CITY OF DANBURY
 Danbury Housing Partnership
 155 Deer Hill Avenue
 Danbury , Connecticut 06810

Minutes of June 5, 2008

Present: Lemme, Barrows, Scalzo, Schierloh, Zaborowski, Payton, Radano, Shepperd, Sistrunk, Sullivan, Valeri

Absent: Coelho, Lima, McLachlan, Nolan, Pitts, Yamin

The meeting of the Danbury Housing Partnership was held in City Hall, conference room #3c, on June 5, 2008. Vice-Chairman, Carolyn Sistrunk called the meeting to order at 3:03pm. The minutes of May 1, 2008 was reviewed by all present members. A motion to accept the minutes was made by W. Shepperd, seconded by P. Schierloh, passed unanimously and placed on file.

There was no public comment.

There was no report from the chair/vice-chair.

Committee reports were provided to Partnership members:

  1. Public Relations, Marketing and Education Committee: Mr. Shepperd’s committee held their meeting on May 30th. The focus was discussion on the website and a training session set for June 10th with the attendee’s of Shepperd, Schierloh and Radano. The training will entail how to place information on the webpage with the assistance of Wade Anderson. There is presently no money available to upgrade the website at this time. The committee held discussion on the celebration breakfast that is presently being targeted in October. Mr. McLachlan will be chairing this committee and the Public Relations committee will assist in marketing the event. The 10 year plan was reviewed with the assistance of Paul Schierloh upgrading and updating information for this committee. The committee is looking forward to assist Project Homeless Connect scheduled for Wednesday, December 3rd and will help in marketing this event. The next committee meeting is scheduled for June 27th at 9:30am.

  1. Housing and Community Development Committee: Mr. Scalzo reported that the committee met at 2:00pm. today and had guest speaker Joseph Sullivan from MCCA offer a proposal for the Next Step Application. Questions and answers were given to Mr. Sullivan regarding his proposal and would like to meet with the Housing Partnership in July if possible. Mr. Sullivan is excited regarding the application and is looking to acquire land for his application and housing request.

  1. Social and Supportive Services Committee: Denise Valeri provided information on the two past meetings. One meeting was held yesterday at 3:30 with two guest speakers: Mr. Steven Bull from the Chamber of Commerce regarding to gain access to state wide funding for job training to further skills of the homeless. The second guest speaker was Dawn Wilson from MCCA who provided information on the “gap weekend”, in which transportation is provided from their budget for those clients/individuals who need to report to detox, the shelter, etc. The next meeting will be held on July 2 at 3:30pm. Ms. Valeri provided information obtained from Karen Jacobs of ARC regarding the greater Danbury Regional age group of 18-24 years old range. Statistical information was provided to the Partnership on what is being seen in the Danbury area. The information on this age group being seen is important not only for the Mayor’s 10 Year Plan that is presently being addressed, but may also have a negative impact on our social services. Ms. Valeri provided a synopsis of what such an impact could have. Mr. Bull also suggested that he would like to send a representative from the Chamber to become a member of the Partnership.

  1. Financial Resources and Fundraising Committee: Carolyn Sistrunk provided information on yesterday’s meeting and discussed funding opportunities for 3 key areas. A great deal of time was spent on discussion of the veteran’s application for the City of Danbury. There has been conditional approval for the application for veteran house in the amount of $262,000 from the VA. A veteran’s work group meeting was held since the conditional approval with Mark and Paul conducting conference calls with the VA. The next milestone date of July 1st is important since it entails certification of certain components of the original application. Discussion on detail and funding of the Celebration Breakfast was presented at the meeting. The idea is to award contributions for persons assisting to the beginning of the Taskforce through today of the 10 Year Plan and any funds raised would be placed back into the Partnership for subsidy of other activities. The next meeting will be held on July 2nd.

Mr. Schierloh reported to the Partnership that the $5,000 request for funding of a consultant to assist the Partnership survived budget cuts. The money was placed in the Health, Housing and Welfare Department budget and would be available as discussed and approved by the Partnership members.

Continuing down the agenda, Ms. Sistrunk discussed the up and coming Celebration Award Breakfast recognizing service and contributions to the 10 Year Plan. Mr. McLachlan, who will chair this event, is looking for volunteers on this ad-hoc committee. Recommendations to assist in this committee are: Denise Valeri, Paul Scalzo, Gary Lemme and Dave Deshane. The meeting will be held on June 19th in the Mayor’s office.

Mr. Nolan’s Non-Profit Rental Housing Corporation will be funding $5,000.00 for the Senior Housing Feasibility Study. Mr. Nolan has approached the consultant and they are negotiating terms in doing an additional study(in addition to HVECO study). There is presently no time frame placed on this completion of the study.

Ms. Sistrunk provided an update on veterans housing initiative. The Housing Authority has mailed out approximately 500 preference notices to person on the waiting list to find out who are veterans, homeless and victims of domestic violence. The Housing Authority’s plan is to set aside 10 vouchers for veterans, 5 vouchers for homeless and 5 vouchers for victims of domestic violence. The intent is to set up separate wait list for veterans, separate wait list for the homeless and a separate wait list for victims of domestic violence. This would not be just a ranking preference, it is a special admission. We are looking to have this preference lists completed by September- October of this year. A public notice has to be made to the general public.

Mr. Schierloh reported on the Capital Grant application that Paul Valeri’s Non-Profit Development Corporation of Danbury submitted that was conditional approved and also submitted a City application for a per diem support funding for the shelter, that we haven’t heard. The 3rd application is the permanent housing, regarding the VAS vouchers in which Danbury will be receiving 5-10 vouchers. The VA is looking for communities that have networks, in which Danbury, is well versed.

The Housing and Community Development committee is working to create a potential housing site list that can be a source of sites for all types of housing that we are looking to do, be it veterans, homeless, senior, etc.

Project Homeless Connect is scheduled for December 3rd. This will be an all day event held at the Elk’s Lodge on Main Street. Subcommittees are needed to start the planning phase of this event. More information will be provided at the next meeting.

There is no report regarding membership updates. The 10 Year Plan annual report was submitted to the Common Council and distributed to all committees. It is the intent of the Partnership to place the information on the website once it is activated.

A motion to adjourn was made by D. Valeri, seconded by M. Sangut, passed unanimously. The next Housing Partnership meeting is scheduled for July 3, 2008.