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The Latest News
December 2017
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Greeting PNRC Members,
I am ec
static to report as your new President for the 2017-19 term. PNRC provided excellent training and advocacy during the last two years and we intend to keep that going with your participation and our capable Executive Board and Regi
onal Service Officer, Kristen Damazio.
Congratulations to our Past President, Sunny Shaw, for winning her election as the NAHRO Senior VP. She deserves it and we are all behind her as she moves into the presidency in 2019.
I want to encourage you to stay engaged in PNRC to advance housing and community development goals of our re
gion. There is no better time to push for local advocacy in our industry, particularly as federal funding diminishes.
The upcoming PNRC conference on May 7th and 8th, 2018 in Renton Washington (Hyatt Regency Lake Washington at Seattle's Southport) is our annual gathering, where we share ideas and learn from each other. It will focus on new ways to assist our residents and encourage self-reliance. We also have sessions planned on process improvements, property maintenance, development, and reducing homelessness. The speaker line up is strong and the PNRC Conference Planning Committee led by Bill Cook of King County is busy putting expert panels together. Share your ideas with Kristen as she coordinates the work of the Committee. We must take the bull by the horn locally and the annual conference provides the venue to connect and compare notes.
The PNRC website keeps getting more traffic, thanks to content shared by agencies and job postings. To help us track usage an
d provide better content, we need you to click on any of the stories in the newsletter to help us gauge readership.
We love hearing from you, so continue to share your stories and successes. Email or call me any time to discuss how we can improve PNRC and what we should be focusing on going forward.
Happy Holidays!
PNRC President and
Deputy Executive Director, Vancouver Housing Authority
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KCHA Purchased Friendly Village Mobile Home Park
to Preserve Homes for 224 Senior Households
Assures long-term affordability for years to come
The King County Housing Authority has purchased Friendly Village, a 224-pad senior mobile home park in Redmond. The acquisition by the Housing Authority means that existing homeowners will not be displaced and the community will be preserved as affordable housing for active seniors.
Mobile home parks like Friendly Village, which provide affordable housing for seniors on a fixed income, are being closed at an alarming rate. Given the prime location and zoning of this community, less than a mile and a half from downtown Redmond, a private purchaser would have been under tremendous market pressure to redevelop the land into a more lucrative housing product. Sale of the park to a developer would have inevitably resulted in the loss of 224 homes for seniors.
There are over 100 mobile home parks in King County - providing affordable housing for over 9,000 households. Many of these communities consist of senior citizens living on fixed incomes. In 2017, five parks closed in King County - with many of the remaining parks in increasing danger of redevelopment as higher cost housing as land values climb. The replacement costs for this much affordable housing would be astronomic - and the loss of this inventory would further exacerbate homelessness in our region.
Friendly Village was built in 1971. Amenities on this almost 40-acre property include a 4,700 square-foot community building and a swimming pool.
Read entire press release here.
Seattle Housing Authority Gets Top Award
for Financial Reporting
The Seattle Housing Authority has been awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. In a statement, GFOA said the Certificate of Achievement for SHA's
2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report
"is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment."
Seattle Housing Authority has Debuted a New Video
The video tells the story of its work through two tenants,
one in public housing and
one in the Housing Choice Voucher program.
Yakima Housing Authority Turns Poster Contest Winner's Art into Fundraiser for Scholarships
YHA had one of the 13 winners in the
What Home Means to Me
poster contest and has decorated water bottles with her art to sell and raise money for its new youth scholarship. A bookmark has also been created that includes the narrative that Jannely, the poster contest winner, wrote about what home
means to her. YHA staff surprised Jannely at a school assembly.
Click here to see Yakima Herald article
about the surprise.
Tenmast Software is now part of MRI Software
As part of its continued commitment to multifamily and affordable housing, MRI Software has acquired Tenmast Software. Tenmast's expertise, combined with MRI's property management platform, will bring significant benefits to public and affordable housing organizations.
MRI is excited to build on the strengths Tenmast has developed having served the unique needs of public housing for more than thirty years. Tenmast clients will have access not only to MRI's extensive solution set, but also to the solutions available from other vendors through MRI's Partner Connect program.
 Lincoln Place Wins Outstanding Innovative Project Award
V
ancouver Housing Authority's Lincoln Place was honored as the Outstanding Innovative Project by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Oregon and Southwest Washington at the association's 2017 Philanthropy Awards Dinner on November 13th.
"Too often, people with chronic addiction and mental illness die
on the street. Their challenges prevent them from being housed in traditional programs," reads the nomination for the award, "Lincoln Place stepped in to begin to fill that gap in caring for the most vulnerable homeless population in Clark County. Opened in 2016, the 30-unit complex houses those who are most at risk of dying on the street. The seed for Lincoln Place grew from a conversation in which Amy Reynolds, Deputy Director of Share, Andy Silver, Executive Director of Council for the Homeless, and Roy Johnson, Executive Director of Vancouver Housing Authority brainstormed about providing housing for the hardest-to-place chronic homeless population. The model is called 'Housing First.'"
"The basic underlying principle of 'housing first' is that people are better able to move forward with their lives if they are first housed," explained Silver. "This is as true for people experiencing homelessness and those who struggle with mental health and addictions issues as it is for anyone. Housing is provided first, and then supports are provided including physical and mental health, education, employment, substance abuse, and community connections."
The innovative nature of Lincoln Place is the group of partners who came together to make the Housing First-modeled apartment building a success for its formerly homeless residents. Project partners are Share, a nonprofit providing services for homeless individuals and families; Vancouver Housing Authority, developer and owner of the Lincoln Place Apartments; Community Services Northwest, a community partner in treating individuals and families struggling with addiction, mental illness and homelessness; and Key Property Services, the property managers. The four organizations view active collaboration to meet the challenges and needs of Lincoln Place tenants as the key to success for the property and its residents.
"Residents have said if it weren't for Lincoln Place, they would be dead," said Olivia Resnick, Share program director at Lincoln Place. "The building has given them a chance at life."
Come Learn About the VHA's 75-Year History
You are invited to learn about the VHA's History. As part of our 75th anniversary, we have installed a timeline display in our lobby at 2500 Main Street. The timeline highlights the four significant eras of our history: The War Years (1942 - 1955), when we built 12,500 units of housing for Kaiser Shipyard workers and their families; Redevelopment of McLoughlin Heights (1956 - 1962), when we removed the wartime housing and created the neighborhoods you see there today, Early Public Housing (1963 - 1992) when we began providing housing for low-income families; and Affordable Housing (1993-Present); the wide variety of subsidized and affordable housing we currently provide throughout Clark County .
Our thanks goes to the Clark County Historical Museum who created the display for us.
The display is a permanent installation that begins just inside the doors of our office building. The building is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday - Friday. Please come learn about our role in providing affordable housing in Vancouver and Clark County for the past 75 years.
HACSA Family Self Sufficiency Success
(16 participant graduates)
HACSA's Family Self Sufficiency Team had another great year. Sixteen participants graduated this year and received a total of $122,788 in Escrow savings! Two of the graduates moved to homeownership, and one graduate from a prior year who had an open Individual Development Account purchased her home as well. Folks who left the program this year had a combined increase in earned income of over $326,000 since they began the program.
In the S8 Homeownership Program, we had two families move to home ownership this year. Currently HACSA has 16 families participating in the Section 8 Homeownership program with a new family just accepted and starting to receive mortgage assistance in January.
The Section 8 Homeownership program works with Section 8 tenants to become homeowners instead of renters. The program is not easy and not for everyone. Participants need to have a 3% down payment, be able to be approved for a loan on their own, take homeownership education classes, meet minimum income and employment requirements, and complete the financial goals of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program. Many Section 8 participants struggle to find a home to buy where their payment is within our payment standard or to have the income needed to qualify for a loan.
We work hard with people to figure out if this program could be the right fit for them and if it is not what other options might be available. We have capped the program at 35 participants and are averaging about 2 a year added onto the program.
HACSA Soon to be
Housing Authority and Community Services Agency of Lane County
This year HACSA has been working on our renaming and rebranding.
The efforts are coming to an end and we will be so excited to share the results with
you in mid-January 2017 - stay tuned.
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NAHRO Awards of Merit in Housing and Community Development
The Application Process for the 2018 Awards of Merit is
The NAHRO Agency Awards Program was created to give national recognition to the achievement and innovation of NAHRO agency/organizational members throughout the country; to provide additional opportunities to inform the public of the best in housing and community development; and to create a resource bank of information on significant, innovative activities performed by housing and redevelopment agencies and community development departments. Since 1989, NAHRO has honored more than 6,000 programs.
The Agency Awards Program is a two-tiered program consisting of the
Awards of Merit and the
Awards of Excellence. The first tier of the program, the Awards of Merit, are submitted to National NAHRO and sent to Regional Juries for review. The second tier of the program, the Awards of Excellence, are selected from the Award of Merit winners nominated for an Award of Excellence by the Regional Juries. They are sent to National Juries who may select up to 24 Awards of Excellence in a given year.
The Awards Application consists of two main parts. A Program Summary that describes the program in 100 words or less and a Program Narrative that creates an overview of the program that addresses a set list of questions/topics in 2,400 words or less. For more information, please review the
2018 Awards Flyer.
To be considered for a Pacific Northwest Regional Award for Innovative Services (PRAIS), your application must be submitted by April 1, 2018.
Excellence in Customer Service e-Learning
Credits:
0.25 Continuing Education Units
An online course where participants register individually and access the session with a direct email. Sessions are typically 2.5 hours (1:30pm ET - 4pm ET) each day. Attendance is recorded and upon successful completion, CEUs are applied towards certification requirements.
Description:
Customer service is the deciding factor in whether or not an agency meets its bottom line every month. Effective communication not only improves relationships and results externally with agency clients, but internally with agency staff. This one-day training program will focus on the new wave of customer service and how perfecting the details of communication can make your agency's customer service excellent. Public Housing is no longer the housing of last resort. Through efficient customer service, you can help make that idea a reality. Filled with continuous classroom interaction, this is one session you do not want to miss!
Objectives:
· Recognize elements of communication that you must improve for yourself;
· Understand how effective customer services affects the fiscal health of an agency
Who Should Attend?
Every staff member of the agency is recommended to take this course. Excellent customer service should happen at every level.
Online Registration Only:
Only online registrations are accepted for NAHRO Professional Development's e-Learning seminars and e-Briefing sessions. Payment for online NAHRO Professional Development offerings must be made via credit card (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express) at the time of registration.
After registering, attendees will immediately receive important login information at the email address on file. It is the attendee's responsibility to confirm system requirements and test connections prior to the start of the session.
Registration for each online offering closes at 11:59pm ET the day before a session's scheduled start date. Registered attendees will be able to download a copy of the presentation and additional resources after the online session commences.
NAHRO's comprehensive agenda of educational and informational opportunities enables participants to learn firsthand from recognized experts. From basic to advanced learning, NAHRO offers indispensable sessions, courses, & briefings throughout the year on vital topics impacting the industry.
e-Briefings - 90-minute online information sessions led by industry experts dedicated to updating housing & community development professionals.
Certification - Candidates are immersed in curricula that promote knowledge, leadership skills, & professional experiences vital to career advancement.
On-Site Training - Customized sessions brought right to your agency for a personalized learning experience.
Technical Assistance -
Consortia TA, Salary
Comparability Studies and
Executive Director
& CEO Search
For more information or to get a proposal, contact Regional Service Officer,
Kristen Damazio at kdamazio@nahro.org 503-828-5371.
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Looking for a new job or just want to see what's out there?
Recent job openings in the region include:
Alaska
Positions are updated regularly.
If you have position to be posted, please send it to Kristen Damazio,
Regional Service Officer at kdamazio@nahro.org
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