PNRC2020 (All CAPS)
and your $10 discount will automatically be applied, it’s that simple!
Please note: this code must be used when registering!
It cannot be retroactively applied.
_________________________________________________________________
Available Virtual Classrooms:
For more information, contact NAHRO Professional Development at
202 580 7211 or
OR;
PNRC NAHRO Regional Service Officer 202.580.7203
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Send your pictures and articles to pnrc@nahro.org by March 13th to be featured in next month's newsletter!!
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