MISSION: To increase the supply of decent affordable housing provided by nonprofit organizations to low and very low income families through coordination among nonprofits to enhance capabilities, expand funding opportunities, maximize training, and develop new partnerships.

The Beardall Center
800 S. Delaney Street, Orlando, FL 32806

Located at northeast corner of Orange Avenue and Gore Street.
The meeting will be in the multi-purpose, room #1

Future Meeting Schedule: August 25, September 29, October 27, November 17, December - No Meeting

Nonprofit Housing Roundtable
Meeting Minutes from July 28, 1999 Meeting

Present: John Hazelroth, Adrienne deSouza, Valerie Hendriex, George Reed, Paul Whitman, Anne Grady, Kathy Bryant, Dawkins Hodges, Kenneth Goodwin, Ralph Armstead, Barbara Conover, Mike Smith, Jill McReynolds, Evette Frances, Steve Chitwood, Richard Swoszowski, Jon Cherry, Lynda Hinckley, Scott Zimmerman, Linda Hardesty, Fran James, Sherry Koger, Diana Cook, Camilla Worrell, Louis Laubscher, Dick Enright, Victor Alvaredo, Mike Daly, Robert Melia, Kevin O'Rawe, Randy Sprayberry, Cora Fulmore

Agenda Item 1 -- Approval of Minutes

Motion made and seconded to approve the minutes. Approved unanimously.

Agenda Item 2 - Presentation by Jed Baumwell from Orlando Housing Authority

• The Housing Authority is now developing a site that was formerly known as Orange Villa. The former Housing authority units have been torn down and the site is now vacant.
• The project now proposed is a mixed unit project called Hampton Park. The Authority owns seventeen acres and will be developing a number of uses on this site.
• The financing engine driving this project is a HOPE 6 grant which allows the Public Housing Authority to do non-public housing.
• Plans call for 65 units of single family housing on twelve acres and a one-acre park. Also, included in the development will be 48 units of multi-family elderly and some mixed use office and retail.
• The Authority has partnered with Orlando Neighborhood Improvement Corporation, Fugleberg Koch and Frank Anderson.
• The Housing Authority is hoping to break ground in late October. The concept involves both subsidized and at-market rate housing. The prices on the single family homes will be approximately $160,000. After layering, mortgages for the affordable buyers will be somewhere in the $80-90,000 range.
• The design is neo-traditional in that they tried to incorporate rear garages, porches, alley-ways and other design issues such as that found in some of the older historic neighborhoods in Orlando. The homes will be sized at approximately 1,500 square feet and will be three and four-bedroom.
• The commercial phase of the development is still somewhat uncertain and will be the last phase to be developed.
• The elderly portion will be one and two-bedroom units and it will be subsidized so that the residents will pay 30 percent of their income toward rent.
• The development will have a homeowner's association. This association will be slightly different in that the exterior maintenance will be handled by the association. Homeowners will pay into a fee to handle this.

Agenda Item 3 -- Presentation by Camilla Worrell from Legal Aid Society

Camilla was on hand to talk about tenants and their rights. She is a staff attorney at the legal attorney at the Legal Aid Society and works almost exclusively with housing and shelter advocacy.

• There are two different legal service organizations within Central Florida. One is called The Greater Orlando Legal Services Agency and the other is called Legal Aid. Both agencies have slightly different orientations and work with different areas.
• One of the most powerful tools that a tenant has for encouraging the landlord to make changes in a unit is rent withholding. This is where a tenant withholds rent.
• The key to tenant withholding is notification of the problems to the landlord and giving the landlord a certain amount of time to fix these. The money still must be deposited in some type of escrow account. With respect to Legal Aid, often the Legal Aid office holds the rent until the improvements are made. Typically, the landlord is only given seven days to make these changes. There have been cases where the judge has reduced the rent based upon the fact that the unit was inhabitable for a period of time during the month.
• Oftentimes, the problem with a tenant withholding rent is that the landlord will immediately file an eviction notice. Even though this eviction notice will likely be overturned or dismissed, this is still a blemish on the tenants record and could impact renting future apartments.

Agenda Item 4 - Other Information:

• Republic Bank was on-hand to make a donation to both the Nonprofit Housing Roundtable and the Counseling Collaborative. Republic Bank was gracious enough to provide $2,500 for each organization.
• Mike Smith was on-hand from the Orange County Housing Finance Authority. The new bond program they have for single family first-time home buyers is now in place. You can access the Orange County Housing Finance Authority on their website or you can call 1-877-977-WFTV and information will be provided to you on the program.
• Randy Sprayberry was on-hand from the Counseling Collaborative and gave an update on what was going on. The Collaborative will be offering training for homebuyer counselors in late September. Randy will be brining in an organization to help with the training and the Counseling Collaborative will be offering scholarships to organizations sending individuals. The scholarships will come out of the housing counseling fund designed to improve capacity amongst housing counseling providers. Other items which the Collaborative is now involved include Homefest. The Collaborative will have a display available at the homebuyer seminar on September 11-12, at the Expo Center. Also, the Collaborative is looking at bringing in trainers to help nonprofit agencies who are doing homebuyer counseling. These trainers will be working more on presentation skills and how to keep the audience engaged.

This concludes the end of the meeting minutes. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 25, 1999.

One of the most critical government programs of the past 30 years is the welfare-to-work initiative. This program can be confusing and often times misunderstood. Lisa Portelli will be in attendance to talk about the program and what it means for the program's participants, many of whom are renters and potential future home buyers.