City of Mountain View, CA Rent Stabilization Program Community Workshops, 21 Jul 2022

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From YouTube: July 21, 2022 - Preparing to Apply for the Below Market Rate Program

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Everyone and welcome to our second webinar at the housing and eviction health center. Today we have a guest speaker, who's going to be talking about preparing to apply for below market rate programs.

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Thank you. Thank you. So, first off, thank you to everybody for taking the talk today. um We really appreciate it um today. uh Just uh we're gonna talk a little bit about preparing for the below.

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Rate program uh where you can find the information and how to determine if the below market rate program is right for you, and today we have anna jimenez with us who she's gonna translate. So I'm gonna pause after my parts to give her the opportunity.

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So again, my name is anna ray russell. I am the housing specialist with the city of mountain view, so I usually handle and work on all of the bmr items and units, and today, sadly I have the lovely emma jimenez helping me out today.

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So, today, again um today, it is strictly focused on the bmr rental program. um If you find that the bmr rental program isn't for you, I will have some resources towards the end of the presentation or you can reach out to me directly.

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um We are going to talk about where you can find the information to figure out if the bmr program is right for you and if you meet the minimum criteria, uh you'll see definitely for those who are locked down virtually you'll see housekeeps13.com. That is the webpage that is dedicated towards the bmr rental program.

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So, just to let everybody know um again: in july of 2021, uh the city of mountain view went into contract with house keys. House keys is our third party administrator for the program and so uh you'll hear us mention a lot about house keys. But this is why you will see their name as well, because there are third party administrators that help us with program compliance reviewing the files and determining eligibility.

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Okay, so, first off, I want I'm going to review uh the overall steps. Just again, if you have time later on in the presentation, I'll.

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A little tour of the website, so you can just see them um again today- is just for everybody to get a basic overview right. I do offer monthly um bmr or uh informational calls where I go into deep about creating your account entering an opportunity drawing and how to upload your file. Today, it's really high level basic.

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Where can you find the information to figure out if, if a bmr's, so um the first step again, if you're preparing for a bmr or looking to see if the pmr is correct, for you is you want to see what are the current opportunities that are available and what are the requirements? And so you can find all of those on the housekeeps 13 dot com website.

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Secondly, every opportunity that is available so again when we say opportunity we talk about units available, um has an opportunity, drawing notice on the web page right and that will indicate what is the minimum and maximum household income. uh Keep in mind when you're trying to determine what your household income is. Your household income is who is earning income in your household 18 and up so anybody 18 and up they're income captains.

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You want to review what is your household income right to ensure that you're between that minimum and maximum range? Again, that's all adults above 18 years or eight. So if you have a college student working part-time, their income counts right and when you're looking at qualification, keep in mind it is gross income, so gross income. That is what you make before they take out all your taxes.

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Once you've done your um adding up the household income and if you determine that, yes, your income is between that income minimum and make income maximums right, um then you would go ahead and create your. My house keys account, which is the online portal to enter opportunity, drawings.

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I'll give everybody a few minutes, because those are the steps in spanish. So if anybody wants to take a friends group.

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All right, so just this chart right here is really to give everybody an idea of what the income minimums and maximums right. So again, these are established by the state and they are updated annually right and so, depending on what opportunity you're looking at some of the opportunities are for fifty percent of the year immediate income, eighty percent of the year median income, 100 and 120 okay later on. If we can once we do a tour of the house keys uh web page, you will see on the opportunity drawing notice, there's always an income table.

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So you know what are the income limits associated with that draw?

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So in this table we can see again for a family of four people to be considered fifty percent of the yearly income which, for a lot of opportunities that is the minimum income they can. The household can make no more or excuse me, uh no more than eighty four thousand two hundred and fifty.

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So yeah, so again, this table is just to give you an idea of where the income limits are again. um When you are looking at an opportunity and there's a there's, a particular unit, you are interested in uh on the web page there's an opportunity, drawing notice which will always let you know what is the income.

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That opportunity.

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um Again, once you've determined that uh a bmr unit is for you, you've created your your myhousekeys.com account. Okay, uh I always say set aside time to complete and submit your application package. Okay, so you have to a enter the opportunity. Prime, but b, you always have to submit an application right and again uh the application packages can be found online, um but the application is one part right, there's also the document checklist.

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The document checklist is a list of documents that you need to upload and submit into your myhousekeys account to be reviewed for eligibility, and the document checklist again also can be found online or if you, if you don't, have a printer and need uh me to mail it to you, I can do that. um Just reach out to me. My contact information will be on one of the last slides, but uh some of the documents we asked for would be like pay stubs bank statements, tax returns.

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If you have a section 8 vote.

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It is a pretty big package, so the sooner you reach out to have me mail it to you the the easier it will be so and once you get your uh your your application package fill it out, you complete it and all your documentation will be uploaded into into your myhousepiece.com account.

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If, for some reason, you cannot upload, there is the uh option to mail in your documents in your package. However, for instructions on that, you will need to review the opportunity, drawing notice, which I'll show you later and at the bottom of the screen. Again, I put.

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A little link on there.

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Again, I host monthly bmr informational calls that go a little bit more into detail um today. I just wanted to give a basic overview and answer everybody's questions.

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I'll give everybody a minute to take a look at the.

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Spanish translation.

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All right, so, if you look here at this, is a screenshot of the housecase13.com of the actual home page right. So again, a house piece has designed this page they've dedicated this page, but if you go under the top, where it says rental opportunities uh that will drop down and you will see what is available at the different projects so again, this is just for you guys to get a sense of the of what the page looks like when you press away.

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uh This is a print screenshot again just so you guys can get kind of an idea. This is about the home page. When you get to my house keys right, and this is the home page, you would get to to create your account if you.

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Have already created.

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Account and forgot your password, you can just hit the reset password, but this is what the myhousepiece.com.

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This would be your account forever and ever and ever and ever so if, if later on, you want to enter.

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A different opportunity.

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Drawing or another opportunity in the future, it would be the same account.

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So I know some of you may be thinking hey uh what, if I do not qualify for uh the bmr program or it just doesn't seem for me. um If that's the case, definitely uh you.

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At that number or there's an online link for you to sign up for the housing interest list form the housing interest list form. This is our email lister, where we put out all information as it relates to uh units that are uh bmr units and also non-vmr.

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So there might be other units, maybe units through alta housing that might be of a better fit. For me,.

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The unknown is.

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um So do we have any questions.

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And answers at this point I'll leave you guys on that, but I believe that.

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If you're online, you can type it in the chat in spanish.

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Okay, all right all righty. So again, I'm gonna leave this up for a few minutes again, um if you need your the application package or the document checklist mailed to you, that is my email and my uh office line. You can reach out to me um again just keep in mind that, uh even if you mail in your application package and all your supporting documents, you still need to go online and enter the opportunity drawings via your my housekeeps account but again feel free to send me your address.

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Where would you like those mailed to you or you can give me a call and I'll take your address over the phone? um In addition, should you have any questions regarding the.

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Tech platform.

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Or creating your account, you can reach out to housekeepers directly and I put their email number.

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So the question was or is uh what, if all of the opportunity drawings are, are lottery based? My response is yes, that is how all the opportunity starts right. So there's always you enter the opportunity, drive, there's a lottery held right, the ranked results are published and then house keys will start to go down.

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See who has uploaded a complete file and who has who qualifies right, and so if they go through, that entire lottery list right and they do not come up with sufficient applicants to fill the units, what they will do is they will go to first file first, serve meaning the first person to upload the file. That is who will be reviewed, and that is who the unit will be offered to. Okay, so again, remember it's two parts right enter the opportunity, drawing and submit your complete documentation and actually.

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I'll give you.

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I'll give you guys a good example. um I it's all right. If I can.

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I'll start sharing my screen give me one. Second.

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All right, let me go ahead and just share this okay, so I'm going live on the housekeeps 13 webpage straight from internet explorer.

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um I'm gonna put this right here, but if you look here at the top right hand corner, uh you will see and again you guys can't see me on screen, but I want to make sure you guys can can see the uh the larger view. If you need it, uh this sandwich board right. So sometimes you won't see all of the list. You'll see the sandwich bar, so you click on the sandwich board and you go to rental opportunities.

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So I'll. Let you translate.

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So we'll go ahead and again you can see all the most recent ones. So again, um I'm going to use anton ladera opportunity, drawing od 361 as an example and then I'll take you through a live drawing which is going to open up tomorrow.

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Yeah, so you can see anton ladera all the information is here: it's it's there right, it's letting you know, but again remember I mentioned earlier that if you wanted to get more information on the units, there's this thing called the opportunity drawing notice.

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This is where you will find that document and then it's in english and spanish, which is nice, but also too you will see the information here. So you will see when the opportunity is released. You will see the deadline to enter the opportunity drawing which means you log into your myhousekeys account and enter the drawing.

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Okay, so you can see this opportunity it opened on july, 8th it cl the deadline to enter was july 19th, the final results, the ranking, the results of the lottery are going to be posted july 29th and then the deadline for everybody to submit a file is august 3rd by 5 p.m.

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So again, let me just show you back up. Give you a little tour. You will see the opportunity drawing notice right, which is here I'm going to click on that, and you should see a document come up.

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We're gonna, give it a sec.

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And if you see here right, it'll give you all the details of the unit. It'll, tell you how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms square footage, monthly rent amount, minimum and maximum household size, and it will also tell you what are the income minimum and maximums.

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Okay, so because this is a unit, that's for 50 to 80 of the area, meaning income right- that's telling you that the minimum income is 50, the maximum is 80.

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So for this particular opportunity, if you are a household of two, the minimum income is sixty. Seven thousand four hundred and the max is a hundred and five thousand four hundred.

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So again, this is a really good document that if you are interested in the opportunity right for you to review right, it tells you what floor the unit is on parking spaces. Is there an elevator? Do you need to get renters insurance if, if required, uh are utilities included? um Are the washer and dryer included in in this? So again, these are. These are items that that you can look up on the opportunity, drawing notes.

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Yeah so again, um so again, you want to definitely take a look at this. I will go back and we'll give it a second okay to go back. So I do I'm gonna preview this for those who are here um tomorrow, as of nine p.m. They're we're gonna, have a new opportunity drawing available for a two bedroom.

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I know the two bedrooms are popular, it is, would be at elon mountain v apartments and it is a two-bedroom two-bath.

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So just to let you guys know if you guys wanted to take the time to create your account tonight, so you can enter the opportunity drawing tomorrow night that that would.

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When you create your, my house keys account right, your mousepad, you will see all the different opportunity, drawings and it will tell you how many people have already registered.

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You can't you cannot see this, so you guys are lucky, I'm giving you a preview, because this this opens yeah it's a two bedroom, um two bedroom. We don't get a lot of two bedrooms and I know that there's a high demand for two beds right.

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And this is for elon.

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Yeah, this is for.

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50 to 80 of the area meetings.

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Okay, so um to submit your application and all of your supporting documents, let me go back and show you an example. So tomorrow there will be, if you're going to enter the new one 390 there will be uh opportunity, dry notices, uploaded they're, not they have not been uploaded today because it's not open it won't open until tomorrow night. um But if you look at 361, if you are looking to mail keep in mind, if you are looking to mail, uh you still have to create a my house case account and enter the opportunity drawing.

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But if you look at the opportunity drawing notice, let me pull that up um I'll leave the instructions up for a minute for you guys to print screenshot that talk about. If you would like to mail your your package right so.

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They can do one or the.

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Other they can, they can either upload or or submit by mail. So if you look here the opportunity right now notices file submission options. You upload using the in your myhousekeys account using the file cabinet feature or you can do it by mail. If you do it by mail, please remember to send copies of your documents. Do not send her.

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And again, these instructions are on every opportunity, drawing notice. So keep that in mind again, remember just a reminder: if you're going to mail in your documents, you still have to enter the opportunity drawing online.

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Unless they have a section voucher,.

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So keep in mind, you can only enter one opportunity drawing at a time. That's the first thing right, but if you are not selected for one opportunity, you can enter another opportunity right now, as it relates to the file to your file. Upload, um keep in mind that documents are good for 30 days. So I always tell people upload everything that you have and then update your pay stubs and your bank statements every time you enter an opportunity drive, so they have the most up-to-date information to qualify forever.

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Okay, so the question was of uh if the rent published is 2190, what is the price the tenant takes, and the answer is 2 19., uh the 2190 again, this is just for again. This is the. This is just an example right for anton ladera right. uh This is the below market rate price right. This is, if you look at the market rate for some of these um in in different projects, uh it's more than that, so this is already calculated out uh regarding the bmr price right. uh Keep in mind as well.

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Is that again, we've talked about it today the importance of going to research opportunities right, because if you were to go to look different projects may have different prices right um based on square footage when they were built. So if you look at something like the dean, the dean is, it's got uh studios and one bedrooms and those are for 50 and those are like 1 415, okay.

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So again, this is why it's really important for you, for, if you are looking into the bmr for you to go to the house case 13 website and look to see what are the opportunities.

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Let me go ahead and actually put up um the powerpoint with my contact information, so you guys can have that.

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Again, if you email or call me, I can uh send you the information for the detailed bmr informational calls.

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All right perfect, so thank you. Anna and anna.

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For giving a presentation on bmr, I know it's a very hot topic, so we really encourage you to write down uh anna.

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Email and contact her with any questions that you might have regarding how you apply. What documents do you need, and things like that, she's more than happy to help you um other than that. I just really want to say thank you for taking the.

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To learn a little bit about below market rate uh below market rate program. uh Thank you also for being patient with us. This is our very first hybrid meeting, so as we sort of put a club.

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Through it with.

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You all we really appreciate the practice that we get so that we can help people online and also help people in person. So thank you very much for letting us practice with you um always remember if you need an in-person help or online help and forgetting to learn like any of that.

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Is that if you ever need help either in person or online, please come out and see us at the housing and eviction help center? We are here in the library we're on the first floor program room. So if you walk into the library where, on to the right past the elevator in the bedroom.

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So we'll be here every first and third thursday of each month.

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All right, so that's all for us never be shy to reach up for help and we're always here to help you. So thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate it and we hope to see you all again soon.