AGENDA and MINUTES - Pillar 2 Subcommittee Meeting November 21, 2023

Commission on Poverty Elimination and Economic Security

Subcommittee on Pillar 2: Stabilize Homes and Communities

Tuesday, November 21, 2023 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Recording

Members:

Appointment Member Affiliation
Commission Member, Subcommittee chair Senator Dale Fowler Illinois State Senator
Commission Member Mark Eichenlaub Regional Superintendent of Schools, St. Clair County Regional Office of Education #50
Commission Member Pastor Jason McKinnies Senior Pastor, Southern Illinois Worship Center
Commission Member Juan Calderon Chief Operating Officer, The Puerto Rican Cultural Center
Commission Member Senator Kimberly Lightford Illinois State Senator
IWGP Member Dir. Paula Basta Director, Department on Aging
IWGP Member Marc Staley Deputy Director, Illinois Governor's Office of Management and Budget
IWGP Member Dr. Janice Phillips Assistant Director, Illinois Department of Public Health
IWGP Member Jason Horwitz Deputy Director for Policy Development Planning and Research, Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
IWGP Member Emily Mueller AD of Policy and Research
Public Member Elizabeth Vogt Senior Policy Advisor, Department on Aging
Public Member Emily Metz Director for Housing Stability and Inclusive Economy Lab, Chicago
Public Member Hope Babowice President, Mundelein High School Education Support Association
Public Member Courtney Groves Illinois Education Association-Government-Relations Department
Public Member Keesha Readus Communications Associate at Illinois Education Association
Public Member/IDHS SME Felicia Gray Associate Director, Division of Early Childhood, Illinois Department of Human Services
Public Member/IDHS SME Christine Haley Statewide Homelessness Chief; Illinois Department of Human Services
Public Member/IDHS SME Amanda Lake Senior Policy Advisor, Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery
Public Member/IDHS SME Ryan Rollinson Chief of Staff, Division of Mental Health

Administrator: Dana Kelly, IDHS-Associate Secretary of Disability Services and Education and Facility Operations

Guests/Facilitators:

  1. Matthew Rodriguez - Equity Imperative
  2. Ni'Shele Jackson - Researcher, UIC

AGENDA

  1. Introductions/Welcome Roll Call
  2. Public Comment - subject to written comment in advance
  3. Approval of Meeting Minutes: September 29, 2023
  4. Review of Goals and Collective Input
  5. Discussion and breakout session - workgroups discuss accomplishments and updates on gaps
    1. Workgroup 1/Goal 1
    2. Workgroup 2/Goal 2
    3. Workgroup 3/Goal 3
    4. Workgroup 4/Goal 4
    5. Workgroup 5/Goal 5
  6. Report Back
  7. Next Steps and Adjournment

MINUTES

Subcommittee members in attendance:

  1. Senator Dale Fowler - Subcommittee chairman; Commission member
  2. Kimberly Tate - representative of Senator Kimberly Lightford, Commission member
  3. Dir. Paula Basta - IWGP member
  4. Elizabeth Vogt - IWGP member
  5. Dr. Janice Phillips - IWGP member
  6. Jason Horwitz - IWGP member
  7. Erik Turner - IWGP member
  8. Hope Babowice - public member
  9. James Kowalsky - IDHS SME
  10. Ryan Rollinson - IDHS SME

The meeting was called to order at 12:30 PM.

  1. Introductions/Welcome Roll Call
    • Members attending for the first time introduced themselves including Ryan Rollinson, IDHS SME from the Division of Mental Health and James Kowalsky, IDHS SME from the Division of Substance Use, Prevention and Recovery.
    • Administrator Kelly also welcomed Dir. Paula Basta from the Department on Aging.
    • Senator Fowler gave a welcome message and shared his recent trip to Denver, Colorado where he visited a pre-fabricated home manufacturing plant. The company builds affordable small homes from 900 sq ft to 1800 sq ft and they are looking to locate one of their plants in Senator Fowler's district.
    • Senator Fowler also informed the group of the work that will start in January 2024 when the Food Dessert Bill goes into effect.
  2. Review of Goals and Collective Input - Facilitator Matthew Rodriguez gave a recap of what has been done since the approval of the FY24 actionable goals and the creation of the workgroups according to the goals.
    • Mr. Rodriguez also shared the spreadsheet that contains the goals and some of the work that have been identified, and a working document that outlines some guidance for each workgroup for their breakout sessions.
    • Dr. Phillips signed up for Goal 5.
    • Administrator Kelly initiated the breakout sessions and placed members in their different workgroups.
  3. Discussion and breakout session - the group went to breakout sessions per workgroup for 25 minutes.
    1. Workgroup 1/Goal 1
      • Erik Turner shared that IHDA is in the progress of doing concept meetings and reviews for permanent supportive housing funding program which funds different supportive housing programs. IHDA helps developers and interested parties in making more viable applications. The program has $60 M. IHDA also has a companion program with focus on healthcare attached to the supportive housing program and with a budget of $15 M. IHDA is looking to fund developers in spring of next year.
      • IHDA has also been tweaking their low-income housing, tax credit, qualified location plan to incentivize more developers to build more housing.
      • Another IHDA initiative is technical assistance programming to encourage more service providers and developers to get more interested in even developing these types of projects. They are partnering with the Corporation for Supportive Housing to do another round of Supportive Housing Institute where interested parties can apply with their own community concept in their local area and target population.
      • Senator Fowler added that he will be meeting with a company called Fading West from Colorado that builds prefabricated stick-built homes. They will be visiting Senator's district and they are looking at a possibility of building a plant for affordable housing.
      • Another project that Senator shared is with a company called Prestige Development who will be building 3D homes. They have a machine currently being manufactured and assembled in Germany and is scheduled to be ship to the US right after the first of the year and first location is going to be in Cairo, Illinois. The company will be donating a duplex to the City of Cairo for 2 displaced families who are among the 230 families that were displaced due to the demolition of two major housing developments and had to go across the state line to Missouri and Kentucky to find public housing due to the housing crisis in his district.
      • Senator shared that they are projecting to create 3,000-5,000 new jobs in the next 3-5 years in the Southern Illinois from the development projects that they have and they will have to recruit people from across the state lines and they will need a place to live.
      • Erik will be sending information to Senator Fowler that he can pass along to these developers to make them aware of the different housing development opportunities from IHDA.
    2. Workgroup 2/Goal 2
      • Jason Horwitz shared that the group already have put together a piece with Ni'Shele's help. The next step for them is potentially engaging subject matter experts on the subject and they have already identified a few from Northwestern and UIC. They will be putting together a list of questions which should fill the gap in their knowledge.
      • One question the group had was what point it is appropriate to engage with advocacy organizations, because they are still in the information gathering portion of the process and they do want to give the wrong impression on how the goal is prioritized or what sort of side we might come down as a Commission on any given issue prematurely. However, they do have already identified a few groups that are doing work in the space that are more on the advocacy and lobbying side. Administrator Kelly said these groups can be invited to the subcommittees at any point.
    3. Workgroup 3/Goal 3 - no workgroup members yet
    4. Workgroup 4/Goal 4
      • Administrator Kelly stated that what the group really needs to do is to pinpoint affordability, what parts of the state have the most affordability challenges? Doing it by region seem too large and so they want to do it on a smaller microcosm and then overlay, and look at accessibility to housing for people with disabilities and mental health and substance use issues and senior accessibility challenges.
      • The group wants to look at the areas in terms of resources, barriers affecting these subgroups that make affordability and accessibility challenging and then understand how many people in the subgroups might need housing.
    5. Workgroup 5/Goal 5
      • Dr. Phillips mentioned a City of Chicago initiative called Homes for Moms. She will check whether if it's for a special population of women who might have behavioral health issues.
      • James Kowalsky shared that the group talked about the work that SUPR and DMH have already been doing in relation to goal 5. From the DMH side, there are resources that exist for mental health crisis such as the 988 mobile crisis response, crisis residential services and emergency room alternatives for those in crisis. DMH is also requiring trauma, informed care for their providers.
      • From the SUPR side, the division has a Recovery Service Grant which funds basically a holistic approach to helping people make positive changes around their substance use regardless of what their goal might be; helping people who might be actively using and not ready for abstinence and start making positive changes and helping people who are ready to pursue abstinence through a holistic approach that addresses their need for home, health, purpose and community.
  4. Adjournment - the meeting was adjourned at 1:30 PM.