The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About12-11-23 Public Comment - L. Platt - Public Housing Authority Public CommentFrom:City of Bozeman, MT To:Agenda Subject:[EXTERNAL]*NEW SUBMISSION* Public Comment Form Date:Sunday, December 10, 2023 9:38:08 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Public Comment Form Submission #:2871708 IP Address:174.45.249.16 Submission Date:12/10/2023 9:37 Survey Time:4 minutes, 47 seconds You have a new online form submission. Note: all answers displaying "*****" are marked as sensitive and must be viewed after your login. Read-Only Content Full Name Logan Platt Email loganplatt4@gmail.com Phone Comments I support the establishment of a Municipal Housing Authority. The rest of my public comment is linked below via PDF. If you would like to submit additional documents (.pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .gif, .jpg, .png, .rtf, .txt) along with your comment, you may alternately address agenda@bozeman.net directly to ensure receipt of all information. City Public Comment.pdf Thank you, City Of Bozeman This is an automated message generated by Granicus. Please do not reply directly to this email. Public Housing Authority Public Comment I support the creation of a Municipal Housing Authority.We are one of the few municipalities in Montana that does not have a MHA.Given the magnitude of the Housing Crisis in Bozeman and in the County,I believe that we need to use all of the tools at our disposal to combat this issue. A petition was submitted in support of a MHA,which is the reason for this hearing.According to the Montana Code,what is to be determined here today is 1)Whether unsanitary or unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations exist in the county and/or 2)Whether there is a lack of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in the county available for all the inhabitants thereof Pursuant to 7-15-4407,MCA,in making the above determinations,the Commission must consider: 1.The physical condition and age of buildings; 2.The degree of overcrowding; 3.The percentage of land coverage; 4.The light and air available to the inhabitants of such dwelling accommodations; 5.The size and arrangement of the rooms; 6.The sanitary facilities;and 7.The extent to which conditions exist in such buildings which endanger life or property by fire or other causes. I received my undergraduate degree at MSU and have been a renter in Bozeman for the last 7 years.I have lived and visited many rental units that do not meet electrical,fire,and general building code in my years as a renter.My partner lived in a basement apartment which had actual mushrooms growing out of the linoleum flooring in the bathroom due to inadequate ventilation and mold problems as do many of the rental units here in the City.This would meet the 4th criteria listed above.I have lived in homes that are overcrowded due to the competitiveness of the housing market and astronomical rental prices.They housed 7 people while it was only legally permitted to house 5 people.This would meet the 2nd criteria listed above.It is not difficult to find stories of renters with similar and much,much worse experiences of clearly unsafe and unsanitary dwelling arrangements meeting the first criteria for the establishment of a MHA.The fact that there is unsafe and unsanitary housing that exists in Bozeman is undeniable.If you do not think this is the case,I would highly encourage you to talk to more renters in the City.The first criteria is met and is grounds to move forward in establishing a MHA. For more evidence,at approximately the same time that the petition for a MHA was submitted,there was a City Commission Meeting around the issue of “Urban Camping.”From this meeting,it was expressed by City officials and members of the community that the increase in Urban Camping was a product of the current housing crisis that Bozeman is experiencing.A quote from Ordinance 2147 itself,““A person experiencing homelessness”means a person that does not have the means to acquire their own shelter and who does not otherwise have access to shelter or transitional housing.”In Ordinance 2147 that was passed only a few months ago,it was acknowledged that there is a lack of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in the City available for all the inhabitants thereof as demonstrated by this definition.Did we magically solve the homelessness or “Urban Camping”crisis in this time?Or do we still have a portion of our population that does not have the means to acquire housing and does not have access to shelter or transitional housing.Dwelling is defined as a shelter in which people live.This definition would be fit to include those living out of RVs and vehicles.To make myself clear, sweeping the streets to get rid of Urban Campers is not my solution.They are there because of the increasingly unaffordable cost of living here in Bozeman.They are members of the community.And they deserve safe and sanitary housing just like the rest of us.These campers will have to rely on generators to keep from freezing in the harsh Montana winters and live in hot cars during the summer.This does not sound like safe dwelling accommodations to me.A lack of accessible dwelling accommodations exist here in the City for our lower income and working class community members and is grounds to move forward the process for establishing a Housing Authority forward.While there are units being built,we are still thousands of units away from the number of units deemed necessary to keep up with growth as determined by the City’s Community Housing Action Plan.Only one of the two criteria needs to be met to determine the need for a MHA,however,it is remarkably clear that both of the criteria are met in this case. The creation of the Housing Authority also allows for opportunities that would otherwise be impossible.Due to the Faircloth amendment,we could not construct Federally or HUD funded Section 9 housing,but models such as Social Housing,which have been quite successful in other parts of the nation like Montgomery County,Maryland and Seattle,Washington are very much a viable option.Social Housing would require a Housing Authority to manage these publicly owned units and could create a streamlined effective way to acquire Municipal Bonds to create housing instead of competing with other Private Developers and nonprofits for our limited supply of Federal and State Funding. I am currently a co-owner of the only Union Paint company here in Bozeman.I am a member of IUPAT District Council 82 Local 1922.From the perspective of a local tradesman,a Housing Authority would open the door to building a robust Public Works program.According to Little Davis-Bacon,Public Works projects would require that contractors pay prevailing wage including employee benefits and that at least 50%of employees of each contractor working on the jobs be bona fide Montana residents.I can tell you from being in the industry that many large housing developments here in town are out of state developers who accept the lowest bid.Poor wages directly contribute to the housing crisis as we are not creating and maintaining a workforce that can afford to live here from the resulting low wages.Housing costs continue to rise while those that are actually building our housing are struggling to get by.Many of the trades on these projects are from out of state,which also undermines our local workforce.Low quality work for low wages is happening all around the valley.The City has a unique opportunity to open the door to lower the cost of housing while simultaneously raising wages for the working people of Bozeman.I highly encourage the commission to do so.