Philadelphia City Council Committee on Intergenerational Affairs and Aging, 24 Mar 2021

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From YouTube: Committee on Intergenerational Affairs and Aging 3-24-2021

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The Committee on Intergenerational Affairs and Aging of the Council of the City of Philadelphia held a Public Hearing on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, at 2:00 PM, in a remote manner using Microsoft® Teams to hear testimony on the following items:

210091 Resolution authorizing the City Council Committee on Intergenerational Affairs and Aging to hold public hearings examining solutions to the ongoing housing crisis impacting senior Philadelphians.

A

Madam chair council, members and participants, we are now live.

B

Hello, everyone um we are at the hearing for intergenerational affairs and aging committee and I am going to uh meet requirements. I understand that the state law currently requires that the following announcement be made at the beginning of every remote public hearing as follows.

B

Due to the current public health emergency city council committee are currently meeting remotely, we are using microsoft teams to make these remote hearings possible instructions for how the public may view and offer public testimony at the public. Hearings of council committees are included in the public hearing, notices that are published in the daily news in choir and the legal intelligence here prior to the hearings and can also be found on phls council dot com.

B

I know now. I now know that the hour has come. Mr will you please call the rules and take attendance members that are in attendance. Please will please indicate that there are that they are present and when your name is called also, please say a few brief words when responding so that your image will be displayed on screen when you speak.

C

Council member heathen council member gim, I am present council member dom.

D

uh Good afternoon I'm sharing colleagues present.

C

Vice chair, greene.

E

C

Afternoon, madam chair good afternoon, colleagues, uh looking forward for uh engaging conversation.

B

Thank you, a quorum of the committee is present and his hearing is now called to order.

B

This is a public hearing of the committee on intergenerational affairs and aging regarding the resolution number two one: zero, zero, nine one miss store. Will you please read the title of the resolution.

C

A resolution authorizing the city council committee on intergenerational affairs and aging to hold public hearings examining solutions to the ongoing housing crisis impacting senior philadelphians.

F

Madam chair have a point.

C

Of information.

G

C

I'm asked true: I love the fact you're having a quite intergenerational uh committee hearing, so I just want to give you kudos for that. That doesn't often occur in our hearings and counsel. So thank you truly intergenerational. I can definitely relate.

B

I think I tried to put him asleep. It didn't work so well. This is where we are before we begin to hear the testimony from witnesses we have today. Everyone has been invited to the meeting, to testify should be aware that that this public hearing is being recorded, because the hearing is public participants and viewers have no reasonable expectation of privacy. If I continue to be in this meeting, you are consenting to being recorded additionally prior to being recognized prior to recognizing members for the questions or comments they have for witnesses.

B

I will note for the record that at this time that that we will use a chat to signify that they wish to be recognized in order to comply with the sunshine act. The chat feature must only be used for this purpose.

B

um I'll make a few um comments before we begin.

B

First, I would like to thank you all so much for being here today. As the chair of the committee on intergenerational affairs and aging, I am pleased to begin a new hearing series today on how the housing crisis is impacting seniors in philadelphia.

B

My hope for this committee is that it becomes an active engine for examining the issues impacting older adults and evaluating solutions that will ensure stable and affordable housing for every senior in philadelphia.

B

I also hope that this series of hearings will be a resources for senior philadelphians as they connect their struggles and share their experiences.

B

Dealing with housing issues like tangled titles or d fraud can be extremely isolated, and it is important for us to recognize that these are not isolated incidents, but trends city-wide that threaten our most vulnerable community members.

B

The covet 19 pandemic has been a painful reminder of the ways in which older adults are uniquely impacted in times of crisis, and it has made it clear that housing is a single most issue that comes when it comes to health, wellness and stability for aging populations.

B

As we work to address the housing crisis that has been building in our city for quite some time, it is critical that we be responsive to the specific needs of older adults and pursue long-term structural solutions to numerous challenges facing this population, while the majority of seniors in philadelphia own their homes, far too many are at risk of losing them across the city.

B

Many of our seniors rely on fixed incomes and are struggling to afford the rising housing costs and it, and it is the community that has been vote most impacted by the pandemic working class people, poor people, people of color, who too often bear the brunt of this crisis.

B

As we will hear today, these issues are intergenerational according to the philadelphia corporation for aging 206 000, elderly philadelphians are homeowners and 30 of these homes house more than one generation.

B

Therefore, issues related to home ownership, directly impact the transfer of wealth across generations, and when older, when, when older adult loses their home, disinvent threatens to destabilize and displace, not just a homeowner but generations of family members.

B

I am excited to have senior homeowners policy experts and senior serving organizations here today to focus on this issue. This is important to me not just on a policy level but on a personal level. So thank you to the members of the committee and to everyone who will be sharing their stories today.

B

I would also like to welcome council member katherine gilmore richardson. Thank you for joining us today, council member.

B

Thank you, madam chair I'll, be listening to the hearing, but I just wanted to log on in support of this very important issue. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. So much miss store. Will you please call the first panel. We have to testify this afternoon on resolution number two: one: zero, zero, nine one.

C

The first panel will be willa, may mccullough vanetta hammond, dr cora turpin, kenneth, jordan and anthony richardson.

C

So willa mae mccullough: are you connected and ready to testify.

H

Good afternoon my name is willa, may mccullough laster, I'm a member of 1pa, and I will be speaking about the gentrification and rising taxes for home owners. Thank you very much for providing an opportunity for me to testify. My family purchased a home in 2009.

H

At that time the taxes was 127.

H

Now it's almost up to 2 000.. How can this change when I'm in the same neighborhood as before? How are we supposed to afford to live in our neighborhoods when.

H

Oh, I want to know what city council intend to do about this.

H

The city is letting outside developers come into our neighborhoods and make changes. They are not allowing community to control development. Vicinity gives ordinance for developers that citizens don't have access to when we purchased our home. We wanted to make additions higher to add floors, and we were told that there was only restrictions when we wanted to invest in the land we weren't able to, but the developers were allowed to do whatever they wanted.

H

A lot of families in these neighborhoods do not have a sense of stability, and that is one of the reasons why there's so much fun guilty for the residents ability people feel like they moved and shifted at any.

H

um When people lose their homes, they lose the feeling that this is their state, that this is their city, that they have philadelphians.

H

The developers are offered tax abatements to start from scratch, and we tried to knock down this home so that we can have it as a multi-purpose home or a multi-family home instead of a single family. Now the developers have three houses that are multi uh residents and all the rest are single families and I'm really trying to understand how they were able to do it, and we weren't.

H

I think needs, I think things need to be fair and clear. We can't have one set of rules for residents and one for developers. We want residents to be available to invest in their community to make sure that they are able to stay in their neighborhoods and communities if people are displaced, how can any neighborhood have stability?

H

This is my community, my neighborhood, and I need to know that city council is doing their part to address and fix these issues.

H

B

Thank you, miss mccullough.

H

Yes, good afternoon, everyone thank you for having me my issue is.

B

Miss hammond, yes, can you please put your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

H

Name is vanetta, and my issue is trying to untangle a title.

H

I moved into my grandmother's house in 1980, I was living in an apartment and found out the building was in foreclosure, so I was in a hurry to find another place to live. When having his discussion with my mother about my situation, she told me that she and her sisters had just had a conversation about my grandmother's, need for a more accessible living space due to arthritis going up and down the stairs in her home had become.

B

H

Daily struggle, it was decided that my grandmother would move into a first floor apartment owned by a family member, and I would move into her home. The arrangement worked very well because my grandmother could still come home. She was able to come and spend weekends chat and catch up with her neighbors.

H

She was able to come to family dinners, holiday dinners, and I would have been that her home was still a gathering place for the thing I paid for all the repairs, maintenance, necessary updates and also the taxes.

H

Occasionally, I had issues with contractors who didn't want to take a job, because I wasn't the homeowner, so I had to shop around a little bit to get another contractor when the time came that some major repairs needed to be done. My grandmother and I discussed them and decided the best plan- was to add my name to the deed, so that I could get a home owner's.

B

H

Unfortunately, before we were able to begin that process, she felt ill and had to be hospitalized from the hospital she went directly into a nursing where she remained until her passing the family did not attempt to probate her estate. Because, honestly, we had no idea that it was necessary.

H

None of her children had an interest in selling her home. So I continued to maintain the house in the same manner for a total of 40 years.

H

I now need to do some major replays, including replacing my third heating system, but this time my heating system needs a complete overhaul for more and efficient and updated system in order to enter a contract for this job. I definitely need to be on the deed.

H

I am negotiating with five family members, two who have no problem with transferring the shares. Three four grandchildren are not yet agreeable.

H

So this house has been my home and my responsibility for 40 years. I have no desire to move.

H

Of course, I now have a sentimental attachment and also a financial investment, and last I like to say that when my grandmother migrated from the south in the 30s and eventually purchased her home, it was a part of her legacy.

H

She actually planted a tiny seed for generational wealth and years later entrusted me to carry on. So this is my task now and if the process could be made easier, it would be a big help to me and I'm sure, to a lot of other citizens in the city.

H

Thank you very much for having me.

B

Thank you so much miss hammond allison. Can you read your next panelist? Please.

C

Our next panelist is dr cora.

C

C

Dr turpin you're, you just need to unmute.

C

C

C

It looks like she's having trouble unmuting.

C

Hi, dr turpin, we can hear you now.

I

All right, I I'm con, I'm glad to be able to speak to you today again about the housing for senior citizens here in philadelphia.

I

I have been writing to my council daryl clark since september 2018, and as yet we haven't seen a real change in the policy that will allow the senior citizens to maintain their homes.

I

Now I'm mentioning 2018 by the way I live in northern liberty, so I have been through a lot of the gentrification that you're going through now, where homes have uh the property uh taxes and the costs have increased, almost 100 fold see in my neighborhood. They just sold the property for 1.4 million dollars.

I

Now, if I could have afforded that as a teacher in philadelphia public schools, I would have bought it, but our retirements cannot handle that.

I

There are a lot of issues that concern the senior citizens, many of which are around the fact that they have a home that avi gentrification of neighborhoods has increased the home value and the property taxes tremendously.

I

Like I said, I was almost up 100 times the continued taxation of older homeowners and not taxing the new homeowners who are making the salary to be able to pay. These taxes is very unjust. Even with the 10-year tax abatements, we have to wrestle with increased pico costs. Increased water costs increase gas costs. You can't stand home without those things now. These expenses are levied on elderly with fixed incomes, some who have been retired as long as I have, which is, I think now hitting around 30 years.

I

Our incomes are affected by escalating medical expenses, reduce uh investments on savings resulting from that 2008.

I

Bodies will no longer let us make. We got a higher body and reduced buying power.

I

I've been campaigning on this since uh 2019, I will say you did raise that ceiling for fixed real estate taxes from thirty one thousand five hundred to thirty five thousand five hundred. I think right now it's at seventy five thousand, which is almost meaningless. When you have a house in your area selling for 1.4 million dollars, the 250 000 loop benefit, it is has minimal effect, and people who were middle class, like you will be when you retire, are only eligible for any kind of support by using a scepter pass.

I

You get one free, and that is your benefit from working all your life and most of your utilities, like your water department, have eliminated any senior discount for any box now owning a house in philadelphia.

I

You do have green city issues in the neighborhood, where I am pha put up a beautiful housing complex with large yards at the end of the block, which also helped with you know, the greening keeping down the temperature, the drainage, but they are now allowing the developers to put up multi-billion dollar houses on those large yards at the end of the block so that they are now cementing us in parking issues are a problem. Your seniors can't walk these many blocks.

I

They have to walk if their parking in front of their house is taken by the younger people who have two or three cars and I'm glad to say that they have finally tried to open some parking on 7th street between fairmount and poplar, that that is a little progress. I appreciate it also the solar energy, which would help us to meet some of the expenses by reducing our electrical costs, are not yet in the affordable zone for our senior citizens.

I

uh I would also like to mention that there are other people. I know that this is just the first hearing and there are other people that have been working hard on these issues. Over the years. One is diane davis of the 14th ward. You have the stadium, stompers and there's uh miss uh shakunga who's in southwest philadelphia.

I

If you're having these issues, because this affects everybody all over the city, perhaps they also should be included in some of the this. These hearings. uh They were at other hearings. They have been testifying before council for several years and I would certainly hope to see some progress in providing fixed real estate people uh real estate rates for people over 65, even though I've been told that this state will not allow it.

I

Council has been ingenious in finding ways to allow developers and the rich to get tax breaks, and I'm hoping that some of that genius will flow to us working or uh retired people who worked in philadelphia, so we can keep our homes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

C

Thank you so much dr turkey say who's up next. Our next witness is anthony richardson.

C

Mr richardson, if you're there can you state your name and proceed with your.

C

Testimony, I'm not sure mr richardson are you there. It looks like his team's icon is lighting up.

C

Okay, we will come back to mr richardson, um and now we can go to kenneth jordan, who's being shared by david jonas from the senior law center.

F

Good afternoon uh my name is dave, jonas, I'm an attorney with senior law center as a store said, and I'm reading uh the statement of kenneth jordan, a client of ours good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is kenneth, jordan, I'm in my late 60s. I grew up here and I've lived my adult life in philadelphia since 1999..

F

Thank you for the chance to tell what was going on with my home in 2018 and how things turned out for me are still turning out for me through my work with senior law center and the other philly programs that senior law has connected me with over and over. They have made sure that I can continue to be safe and secure.

F

In my home, my mother and I were always grateful for what councilwoman, blackwell and representative mcclinton had done for our neighborhood in the past and I'm glad for what council members got there brooks, and everyone is working to do now to keep philadelphians like me, safe in our homes. No matter what happens, I plan to give this testimony by video, but I'm still recovering from emergency hospitalization this past week, so dave from senior law agreed to read this.

F

For me, I want to point out that I'm able to recuperate in my own home without extra help because of what my mother, mary and jordan, did during her life and what the team of senior law center helped me with. After my mother, passed in 2017.

F

at almost 85 years old, my mother bought the home she had rented for years on south hurst street. My mother worked hard, her whole life and she took good care of her home her way when she. Finally, let me I moved in with her to help her with basic chores, because she had given so much to me throughout my life. It wasn't always easy for her. It means a lot to be able to handle your own affairs in her early 90s.

F

My mother was still as sharp as ever and she knew she needed a power of attorney and a living will we tried to get help from a couple of lawyers and legal aid offices, but they didn't have resources to help or we couldn't afford their prices when she finally passed in her late 90s, she still didn't have a will. I started to handle her affairs on my own. I knew that medicaid estate recovery could take my mother's home, my own home for so many years.

F

Unless I got a waiver with suggestions from state representative mcclinton's office, I was able to submit basic paperwork for the waiver on my own, but after that I'm definitely glad senior law center was there to help margarita and beth at senior law center, made everything as easy for me to handle as possible with their advice and representation. I submitted additional documents and department of human services approved me to keep my home next senior law. Helped me become administrator of my mother's estate.

F

They advocated for me with the tangled title fund, which paid two thousand five hundred dollars towards required fees and with the water department, help loan that my mother had needed for emergency repairs.

F

Senior law center helped me record a deed to put my home in my name and work with the recorder's office, so I would not need to pay extra fees or transfer taxes.

F

Margarita made sure I enrolled in all the property tax programs that would help me keep my home, affordable between the homestead exemption, senior tax, freeze and state property tax rebate. My property taxes are completely taken care of margarita and beth connected me with clarify and phdc. So I could get emergency structural repairs to make my home safe and they advised me how to communicate directly with l I to prevent any fines. I wouldn't be able to pay even this month.

F

Just before I went to the hospital my heat and hot water stopped working and margarita helped me work with the basic systems, repair program and clarifies restore repair and renew program to get my furnace working again within a few days without their help. I might not have had a warm and safe home to recuperate in today now I'm signed up to have senior law center and volunteer attorneys from top firms. Help me draft my own will and medical planning documents at no cost to me that way in the future.

F

My family can take care of things on their own too. It sure is easier to handle things on my own, when I have a whole team on my side. I know senior law center will be there for me. If I need anything else, margarita beth and everyone know how to put all the pieces together to help me get all the help and protection that philly offers. This week I enrolled in water department's tap program and the adaptive repair program is coming to assess my home today.

F

Many many philadelphia seniors like me need help to keep their homes their families, home, safe and in the family, senior law center and other allies provide that help and more without them. I don't know where I'd be literally. Thank you.

B

Thank you for that. Testimony.

C

We can try again anthony richardson. Are you able to.

C

J

Anthony we have to uh press on star.

C

C

He keeps lighting up with that purplery.

C

I don't know if it's modesto doesn't make sense for him to hang up and we can try to call him back.

C

It looks like he's unmuted, but no sound is coming through.

C

Right, we could do that. Okay, mr richardson, if you're able to hang up, we will give you a call back and we'll put you on as soon as you're back on.

C

Okay. That concludes the first panel.

B

Are there any questions or comments from members of the committee for the first panel.

B

There being none, mr will you please call the next panel to testify on this bill.

C

Next panel is tracy, gordon james, leonard and kimberly.

C

E

Good afternoon, hello, council members, how y'all doing thank you all for inviting me and my team. Thank you all for taking us talking about these important issues. I'm registered will's tracy gordon. We are very excited to come. Talk to you about our new probate deferment initiative, pdi. For short, it is our sincerest hope that this new initiative can help philadelphians untangle their title for free and stay in their homes, because for almost everyone in philly, the most affordable house is the one you're currently living in.

E

We have a tangled title crisis. More than 14 000 philly homes are in the name of a dead person, usually a deceased parent or grandparent.

E

If you are living in a tangled title, you cannot do legal things with the house. You can't negotiate with the bank about the mortgage. You can't qualify for the basic system, repair system, you can't get fema assistant, you can't pay the back taxes.

E

You can't do anything with it. You're almost like a swatter. You can't even sell the property as the registered wills, an elected official. I have an obligation to help protect philadelphia's generational wealth to help families stay in their home. That's why we created the probate deferment initiative.

E

We are working with commissioner, jim leonard at the recorder d's office and with local legal aid groups to get philadelphians the help they need desperately need. We are waiving and deferring fees that are associated with untangling a title. Each tangled title is different and complicated. Yeah. That's why we are helping people get the free legal representation.

E

They need to fix their deed. A row home is for most people, the largest asset they have and the biggest piece of their family generational wealth. We need to do more to keep communities together by helping keep people in their homes. 14 000 properties are in a tangled title, 14 000 here in philly. This is a crisis.

E

We, as a city, are losing millions of dollars in dead capital, while people are losing their homes, their family homes, predominantly in black and gentrifying neighborhoods. We have to do more to help educate people about the resources available.

E

More often than not, these homes are tangled because they are in the name of a dead relative because they did not leave a proper will. On top of the tango title crisis, we have a racial estate planning gap. Making this worse.

E

Did you all know that 65 of white families have a will, but only 23 of black families.

E

And in college in college educated families, the numbers are no better 75 percent of white college educated families have a will versus 33 of college educated black families. We can't afford to avoid these conversations about estate planning and generational wealth.

E

The bottom line is this: the city benefits financially by having these titles untangled. Not only does the family resolve a major issue, but this helps the city and state generate revenue when a title is untangled, we resume collecting property taxes and the state gets its inheritance tax.

E

These tango titles are not generating wealth for families, the city or the state. It's just locked up in dead capital or as dead capital. Not only that these tango titles often create blight, they can become vacant, they can lower property values and the quality of life in neighborhoods across philadelphia.

E

If we can just get 15 of the 14 000 tango titles resolved, we can generate an additional 4.5 million in just inheritance tax alone. With city real estate tax. We can collect almost 1.5 million from the 2100 units per year.

E

That's with an average property value of 50 000, which is very low. A very low average, so the money would be much much more. Currently, we are in talks with the pew charitable trust to help us identify the hardest hit areas in philadelphia. When that information becomes available, I would be happy to share them with you.

E

This tango crisis has been going on for decades. It won't be fixed overnight. It can't be fixed overnight, but we can take positive steps now here today to turn the tide. If the committee is curious about how to help the probate deferment initiative, I have a suggestion.

E

Council could allocate a small financial incentive to those that are helping part tango title they resolve. It doesn't have to be a lot most of the lawyers. Helping are doing this pro bono, but every little bit helps us incentivize attorneys to help.

E

So thank you again for inviting me and my team to talk about the probate deferment initiative and how it can help people in philadelphia untangle their title and get the legal help they need. Please follow us on social media at hashtag p-h-l-r-o-w.

E

We are on all major platforms. We have lots of content on this and other generational wealth issues. We are on facebook tip top youtube. uh We have a website, we have uh linkedin and we have uh every thursday we give a financial literacy um program from six to seven. You can follow us on those social media uh websites uh to see the information that we're giving out uh for the city of philadelphia.

E

B

Thank you so much. uh I think I need to get a tick-tock, I'm like we need to step up our game. Yeah.

E

Yeah we got tic tac, we're just getting ready to put some things on there. uh We all over instagram um this message of uh estate planning uh and protecting generational wealth is long overdue and we have some exciting programs, that's coming up, and um it is it's just wonderful what we're doing with this pdi. This is a signature program for my administration.

E

We worked very hard uh on this program and we have stepped up to the plate and deferred the fees and partnered with commissioner leonard who's waiving the fees. So we have done uh uh what we promised to do.

B

um I think we're gonna finish this panel and then ask questions at the end of this panel, but thank you so much for sharing.

E

Thank you for um the invite.

C

I think mr richardson is connected. Mr richardson, are you there.

K

C

Can you state your name and proceed with money? Please.

K

Yes, my name is anthony richardson and I am here to talk about entangled mortgages, which I just heard just previously, but I thank you for the invite- um and I just kind of wanted to say that um a lot of times, as we heard previously, you don't even know you're in an entangled and then a tangled mortgage until someone passes on then my wife. We had bought our property in 2006 and through some hardships and some things we had to do something to refinance, but she passed on in 2016.

K

and I lost my job and I filed for a hardship, uh a hardship with the mortgage company just to get a modification uh because her social security kicked in and it would have, you know, satisfied the monthly payment of the mortgage, but for some reason they wouldn't. Let me do it because my name was not on the mortgage now.

K

I did not know that, of course, from the start of this whole thing, the start of the mortgage- um my name has always been on there, but when we refinanced they took my name off because she had a better credit rating than I did. But I really I thought my name was still on the mortgage, so anyway long story short um when she passed on and I fell into a hardship and I wanted to get a modification.

K

They would not give me any information, they would not.

K

Let me do anything because I was not on the title, so it took me two and a half years, two and a half years to get to the to become the administrator of the property and to get everything in my name and I'm here to say today that if we can quicken that process, what I mean by quicken it if we can have something in place that people can go right to, as we heard early on, get the legal help find out places to go, because I had to do all of this step by step individually, not knowing where to go, not doing anything.

K

But then I went to terrell parker's office, councilman parker and she began to direct me into places to go. uh uh I had my pastor was a realtor, so he helped me with the paperwork and writing out my um my um my uh hardship papers and different things, and for two and a half years I went back and forth with the mortgage company to uh to get me a new mortgage, and I praise god that I did in 2020.

K

I did in 2020 june of 2020. I did get a new mortgage, but in all that time I was creating back payment bills that was going to have to be paid.

K

So I'm saying I'm just here today to say: if we can come up with some kind of guideline, some kind of format that when somebody gets in a hardship situation that they can, they can go right to get everything they need everywhere. They need to go, get the legal help that they need just to represent them, because, as I did get legal help in the end it seemed like the mortgage company took more. You know to more awareness of who I was or what was going on with me.

K

You know when you're talking to illegal people with legal people, it's a whole lot of it's different.

K

So I'm just here to ask if there can be some kind of format that when somebody gets in trouble that they can go right there, they don't have to run all the way around everything, except for maybe get their own paperwork together that they can get the legal representation that they need. I know they're the senior citizens, legal and all of that, but I didn't find that out until almost a year or two years into me fighting this battle alone.

K

So as seniors, you know- I I know, there's a whole lot of stuff on facebook and there's a whole lot of stuff on instagram and things like that. But most seniors that are 65 or older, don't even know how to get.

G

K

Or don't even know how to do facebook so that community, centers and and uh uh community offices should have something that they can and when person walks in there say. Yes, we can help you, you know. uh I know there are some around but readily they need to be readily available visible for people in health, especially at times like this. I know people are in very dire need right about now and a whole lot of them. Don't know where to go or where to start so look.

K

I thank you for inviting me um to hear my testimony. um I'm just here to say help us as seniors. Please. We need to help uh we're not astute as a whole lot of people a lot of younger people we're not as astute so we need somebody to speak and talk and act for us on our behalf. Thank you.

C

Thank you so much for your testimony. The next witness is james.

D

D

E

James, uh if you log off and log back on that, should help you log off and log back on me now. No, we can't hear you. Oh.

E

L

B

First, please state your name.

L

Thank you good morning, chairperson, brooks and committee members, I'm james leonard commissioner of the department of records, thank you for inviting me to testify today concerning tangled title and deed fraud and how those issues relate to the housing crisis affecting senior philadelphians.

L

I'm joined by nora, dowd eisenhower, executive director of the mayor's commission on aging david, thomas of the philadelphia housing development corporation, melissa, long director of the division of housing and community development and rebecca lopez. Chris deputy commissioner of the department of revenue, philadelphia seniors, are a diverse and culturally vibrant part of our neighborhoods and many live with family and loved ones.

L

In multi-generational homes we are home to the largest percentage of seniors and poorest overall population among the top 10 american cities, approximately 300 000, older persons, 60 and up live in philadelphia, which accounts for about 19 percent of the city's population.

L

Almost all of these older adults live in the community versus an institutional setting locally nationally and globally. People are living longer and the trend shows no sign of changing, despite the impact of losses from the pandemic.

L

Tangled title and deed fraud are two issues confronting philadelphia. Homeowners generally and have a disproportionate impact on seniors tangled title most frequently occurs where a person lives in a home and considers themselves a homeowner, but their name is not on the deed. It's estimated, as the register said that there are approximately 14 000 tangled titles in philadelphia.

L

These prevent you from exercising many basic rates of home home ownership, as you've heard, taking out a home equity loan or modifying a mortgage qualifying for city programs like the restore renew and repair program and the basic system repair program, to name just a few.

L

One of the starkest examples of tangled title occurs when there is no estate planning and estates are not probated. As the register indicated, these issues directly affect seniors and their heirs and the transfer of generational wealth, which often resides in the family home.

L

To address this crisis, the city has supported philadelphia, vip since 2003 to help over two thousand tangled title clients, almost half of whom are seniors. Additionally, as the register indicated, the records department has partnered with register of wills, who recently began her probate deferment initiative, because the last step in untangling title is often recording a deed. In my office, the records department has agreed to waive its deed, recording fees for participants in the registers program, a savings of up to almost 260 dollars for each deed.

L

This program has the opportunity to make a dramatic impact on the tangled title crisis and generational wealth of seniors in their heirs. I applaud registered gordon for her creativity and initiative and welcome your assistance in raising awareness of these options.

L

Another threat to our seniors housing security is deed fraud.

L

Deep fraud is a form of tangled title where a fraudster forges the owner's name on a deed records, a deed in our office and steals the property writing this devastating criminal act requires costly court action which can take years while detecting this crime at the recorder's office can be extremely difficult. Our department has collaborated for the past few years, with the philadelphia bar association's fraudulent conveyance task force to implement a number of reforms for homeowners.

L

We released in 2018 a website philadelphia, deed, hyphen fraud, which provides to victims resources to victims. We also offer a free service called fraud guard on our website, where people can register to receive email notices. If a document is recorded in our office with their name in it, users can click a link to view the document to determine if it is fraudulent.

L

This can enable people to discover potential fraud faster and take swifter action to remedy it. In the coming months, we will expand fraud guard to include notices to notaries. We know that notaries identities are often stolen as part of a fraud.

L

We continue to improve our information sharing process with law enforcement as well to insist in their investigations. There is some good news, deep fraud reports to our office, we're down by approximately two-thirds in 2020 versus 2019.

L

It is possible that this reduction is coveted, related, we'll need a full year without covert to determine if there is a true downward trend. The final issue we're here to discuss today is gentrification.

L

While this me does mean investment in economically undeserved, underserved excuse me, neighborhoods. There can be negative consequences for for vulnerable populations like seniors.

L

One major issue is the sudden and steep rise in housing cost to support aging in place and prevent the displacement of seniors from their neighborhoods. The city has property tax relief programs such as the low income, senior citizen tax, freeze, installment agreement and the owner occupied payment agreement. The senior freeze program protects eligible seniors by freezing the property tax paid by enrollees to be enrolled. Seniors must fall under age and income guidelines set by the commonwealth of pennsylvania.

L

Even if an enrolled, seniors property assessment or tax rate rises, they do not have to pay a higher bill. As of december 2020. There are eighteen thousand one hundred and sixty five seniors enrolled in that program with an annual savings of six point, two million the dollars agreement allows all senior citizens to pay their property taxes and monthly. Installments residents are automatically enrolled from one year to the next, and there are approximately 15 000 taxpayers enrolled in the program as of june 2020.

L

If a senior resident cannot make the terms of an installment agreement, they can always under occupy payment agreement which allows homeowners to make affordable monthly payments on their property taxes. Some low-income seniors can have all future property taxes included in their agreement at the onset and may be eligible for agreements with zero dollar minimum monthly payments.

L

As of december 2020, there are about nine thousand nine hundred and twenty enrollees in the program with over 130.2 million dollars under agreement. While these programs protect senior philadelphians, I'm sure there are more ways we can help. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to working with council and advocates to support philadelphia's older homeowners.

L

C

Thank you for your testimony. The story, can you our final witness is kimberly.

M

Essek good afternoon, my name is kimberly: essick, I'm an assistant district attorney at the philadelphia district attorney's office and I'm currently the assistant supervisor of the economic crimes unit. Thank you for having me testify today with regard to our role in how to assist the seniors in situations regarding housing issues and deed fraud. When the d.a came in um to the office he's, he wanted to make prosecuting deed fraud cases a priority, so we were tasked.

M

With some very significant goals of changing the dynamic of the organizations that we dealt with in order to prosecute these crimes, because there's only so much that the district attorney's office can do as we get the cases after everything has already happened. So we can't actually prevent the crimes. All that we can do is look at what we're seeing and work with other organizations in order to spot some cracks in the systems and see what could be done better along the way to ensure that it isn't so easy to transfer a house fraudulently in philadelphia.

M

So the first thing that we set out to do was to engage the philadelphia police department in training, and we set up some training programs to assist detectives. Who may not um be that familiar with pros or investigating deep fraud cases and giving them the assistance that they need. In order to do so, we've prepared pretty much a playbook of how to go about investigating the the fraud case and not just telling everyone that it's a civil matter and go to court in civil court to rectify the problem.

M

It is a civil matter and it must be dealt with with quiet title actions, as has been testified to already today, but um we also can handle the cases criminally, so we devised the training uh to which another sergeant in the office, and I myself would go to the philadelphia police academy and train the detectives there.

M

We also came up with a program for the lawyers um in the office in a cle in order to educate them with regard to issues with deep fraud and how to prosecute those cases, and we invited commissioner leonard to join us to to do that which he was gracious enough to do. We also wanted to engage more with city council, so we have been invited more than once now to come and testify.

M

We have placed ourselves on task forces in order to deal with these issues. um We have we look to the uh to the law center to see if there's anything that can be done with regard to tangle title, so that we wouldn't have to keep pushing everyone to spend the money to file the quiet title action. Unfortunately, as you all may know, at this point, once a property has been transferred and flipped, then there's nothing we we can do um after that. It must go through the quiet title action process.

M

So we were, our hope was that more organizations would step up in order to offer legal services in order to help citizens deal with those issues, because one of the big problems we have is when people report the crime to the district attorney's office, they think our prosecuting the case will fix the title, and we can't do that.

M

um So that must happen in the civil realm so, um but we also wanted to emphasize a collaborative effort with the recorder of these office with figuring out ways to stop the problem before the d gets filed, because once that d gets filed, that's there's nothing. You can do besides, take it to court and take it to the civil action through the quiet, title action so working with commissioner leonard's office, we went through the system and brainstormed some ways to make it work better, and the commissioners has done a fantastic job doing that.

M

With regard to the information that you have with philadox and in working with us in order to help our investigations along so that we can spot the perpetrators faster than we were able to before, I'm not going to say too much about that, because I don't like to reveal our trade secrets and our investigation procedures. But we are working together and this collaboration has helped us tremendously and just in the past year, in identifying people so much quicker than we would have ever been able to.

M

Sometimes it would take us two to three years before we would learn about a string of houses that had been stolen because a notary stamp had been stolen and they didn't know until they got sued, that their stamp was even out there being used fraudulently. Now I'm.

M

I can speak to one example where we just had a notary contact us, because one of the things that commissioner leonard had put out there when he was talking about updates to the system and signing on the fraud guard and he's brought it up at the task force meetings is that we want notaries to be able to police themselves as well and sign onto the system and just see is anyone filing anything in my name it doesn't belong, and just last week I had a notary contact us um and whereas before it would have taken two years she would have gotten sued and then we would have been grasping at straws to figure out how how often her stamp had been used over the last two years she went on and was able to look up herself and see all the deeds that had been filed in her name that she did not do so.

M

We were making a great progress on that score with regard to dealing with the seniors. What we see the most with defraud is either the senior is deceased and their house is open and no one did get probate. The estate and it's left either abandoned or the family doesn't come forward because they can't afford the taxes and they're afraid the back taxes. So someone else swoops in steals.

M

The property gets a quick payout flips it again, and then they walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars that should really be going to the family and if the family had only known if they could have negotiated something for the taxes, they would be getting that windfall, because you want these neighborhoods to be developing. But you want them to be developing fairly and with the people in the community who have the right to do that with their family home that they should have been entitled to. um So we we see that a lot.

M

We also see where a senior goes and has to go into the hospital or to a nursing home and their house is left vacant for a while and that's when someone else swoops in flips it they don't even know they come home and their house is gone.

M

And then you also have the senior where it's someone that they know who has come in and befriended them and convinced them, not with the best of intentions or properly to transfer this property over to them, and they didn't know what they were doing and they, though they tell them a lie about why they need to put the property in their name or they give them power of attorney, but not to take away all their assets and their properties. And these people do that. So these are the the biggest problems we see.

M

With regard to seniors, um I have uh ada alex blumenthal. He is here with us today as well, because when the d.a, when district attorney krasner came in, he wanted to continue a program that really hadn't gotten off the ground.

M

So much of having a special, wise d.a, who would deal specifically with elder abuse cases and alex volunteered, for it, has been doing a phenomenal job with that in being the go-to d.a to to take these cases out of the trial division with the thousands of other cases and to give them the special attention they deserve, um so that he can help the seniors by looking for programs and working with the organizations in order to get them the resources they need when the cases come to us.

M

So I look forward to continue working with everyone here today in order to find ways to better serve the community and better serve these elders, because they really do need our help. Thank you.

B

Thank you so much for your testimony. Allison is that the end of this panel.

C

Yes, that's the last panelist for the second panel.

B

I have a few questions and then I'll open it up to my council colleagues to ask questions if they have me. My first question is for registered gordon I'm interested in learning more about your offices. Post pandemic outreach efforts um like to houses of worship, block parties and rec centers and other gathering places to connect people um about the importance of having the will and estate.

B

And what outreach are you planning and what would it take for our office to do more for your office to do more outreach.

E

Thank you well, considering the pandemic, um we had to revolutionize the way we do outreach um our office closed down just for three weeks uh after the pandemic, so we were back open, open, virtually uh pretty much three weeks after the shutdown, so we were back open like april 7th and we started uh uh uh outreach department in july and with any every intention for those outreach ambassadors to go out to meetings, but because of the pandemics, especially for seniors.

E

You know we had to do it remotely, and so I started a unit with two outreach uh ambassadors, a communications director and I have legal staff on board to guide us on everything, legal and so what we started doing was, and that was a good question. He said you know uh the former of the uh senior that testified saying that you know seniors are not on social media.

E

So it's hard to really you know, get to them, but what we did was I took we took and put together a curriculum and we trained every council person and every state elected official in the county of philadelphia and some others that are outside our county on everything that we do at the registrar of wills, and we made sure that you all were equipped with understanding every single office from the probate to the inheritance act department to the short certificate department to the marriage department and we trained your staff so that it would make it easier for you to connect with your constituents, because, firstly, most people don't know that the registrar was exist.

E

They're going to come to you. So the first thing I did was train you. So when they came to you, you would know how to get in touch with us. Since then we have uh held a webinar uh for the past four or five months, every thursday night um on all social media outlets.

E

um We made sure that you always equip with every flyer every uh phone number that they needed uh to even inquire about the entangled title issue as well, as we made sure that you all had electric and physical files of every um uh every phone number that they needed just this last week we not only uh uh created a answering machine uh that will even link the registered residents of philadelphia to commissioner lina's office, because people think the recorder of these is my office.

E

They were coming to us asking for these saying that we're not- and we uh commissioner lyndon- and I we did- we did a webinar and we just went over distinctly of what we do and what he do and distinction between us. So the amazing thing is to train all the elected officials. We train mostly all the cdc's. We change all the next, because you are the frontline people that the seniors come to. So, if you all didn't know, it would be hard.

E

So since then, we have connected with thousands of um see thousands of constituents in the city of philadelphia and we are ready and prepared to do uh uh on site as soon as um you know, I guess everybody takes this uh vaccine, and so uh we we're doing the best we can, but I think the fact is educating you all on. You know how to respond to your uh constituency is helping all of us.

B

Thank you. That's really great information and I'm really interested in continue to do that. Work between our office um and I think we can speak to areas that are most impacted because of our constituent services and folks are reaching out to us in our office. With some of these same issues, I also want to acknowledge that 14 000, tangled titles is a very high number.

B

um This is a huge issue in the city, um and you know the racial estate planning debt that you described is also really alarming. um It's something that we've heard um but to hear the numbers and the data helps put the size of this issue in perspective. So you know thank you for your continued work on that and we will stay connected because that's definitely problematic.

B

um I have another question about the fee: deferral for unrepresented people unrepresented people, um it's my understanding that the probate fee deferral is currently only available to people represented by an attorney, but there is an intent to extend that deferral to folks who are representing themselves. Do you have any sense of when the fee deferral might be available to people? That's not represented by an attorney?

B

E

Right now we're running the pilot and um it's very uh tedious and technical to untangle a title. You need legal uh uh attorneys to assist because the registered wills we we don't give out legal advice. We can't you know, as far as you know how to um probate this state.

E

So it's real paper intensive, and so uh we offered this for low and middle income uh residents of philadelphia and as a pilot uh we are requiring that uh attorneys that you know are educated and untangling entitled uh uh may be matched with these families so that the process will be seamless because it is a really technical.

E

um Some of these estates go back 20 or 30 years, so they're going to have to open up more than one estate, so you really need an attorney to invest and, and- and- and you know in this assistance- that's why we had send out a request. We partnered with vip to see if we can get volunteer attorneys and hopefully you all in the budget. Maybe we can give them incentivize attorneys by giving them some sort of stipend um sharon. Did I miss anything else? um Is concerning um the seniors?

E

No, you did very well.

I

But could I also let the council know just by way of example? uh My name is sharon wilson, I'm the solicitor for the for the register of wills in this pdi process. Often, as the register mentioned, you have to open up multiple estates to decide which estates to open. You need somebody, that's applying the law to the situation, that's what an attorney would do. We're not allowed to provide legal uh advice at any given time. The register may have to settle a legal dispute, so she can't give out legal advice.

I

Then, after you know, when to open up the estate, you have to make a determination as to who is the appropriate heirs, and you make that determination by looking at the intestate statute, another opportunity where you have to interpret law. Often you have to go in the legal department of the registered wills and file a petition. That's normally performed by an attorney. We do a good job with assisting lay people, but there's a difference between when a lay person files, a petition and when an attorney files one at the end of this process.

I

If everything goes, you know well, there'll be a deed to be drafted, and sometimes, if there's multiple errors, the deed isn't as easy as it might be. Otherwise the deed may contain fractional ownership shares so there's multiple times at which a lay person could get confused and get frustrated, we're not trying to make it harder. We we're trying to take this complicated process and make it easy. That's why we recruited so we recruited the non-profit legal organizations to assist us, so we can say here, here's an attorney that will help you and of those organizations.

I

We've been helpful that we've been blessed to have that collaboration, one of the organizations christian legal services has really stepped up, um and so we have some people in our pipeline and as the register mentioned, this is a pilot program. It started in april, but we have a lot of steps to go through and we are continually revisiting it to.

I

See, we uh uh add, you know non-attorney representation, but we're not there yet councilman or woman. I'm sorry.

B

Thank you. Thank you for that information and and thank you for sharing.

E

That's one of the reasons why I put her on as a solicitor she has decades of experience uh with estate planning and- and just you know, all around um educated on on.

E

You know the crisis that we are facing here I mean we need to really release a councilwoman think about when we, when transfer titles transfer or people buy homes, they need to get information about the importance of making a will and we need to file some legislation to say that when they transfer property in philadelphia, they need to get a brochure to explain to them. The importance of you know getting that protection that, like it, I always use this example. When you get a new car, you get car insurance.

E

When you buy a house, you get homeowners insurance with disability insurance. What insurance are you going to get that your generational wealth is going to be protected? That insurance is called a will. People are not educated. I just gave you the statistics and I'm talking about people that are college graduates, particularly uh uh uh black americans, here in philadelphia who stand to lose the most and people are just simply not educated on. You know just the thought of making a will once they um and her um not even inherit the asset, but they did they.

E

um They they inherit and earn assets they just it's just not it's not a thought problem. It's not in schools. There's no financial literacy in schools, there's no financial literacy, basic financial literacy, even in colleges, because I just gave you the stat, that the college educated students aren't even aware of making wells within the next 25 years. Kendra 68 trillion dollars of wealth is going to transfer from one generation to the next.

E

The baby boomers to the uh millennials.

E

The baby boomers are not prepared because they don't have the wills. The millennials are not prepared because they don't understand the process of you know what to do. When someone dies they're relying on the funeral director to tell them what to do when somebody dies without a will or they're relying on you they're calling your office, I get phone calls from council people and state reps all the time. Simply because people don't know the next step. We all have to educate people.

E

We have to just make this uh a topic because we are losing a lot of family homes, because we are simply not uh educated and that's the the the biggest initiative that I had is. uh The thing is creating an outreach unit.

E

B

You so much man of register. um My next um questions are for commissioner winner. You mentioned fordguard, um and that sounds like a really valuable services. How many people are currently registered for the service.

L

Thank you for that question. Council person, uh not as many as I would like. um We've done a lot of outreach and we continue to do outreach with um uh registered gordon who's, invited me along a number of um of her presentations. um But at this point I would say, between 1300 and 1400, it's been out since late 2018., it's very simple to sign up. If you have it, I mean the gift of internet access. But if you have access you can go on to our website.

L

You put in your email address and your first and last name and your register and you'll get an email if james leonard transfers, my may transfers property or, as has trent property transferred to me within about two weeks to 30 days, I would get an email with a link that says a document was recorded with your name on it.

L

I can click on it, see it and say whether it's valid or not, and then get people to our office to file a report and um and then we direct them to resources like the police, department, um da's office and our community legal partners, um because, as the da explained and others explained, there does have to be court action to remedy this, um but yeah I mean there's still more work to do to get the word out. I think we were doing a lot of pre-pandemic.

L

I was making I've made a lot of appearances places that you know slowed down. While we continue to do virtual um one of the things I'm hopeful to start up on um is when everything's, you know back with where we're in person more is I had a partnership set up with the free library where they were going to have me and our staff do presentations at branches um to educate people about um about deep fraud that could just as easily be about tangled title. um I think those are you know.

L

It's certainly a forum where those two things can be talked about.

B

Do you have a goal on a number that you would like to have people signed up um over the next couple of years or, like I'm thinking in terms of like capacity and.

L

Well, there's no, the sky's the limit, um because there's no staff, there's no limit in terms of we could have as many people who own a home could sign up because there's no staff involvement, um it's completely 100 automated the sign up is automated. My staff never touches any of this. The people sign up and the notices are processed through it's a service through our recording document, recording vendor that we purchased and set up. So this happens. 100 automated behind the scenes with no staff or resources involved.

B

um Is there anything the council can do to help you with this or to help get people signed up.

L

You know I always tell, and I've said the register I mean any. We already our department goes to not just me, but our staff is wonderful. Our recording staff and experts in-house participate in many of your all of your, your colleagues community forums, um and we have for many years, and we also partner with a variety of non-profits, to do um uh uh appearances like right now or especially at a nonprofit called, let's see if we can help um who we uh appear with probably a half dozen times a year or more.

L

At this point, um so the more you all are willing to get us out there to talk to people, including me, I'm happy to do that, and we also as like the register. We have materials that we can share. um That can help direct people to resources.

B

And you talk, I'm thinking about red flags like when it comes to deep fraud. What are some of the red flags that are out there and is there a way for us to use the system to identify red flags in the recording process.

L

Yeah, that's a great question and it's one of the things that makes it difficult is that you're dealing with a lot of times completely forged documents. So when we're looking at our examiners or our document, examiners are reviewing a document and we do that in accordance with state law requirements.

L

um It's very hard to tell for you can't a notary whose identity has been stolen. You you're, looking at. Even if we look up a notary, we could see that it's a real notary and the person's also they forged the notary's name and they've also duped their. They forged their stamp. So it's actually the exact stamp that the notary of the real notary would use.

L

um So you have the the sellers, the owner's signature which is forged, and then you have a phony notary, who's, impersonating, a real notary, um verifying, falsely that the the person actually signed the deed.

L

um You know one of the things we're talking with the we've been in talks with the state about is getting access to a database um from the department of health uh of running access to their database of deceased people in the city, because we know that many times, as I think um ada essex uh explained, this is happening with deceased people um where their houses are empty.

L

So one of our ideas is if we can get access to this database, and we would have our examiners check at the time of recording whether the um the owner or what we call the grantor is.

L

Actually a lot was alive at the time the deed says it was signed because many times the the seller, the quote seller, the da's office will find out we'll find out years later was dead five or ten years before this phony deed was even signed, and if we can figure that out at the counter through access to a database like this, then we think we can that's an opportunity to prevent the thing from even getting on the record. And if you prevent it from getting on the record, then you then there's it doesn't happen.

L

The fraud didn't happen and that people don't have to incur a tremendous cost and uh and also just the tremendous like a devastating um loss.

B

Thank you for that. My next question um is for registered board or commissioner, it's about accessibility.

B

I'd like to learn more about what your office has learned about: accessibility during the pandemic and what has been more difficult for citizens to navigate during the pandemic and has anything been made more accessible and are there some permanent changes that you're contemplating going forward.

E

Oh definitely um uh scheduling appointments, we're keeping that that is making us more efficient. It's also uh the clients.

E

um um This constituents uh is better for them because they know they have to be there at a certain time and then they can call and cancel, and then we can fill it in so we're definitely keeping that um uh it's very consistent um with, even though we you know once the city opens back up, we'll still have you know, uh drop in, but just make an appointment just make it better uh for our we're we're ex we're at the pace uh that we, if it wasn't a pandemic, you know what I mean.

E

So it's just that it's just we. As a matter of fact, our inheritance um collection uh department we're the um the only county in the state that is current with was sending our money to uh the state which, uh roughly before the pandemic, uh was to the 280 to 100 million dollars per year in inheritance tax that we sent to harrisburg.

E

We were even looking into, maybe it you know, seeing if they would, uh uh uh you know consider um you know, funding some of initiatives. We are definitely going to keep uh the um we able to work quicker and smarter remotely as well um people just you know, in order for us to keep people safe, you know, because we don't have that much space, but the requirement with kova was, you know the six feet, so we stagger our times.

E

We uh uh we're uh we're doing a lot of stuff remotely, which is helping the office um really really efficient. And of course you know, I understand you know some people like the seniors that don't have access, I see more young people or because they have the smart phones and the cape uh that capability to get in those social mediums, and we are getting so many responses. So that's a keeper and I would encourage um any elected official to uh uh invest in uh um putting your stuff out on social media.

E

We are getting a lot of responses with that. This is good. You know, covert, wasn't good, but covet forced us to be able to uh particularly my office to be able to see that we could do things remotely quicker.

L

Yeah um I'd echo a lot of what the register said. um We, the good news is for us, is that I would just about 90 a little over 90 of documents recorded in our office are recorded electronically.

L

Now electronic recording is is only a process that essentially it's not a lot of the the community members that were in the sort of um cohort of people were talking about here today, but it's people who are using title companies or professional real estate professionals, but the overwhelming number of people, as I said, are recording through an electronic system. So when we, when covet happened, we have a tremendous team and uh they were they never stopped, they worked, they went remote um and you know they collected hundreds. You know.

L

uh Over a year we collect almost over 300 million dollars in reality, transfer tax in our office that never stopped and it couldn't stop um or for the collection of recording fees.

L

So we kept, we kept that going and essentially the real estate industry in philadelphia would have stopped if we weren't able to keep recording that the title associate land title association told me that um so, but that leaves, though the group of folks, um some of whom were sort of talking about today, who who record documents in person they're unrepresented a lot of times and they're doing this on their own, and I would estimate that, that's you know probably around five.

L

It's probably enough, the other five or six percent of or seven percent of folks and we've done what uh registered gordon did, which is we. We were closed. um You know into the probably the end of may. We had to come. We had to start at that point because people had to do their business, um and so our folks began to stagger back um or on staggered schedules, um and we went ultimately to appointments which we're on now um and which is working.

L

I agree with the registers working great um and we continue to look at we're, not everyday appointments at this point, but we're you know: we've continued to expand as um as our staff has gotten more used to it, and um you know the circumstances permit.

E

I wanted to also add is: we are also conducting hearings virtually and and and that's you know that that all the attorneys are extremely happy because sometimes attorneys have to come out of state to handle estates when we simply are doing them remotely now and then normally, we would have like six or seven people in in one room and and uh within. Like I said the three weeks uh we I think we had our first hearing. um We had our first virtual hearing citation hearing in in in june.

E

You know and and we're up to date we're current on um all probate, we're current on all hearing citation hearings and um we we would only um uh uh city in the country that was marrying people. We married 500 people uh through the uh quaker marriage. uh That was phenomenal, so we were we had to.

E

We had to shut it down to just citizens of philadelphia, because the other states weren't marrying people and they were trying to come to philly uh to get married, but we uh we we we closed it to this uh city because it would overstress our our our my staff so um yeah. This is. This has been a learning experience, but it's also helped us be more effective and more efficient and we're going to be able to bring in more revenue.

B

Thank you. Thank you for it. Thank you both for that. um I have some questions for aba kimberly, essex. um First, thank you for being here um and I really appreciate you're willing to speak about your office's work in the city to come back deep, broad, um and I know that there has been deep fraud that you and your fathers have taken on um recently in the city. um This effort is historical um and a marker of the word from your office.

B

I understand that these cases are still being prosecuted, but I was hoping to hear generally about how your tireless efforts are supporting seniors and families in the north, philadelphia neighborhoods that have that were identified.

M

um Well, actually, ada blumenthal would probably be able to speak better to that because he deals specifically with the elders. Now um honestly, I have not had an elder case for the past year, so I I if he could testify or answer that question he might be able to give you a little more information.

D

Sure, hi, council member, um thank you all for having me here. uh We have um you know. I confess I take cases in from the police, uh the attentive departments, uh I'm not sure, although I know pretty much everything else about the case, but I don't know if the top of my head, if they're from north philadelphia, I know we get a number of complaints from northeast philadelphia.

D

um I can, if you want to give me a couple minutes, look it up and check out the uh the address and location.

D

I can say what we I see in particular so often with the elder cases, which, as kim's finally pointed out, I try and take on to give them some of the extra care that they need is caregiver theft or family theft.

D

um There's a number at least one or two cases that we're having with caregivers, who kind of moved in and taken over and convinced the senior to sell their house based on you know, one scam or another, some kind of promise to better the person's housing and turns out basically they're taking the house to flip it or to live in themselves.

D

uh So the assistance I'm really offering is to be able to take that case um from what might where otherwise might be prosecuted trial unit, where, unfortunately, you do have somewhat of a mass prosecution, because just what the numbers require uh and give it a vertical um prosecution where I take it from the beginning and charge the case handle it all the way through the preliminary hearings, any negotiations at the trial- um and I have been pretty shameless in getting help from units like kim's in the economic crime unit and getting the paralegals and d.a detectives to assist me with that.

D

The cases are like all these cases or not even fraud, but tangled title cases. They are just inherently complex. um You need the kind of paperwork that you don't for a standard street crime case. Deeds, titles, mortgages agreements, but you know any kind of paperwork or text messages or emails that might have been exchanged between the parties to look up and see what the entire history of that property is uh because, as kim was saying in other cases, that might not be ones that are done through uh elder guy. Excuse me: caregiver theft.

D

You often have best from uh dead people, and we have spent a lot of time working with him and working with philadelphia police department to track down the death certificates or the next pin to find find out the status of the owner so that the case can be prosecuted.

D

But what we're really doing is to give them that special attention. They need to preserve testimony if the witness is older. uh There's a process where you can video record the preliminary hearing so that, if god forbid something happens to the victim during the prosecution of the case, the case can still go forward um to prep, with the witness uh before kogita was going after people's homes. um Seniors have a little more trouble getting around come down to the office.

D

A lot of it is coordinating with the other agencies that provide so much help. People like the senior law center, who actually have here adult protective services. um I'm sorry.

K

D

So, yes, I also been working with the um brought me a popcorn ball, um uh so the senior law center pca they all provide really key care, uh vip. The philadelphia bar association, as I said, adult detective services, because, as kim said just even if we, when we have a successful prosecution, which we always work very hard on, that does not untangle the title, um and I take a lot of calls from seniors asking me about the prosecution.

D

Then they go well what you know what advice do you have for me to um fix my title? My frank answer has to be. You do not want to take my advice title because I'm not a real estate attorney and uh as some of the other presenters are pointing out, it takes some very specialized knowledge to do that, and even though I'm an attorney.

D

um A lot of that work is done by coordinating uh the financial exploitation prevention task force, which was posted by adult protective services. uh I sit on that with a number of people from the banks and these other agencies.

D

So I hope that answered your question. I think the short answer is probably that the va's giving you the time and resources to provide that special education.

C

M

If I could add, as well um with the cases that we see, I generally don't get them from the elderly people themselves outside of it being someone that has a caretaker that is taking advantage. Most of the cases we see is stealing from the family and from the estate for the elder person who has passed um so that, while the property itself was the property of an elderly person, it is a property that is being stolen. More from the estate than the elderly.

M

Elder has been dead for a few years or even just in the past year. That's the most most of the cases that I do say.

B

Thank you. Thank you for that. um Do any other! My any of my council colleagues have any questions for this panel.

B

Madam chair, yes, I just had a quick comment. I wanted to thank you so much for this hearing and thank our register, uh tracy gordon and commissioner leonard in the records department for their work on the probate deferment initiative. I think it's one of the most important initiatives that are happening currently in our city, particularly around tangled titles and deeds, and I wanted to go back to something someone mentioned earlier about over the past 18 years. I think a little over 2 000 of the tangled title deeds cases have been resolved.

B

So I definitely think that's an opportunity for us in council relative to helping individuals who are burdened by tangled titles uh and deeds, knowing that we potentially have 14 000 other cases that have yet to be resolved. But I simply wanted to say thank you for this hearing, because people don't understand how important this is and how you can lose your generational wealth and legacy within your family without proper estate planning.

B

You know it almost happened to my family with our church, where someone had the mail going to another address and bridge avenue that my family purchased when they came from down south and settled in philadelphia and purchased the land in the 50s and over time acquired eight parcels and someone had the mail going to another address and almost lost the property to share sale a few years ago, but thankfully we were able to sell it.

B

So this is a ma to keep it, but we were um really inundated uh with dealing with this issue and needed to use a lot of resources to resolve it. So this is a major issue that we've been seeing across the city, and I want to offer my assistance and anything that I can do to help on tangled titles, indeed specifically and just offer, thanks to you and our register tracy gordon also, commissioner leonard, for their work.

B

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember.

B

If there aren't any more questions.

B

Can we uh move to the third panel.

C

Yes, we can. The third panel is colin whiting, judy berkman, mark myers, jill roberts, rachel gallegos mike jones and david jonas. So we'll stop start with colin weidig.

N

Well good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me here to speak with you today. My name is colin wyding. I'm a senior policy analyst at reinvestment fund policy solutions, we're a community development financial institution, that's located in philadelphia and operates nationally through our loans and investments, we've created or preserved over 24 000 units of affordable housing and over 23 million square feet of commercial and community facility space.

N

I'm here as part of the policy solutions group which conducts research on the design and impact of policies that are intended to build stronger and more equitable communities in our work. We've seen that secure and affordable homeownership affects many aspects of senior philadelphians lives from their health and their well-being to their ability to build wealth and pass that wealth on to their families.

N

Senior homeowners who own their homes, free and clear of any mortgage debt, are more common in philadelphia than in many surrounding cities and like seniors across the country. Many retired people in philadelphia have most of their wealth in their homes.

N

Although philadelphia senior homeowners have successfully built home, equity, financial stresses and pressures can challenge their ability to preserve their wealth and pass that wealth onto their families and can even challenge their ability to remain in their homes themselves. Our research has highlighted two particular ways that financial pressure can jeopardize. Senior home ownership from through 2016 philadelphia was one of the most active reverse mortgage lending markets in the nation, because many senior philadelphians owned their home free and clear mortgage debt.

N

They were attractive prospects for reverse mortgage originators, reverse mortgage lending volume was largest during the 2008 recession when senior homeowners faced the most financial distress and then slowed a little bit after the recession, especially when the house, the department of housing and urban development passed a financial assessment for prospective borrowers in 2015.

N

We partnered with the housing equality center of pennsylvania and were awarded a fair housing initiative program, private enforcement initiative grant by hud to investigate ledging patterns and potential fair housing violations associated with the origination of reverse mortgage lending in philadelphia.

N

We examined reverse mortgage planning and foreclosure patterns in philadelphia to identify potential inequities and reverse mortgage originations and foreclosures.

N

We found that reverse mortgage originations and foreclosures were disproportionately concentrated in parts of the city that are home to large african-american populations and the populations with low and moderate incomes, and these are patterns that largely mirrored those that were observed during the subprime lending boom of the early 2000s.

N

The city of philadelphia's, department of housing and community development, provided us with a grant to interview, philadelphia, senior homeowners, who had taken out a reverse mortgage and then subsequently experienced a mortgage foreclosure filing.

N

We interviewed homeowners, who generally described themselves before the reverse mortgage as having some financial stress in their life, but feeling secure in their home most have lived in their home for more than 20 years and all but one owned their home free and clear of any outstanding mortgage debt. They chose a reverse mortgage because the lender told them that a reverse mortgage could help alleviate some of the financial pressures they were experiencing, as well as allow them to remain in their home for the rest of their lives.

N

Instead, they found themselves in foreclosure with their homes at risk most commonly because they couldn't keep up with their property taxes, which is the default on the reverse mortgage terms.

N

In most of the cases that we interviewed, with the help of housing, counselors or lawyers from senior law center or community legal services, the homeowners were able to resolve the issue and keep their homes.

N

Although these homeowners were a selected sample and they're, not representative of every philadelphian who takes out a reverse mortgage, their stories show that the combination of financial stress and a poorly understood lending product can endanger a senior's home.

N

A second issue that we've seen is rapidly rising property values and the following rapid rise of property assessments and how that can affect senior homeowners finances and also endanger their social ties with their neighbors reinvestment fund measures. The level of real estate market pressure placed on neighborhoods with a metric that we call the displacement risk ratio, which is basically the ratio of property sale prices to the inflation-adjusted income of long-term residents.

N

It's a metric that shows where real estate sale prices are rising much more quickly than you would expect, based on the incomes of the long of the people who lived in the area for many years, displacement pressure can affect both existing residents, who have to pay higher property taxes and prospective residents who have similar economic means, but have a harder time moving into the neighborhood as prices escalate.

N

We found that many areas adjacent to center and university city have seen rapid property sale price increases that are often multiple times of the income of the long term. Residents of the area, and especially that of fixed income seniors active outreach to senior homeowners in these areas and referrals to housing, counselors and legal services could help homeowners who need to access programs like the long time owner occupy program, or we need to enter into an owner-occupied payment agreement so that their property tax burden is manageable.

N

In our experience, displacement pressure moves from one area to surrounding areas as the initial areas become unaffordable and people who are looking for homes in there move further out and bid up prices.

N

So the city should think about not just the neighborhoods that are experiencing the most pressure now, but also those neighborhoods that are adjacent to those experiencing pressure to target for city programs and services before the market pressure rises and becomes really acute in those neighboring areas as well.

N

In conclusion, policies designed to preserve, secure and affordable home ownership for philadelphia seniors have a wide ripple of impacts. Housing is a key issue for seniors health and ability to maintain their finances in retirement for many philadelphia families. Their family home is the primary generator of and way that they transmit family wealth and, finally, communities are enriched by the presence of long-time homeowners who know their neighbors and know how to promote the well-being of their community.

N

Philadelphia is very well resourced to invest in senior homeownership, because there's a network and expertise of city, housing, counselors senior care and legal service organizations right now, while reverse mortgage reverse mortgage originations, have slowed it's a good time to educate homeowners about these and other lending products that have very high costs. Very high default rates before these equity stripping products proliferate again in philadelphia's neighborhoods.

N

A proactive utilization of an investment in the agencies that protect seniors can generate a large return for both philadelphia and for philadelphia senior homeowners. Thank you.

B

Thank you so much this door. Can you introduce the next person for testimony.

C

Yes, our next panelist is judy burkman.

G

Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me um councilmember brooks and members of the city council committee on inter intergenerational affairs and aging, this series of hearings on senior home ownership is an important step in addressing a variety of housing issues experienced by older philadelphians.

G

I'm judy burkman senior counsel at regional housing. Legal services. Rhls is a nonprofit law firm with unique expertise in affordable, sustainable housing and its related components. Community and economic development, utility matters and preservation of home ownership. Rhls provides innovative project and policy solutions that help create sustainable communities, offering decent, safe and affordable housing for lower income. Pennsylvanians.

G

I'm here today on behalf of the fraudulent conveyance task force, which operates under the auspices of the philadelphia bar association. The task force brings together about 90 key stakeholders throughout the city and commonwealth who are dedicated to stopping this crime. Members include the department of records, the from the department of records law, department, da's office, police department, register of wills and other city departments, other stakeholders range from state and local elected representatives and government officials to private lawyers and public interest, attorneys, notaries and representatives from title insurance, companies and community organizations.

G

The task force is committed to ending deed fraud and providing information and guidance to those who are victims. We've been focusing on three areas: best practices in deed, recording offices, notary law, reform and criminal law reform and enforcement. There's a lot of synergy in bringing together so many stakeholders to brainstorm ideas and share expertise.

G

We hope to finalize our recommendations soon, but they definitely will include recommendations to strengthen criminal laws and penalties for deed and notary fraud, and I have to add, which is in my written testimony, that the final report will definitely include a summary and acknowledge all of the reforms, both back back office and uh public, facing that commissioner leonard has implemented uh in the department of records and also um register of wills. Tracy gordon is doing at the register of wells.

G

So it's been I'm going to cut short some of my testimony because I know we're short on time and some of this has already been covered, but I actually created the name tangled title over 20 years ago and and and set up the initial tangle title program and we we talked about the easiest case when mom dies and is survived by one child, that's tangle title um and then the other extreme obviously is. When someone steals your house, some of us call these thieves fraudulators and has been mentioned by the da's office.

G

uh There are two kinds of of theft: one is forgery where someone uh signs a false document, uh often that happens in a vacant house in a gentrifying area and and the signature is notarized. uh The name is forged on the deed. um The the thing that's happened and- and I don't know if anyone's pointed this out yet today, but the fraudulator usually immediately flips the house to a second victim and- and I think, thailand, if they got time insurance. That would not happen.

G

But if someone gets a house from a fraudulator, um the the first victim needs to get a lawsuit. The second victim who might have put a lot of thousands of dollars into repairs has to get a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the fraudulator is long gone, usually, um and it's it's hard, because if it's forged, the the deed is void from the outset, which means that the the heir, the the person whose house was stolen actually remains the owner.

G

Although you have to she has to have a civil lawyer to clear up the title with a quiet, title action, but she may be unjustly enriched, because the second victim has put a lot of money into it, so it can be a mess and, as um alex blumenthal said, um the second kind of deed fraud is is often an elderly victim of family or caregiver. Who is tricked or compelled into signing some forms?

G

It could be a deed, it could be an estate renunciation, it could be a power of attorney, but all of these documents- they're getting smarter they're, not just doing deeds now they're going further into the background of a case and and doing documents earlier in the process. So they may get letters of administration from the registered wills based on a fake um state renunciation and then, and then they can even get title insurance. Based on that.

G

I'm aware of of that, because the title companies rely on the the issuance of the letters of administration or you know so also, you have to prove that that these deeds are are not void from the outset. You have to prove that someone has been threatened or or signed under duress or coercion, or often did not have the capacity to understand what they were signing. That's that's often common for legal resources. uh The bar association has a lawyer, referral and information service, a 30-minute consultation costs 35 dollars, that's often used and the register.

G

The record of deeds has information about that program and all of the legal services programs and how low-income philadelphians can get help with tangle title on their website. As we mentioned, all of these cases involve a notary. Some notaries are just duped by clever fraudulators. Others are in on the crime, others uh impersonate a notary, as was mentioned before there was one notary who was impersonated in over 50 deed thefts and commissioner leonard's new program where they can get register for fraud guard soon and get noticed when something's been recorded will be great.

G

um Another issue is in the latino community and other in immigrant communities. It's sad because uh they're familiar with the concept of notarios in other countries and those notarios are trained professionals who act more like american, real estate lawyers, and so someone from that uh from an immigrant from another country sees a notary. You know bless the the transaction.

G

They may not realize that they're. Just simply, writing that you know looking at a photo id and and saying that's the person who signed this so so that's no notario fraud is is a related problem, and so hopefully the department of records initiative to enter the notary's name into philadelphia should help to turn prevent notary fraud and prosecute it, which I think d.a essec mentioned.

G

So obviously, sometimes every case I say involves a civil case, but not every case can be prosecuted criminally. Sometimes the perpetrator can voluntarily execute a deed to correct the fraud, but generally the criminal court judges don't think they have jurisdiction to actually hear the case and force the perpetrator to sign a corrective deed. But we really appreciate the da's office having an elder justice attorney to pursue these challenging cases.

G

Most of the fraud can be prevented. I'm going to skip this part mainly um just note that most elected officials have notaries in their office and they ought to be very vigilant about notarizing some of these documents that may be presented to them. um A quick note: a lot of people try to do estate planning through d changes, and that ends up a difficult kind of tangle title where your name is on the d, but someone else's name is two and uh you want to get that person's name off and that's very difficult.

G

I've encountered a lot of that when I uh have um gone to senior centers for outreaches, so that, like I mentioned the best way to get a prevent deed theft is to get title insurance. So I'm going to get to the main point here. You might ask: what can city council do to help prevent dave fraud, and I think the primary way you can help is to provide funding the da's office and the police lean out funding to investigate these complicated cases um it as they testified.

G

It's not the regular street crime kind of case to investigate. Also the department of records has done a fantastic job and providing ongoing and new funding for them to to work on these initiatives would be great. um Providing funding for repairs to owner occupied properties will help preserve the city's largest source of affordable housing, as council member brooks mentioned at the outset.

G

These are the home seniors, live in and can be made more habitable for their own lifetimes and can be preserved for their heirs, and another funding is, I should have meant put in my written testimony is obviously to continue funding um the tangle title fund, uh which is uh something that I helped establish. I sort of put it in here, so you might say what kind of ordinances can city council adopt to stop the recording of fraudulent deed?

G

And I'm sorry to inform you that your your authority here is very limited, because the requirements regarding deed recording are governed by state law and if you meet the requirement, 16 or 17 requirements by state law, they actually pretty much unless something's glaring have to record it and they just don't- have the expertise or authority to pull out one document in in the chain, because you heard how many documents the recorder of deeds records every year. So thank you for your commitment to, indeed fraud and your support for so many innovative, innovative housing programs.

G

I appreciate that very much.

C

Thank you so much for your testimony.

C

Our next panelist is mark myers.

A

Good afternoon everyone, my name is mark myers and I'm the director of facility operations and housing programs at the philadelphia corporation for aging.

A

Thank you, council person, kendra brooks and members of the intergenerational affairs and aging committee for the opportunity to speak to you today regarding housing challenges of older philadelphians, the philadelphia corporation for aging, also known as pca, is the state designated area agency on aging for philadelphia county. We are responsible for coordinating and administering federal state and local funds for older philadelphians and adults with disabilities to assist them in achieving their maximum level of health, independence and productivity.

A

We provide a wide range of services, including advocacy service coordination for long-term care programs, protective services, home delivered meals and the administration of senior centers each year. We touch the lives of more than 140 000, older adults and people with disabilities.

A

Among the 2 000 phone calls received by pca's helpline each week. The most frequent request is for information about housing. I would like to share a few statistics to paint a picture of the current state of older homeowners in philadelphia.

A

For many older adults, home represents safety, security and independence. Among other things, two-thirds of older philadelphians express a desire to remain in their home at least 10 years or more. The 2018 philadelphia health management corporation household health survey reported that there are approximately 205 000 home owners who are age, 60 and older in the city of those older homeowners, 15 percent report needing plumbing repair, 11 report needing heating and cooling system, repair and 16 need roof repair.

A

The reason these repairs have not been made may in part be explained by the fact that almost 38 percent of older homeowners report housing costs were difficult or somewhat difficult to meet. Many older philadelphians experience. The effects of systemic poverty philadelphia is consistently among the cities with the highest proportion of older persons and poverty in the united states.

A

According to the 2019 american community survey, nearly 26 000 older homeowners in philadelphia have incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level and over 30 000, older homeowners have incomes between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. For many older adults living on a limited, fixed income often means having to prioritize meals and medication over necessary housing repairs.

A

The centers for medicare medicaid services identifies housing instability as a core domain when measuring social determinants of health. Research has shown that substandard housing conditions such as peeling paint, inadequate plumbing and lack of air conditioning are associated with various adverse health outcomes. Safe, accessible and well-maintained housing is necessary to successfully age in place.

A

Older adults who do not have safe and accessible housing are at significantly greater risk of falls and other health concerns, leading to costly, hospitalization, institutionalization and frequent emergency room visits, pca senior housing assistance, repair program or sharp, provides minor home repairs and modifications to low-income, philadelphia, homeowners aged 60 and older to help make their homes safer, more secure and more accessible, minor repairs to doors and stairs, and adaptations such as bathtub seats and grab bars, provide much needed assistance to older adults we serve.

A

However, some consumers find themselves ineligible for sharp services because of tangled title issues. When we have consumers in this situation, we refer them to legal service agencies such as senior law center and community legal services.

A

We are grateful that these programs and services exist for older philadelphians pca charter program provides housing services to approximately 600 older philadelphians annually. Each year we strive to reach or exceed that gold. However, rising costs of services and increased requests for major home repairs beyond our capacity are two of the ongoing challenges we face in meeting the needs of all who reach out to us.

A

Those requesting major repairs must be referred to city programs already in high demand. Before closing my testimony, I would like to tell you the story of a consumer. We are currently serving this individual called us, because the locks on both her front and back doors were no longer working.

A

When my staff inspected the issue, they found that the consumer was using bungee cords to hold the doors closed, having a door with a broken lock that does not appropriately close, is a serious safety issue that can become life-threatening. The sharp staff have ordered the doors for the consumer and will be installing them promptly.

A

Pca staff encounter these similar stories daily. These minor repairs and home modifications make a big difference in our consumer safety and ability to age in place. Increased funding is critical in meeting older adults, housing challenges and helping them achieve healthy and successful aging in place. Pca stands ready to work with you to help increase access to safe, affordable housing.

A

We are thankful for the committee's efforts in examining solutions to the ongoing housing needs and crises impacting older, philadelphia philadelphians. Thank you very much for your time today.

B

Thank you for your testimony. um Mr. Can you introduce the next.

C

Speaker our next panelist is jill roberts.

J

Good afternoon person brooks and his team members of the intergenerational affairs and aging committee, I am joel roberts director of the healthy warehouse project to clarify a non-profit that was originally founded. As a credit counseling agency facilitating debt management programs, clarify has since transitioned to a social service, focused organization, empowering communities to achieve financial resilience through financial empowerment and housing. Success.

J

As you know, philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods with a high rate of home ownership. Our home ownership rate can be attributed to a few things. The most prevalent is the stability of our housing stock row. Houses were built to last and the existence of the family house, homes that have often at one point or another, been occupied by more than one generation and passed down through those generations.

J

Owning a home is the largest factor in building wealth. If that home is not safe, warm and dry, it can become a liability to the occupants. Their health and safety may be in jeopardy. Due to the conditions of the home, risking increased medical expenses or high utility bills, the home will become a liability to health and the retention of wealth and the ability to maintain intergenerational wealth, as the home's condition continues to deteriorate.

J

Clarify is a program intermediary for the city's restore repair renew program. The neighborhood preservation loan program the city has created. My primary responsibility is leading the ror team at clarified to ensure success for philadelphia homeowners who want to utilize the program for its purpose to repair and preserve their most valuable asset. The program offers up to twenty four thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars at three percent: fixed interest rate to households, making up to a hundred and twenty percent of area median income with a minimum credit score of 580..

J

The program was designed to help families who make too much to qualify for the city's grant programs like basic systems, repair or adaptive modification and or do not have credit scores high enough to receive a competitive interest rate loan for home repairs.

J

Clarify determines if clients are eligible for the program and refers them to a lender for loan pre-qualification once they are pre-qualified. We conduct a home assessment to help with prioritizing repairs and offer education on best practices for hiring contractors and managing the home renovation project.

J

Clarify has been contacted by over 2400 people about the program of those 33 percent have been individuals who would be considered senior citizens.

J

We have had many successes, but also encountered many obstacles that have kept us from being able to assist a family and obtaining the loan. They need to repair their home. Many view success in the restore repair renew program as a home that has been repaired, made safe, warm and dry stabilized and preserved for the family. We too see that as the ultimate success, but for many there are challenges they must and some they should overcome to reach that success at clarify. We can help seniors work on remediating those obstacles.

J

Some were not known to them until they contacted us to see if they are eligible for the restore repair renew program. Those could be considered median successes but speak directly to the ongoing financial stability of the household.

J

The top five challenges we see for seniors, who want to obtain a loan to restore repair, renew and most likely any non-predatory loan are open collection items on their credit report. The debt to income ratio, low credit scores tangled title and lack of homeowners insurance, as others have on this panel, will or have discussed. Some of these issues can be. Some of these issues can be short-term fixes.

J

An open collection item that have paid off raises a credit score and others longer term, an old mortgage on a title that is not recorded dissatisfied and the lien holder is no longer in business clearing.

J

Some of these hurdles may not immediately stabilize a home, but they certainly stabilize the seniors financial health we've had our fair share of challenge stories where counselors or our home repair advocates have done everything they can and then some, but have not been able to fix the seniors financial issues or home repair needs from a title title so tangled that a homeowner just could not see making it through the process and withdrew from the program to a resilient senior living in a home.

J

That is on just this side of safe and sanitary, with some creative work arounds. But the extent of the repair need was so great. It could not be covered by the restore repair, renewed loan amount. We have celebrated with many as well. One senior opened her door to our home repair advocate and said. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this program. She went on to have her bathroom renovated and other upgrades to some systems.

J

She did not qualify for basic systems and her credit score was such that she could not get a competitive loan lead another senior. Let us know that the program, our guidance and education regarding repair priorities and contractor management allowed him to be safe in his home and able to extend hospitality to re-entering citizens who in need who are in need of a place to stay until they can find a permanent arrangement.

J

Clarify, has been able to coordinate with the city and private non-profit, grant programs to leverage as much as many resources as possible to repair more of a client's home. We look forward to continuing to work the work of helping senior philadelphians access, restore repair, renew loan program. It is such a valuable tool in the home preservation kit for seniors and helps ensure the continued vibrancy of stable mixed age and mixed income communities in philadelphia.

J

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony on the importance of senior homeowners being able to access safe capital to preserve their homes.

B

Thank you so much for your testimony. Can you read the next.

C

Our next panelist.

O

Is hello? Can everybody hear me? Yes, thank you good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is rachel gallegos, I'm an attorney in the homeownership and consumer rights unit at community legal services.

O

I am pleased to testify on the topic of tangled titles in philadelphia and how resolving a title issue is a critical step to closing the racial wealth gap for low-income philadelphians. As council knows, community legal services inc was established by the philadelphia bar association in 1966 to provide civil legal representation to low-income philadelphians.

O

As the city's largest provider of free legal services cls assists approximately 12 000 of philadelphia's poorest residents with their legal problems. Each year I've been working on homeownership issues in philadelphia since 2008. When I worked with the honorable annette m rizzo to establish the mortgage foreclosure diversion program in 2008, we witnessed firsthand how entire communities were destroyed as people lost their homes, families were unable to preserve the single most valuable asset.

O

They had further intensifying the racial wealth gap, preserving intergenerational wealth in order to close the racial wealth gap as a priority and the homeownership and consumer rights unit at cls.

O

We believe in preserving the family home, because we know that homeownership is often the most affordable housing option for our clients and the family home can be the most valuable asset. Our clients have yet thousands of people in philadelphia face barriers to achieving homeownership because they have what has been coined as a tangled title.

O

Tangled titles can prevent families from obtaining needed repairs, paying a mortgage fully resolving tax debt and most important building intergenerational wealth.

O

The problem starts when a record owner dies and the family, for many reasons, does not take steps to probate the estate at that time and transfers ownership to a family member probate is complicated time consuming document intensive and expensive. It can be close to a thousand dollars for a family to handle an estate from start to finish, and our clients simply cannot afford it until a pressing need arises. Families do not take steps to untangle a title.

O

Instead, a family member resides in the home that once belonged to a grandparent or a parent, and they treat the home as their own. The issue comes to a head when the family has to pay an outstanding mortgage, resolve tax delinquency or needs an expensive home repair. All of these things require record ownership. So, despite the fact that a home has been in a family for generations and the house has been occupied for years suddenly, a family is in jeopardy of losing this home and the ability to preserve a valuable family asset.

O

While the issue of tangle title is complicated, the city and various stakeholders, such as the register of wills, philadelphia, vip senior law center and dhcd, have taken steps to address this issue. The register of wills, tracy gordon, has made clear that preserving and building intergenerational wealth is a priority for her office. The register's platform of plan prepare protect, has helped to make the register of will's office more accessible to philadelphia residents, and the probate deferment initiative will also help many low-income heirs, who previously could not afford to raise their loved one's estate.

O

Philadelphia vip has also been at the forefront of this issue for many years and created the tangle title fund grant program. This grant is primarily funded by the city through its division of housing and community development, and it provides money to low-income homeowners who are unable to afford the many costs associated with untangling a title. This grant has been absolutely critical, and without these funds, countless cls clients would not be able to maintain and remain in their homes simply due to the cost of becoming a record owner.

O

Cls's own advocacy model of direct representation. Community education and systemic change is effective and applicable. Here, as we continue to look for solutions to this pressing problem. First, many more low-income philadelphians need direct representation.

O

In 2019, the city council approved a 0.1 percent increase in the reality transfer tax to create a 100 million dollar bond to assist low-income homeowners, a portion of these proceeds funded direct legal representation to low-income homeowners with tangled titles. Since 2019, the number of homeowners represented by cls, has more than tripled and 80 percent of cls's tangled title clients have been black or latinx.

O

During the pandemic, we've seen a significant increase in the number of clients coming to us with tangled title and other deed issues. We know the value of a legal ad legal advocate to help navigate the complexities of probate and deep transfer, with the added urgency of simultaneously working to deal with mortgage and tax delinquency and other consumer debt. We urge the city to continue to fund legal services to continue to do this work as the demand is ever increasing.

O

Families should not be left to navigate this complicated and nuanced system alone. Next, we urge the city to continue its community education efforts. Estate planning is critical to avoid tangled title upon the death of a record owner. A family's home is a wealth building tool and can provide stability for generations to come. We need to encourage people to taste, take steps now to preserve assets for the future and then connect them with advocates who can help the estate planning?

O

Are there opportunities to promote estate planning and sharing information about tangled title at other points of public intersection? How are funeral homes talking about resolving the estate as they help families navigate the loss of a loved one? How can we talk about estate planning and the importance of record ownership in the home buying process? Are we involving religious leaders in this conversation and asking them to join our community education efforts?

O

It is also imperative to continue community education efforts around how to resolve a tangled title and who to call for assistance. The general public needs to understand not only what a tangled title is, but why it's important to resolve and who to call for help, while our goal should always be to untangle tangled titles and obtain record ownership for clients, this process takes time and while our clients are moving through this process, they are not eligible for important home repair programs such as bsrp.

O

The city should consider expanding eligibility for bsrp to permit equitable owners who have not yet untangled their titles to receive bsrp funds. Hundreds of homeowners would become eligible for these much needed repairs requiring a d delays, the repairs by months and sometimes years, forcing people to live in homes without heat, with leaky, roofs and overall unhealthy conditions. There is a model for accepting equitable ownership and looking at utility assistance and tax repayment programs. Bsrp should be no different as we continue to grapple with gentrification property wholesalers and deep left.

O

There needs to be urgency around this issue, so we can continue to preserve not only family homes but entire neighborhoods and communities while helping to build intergenerational wealth. Untangling a title is complicated, expensive and time-consuming.

O

Yet absolutely critical to address the racial wealth gap for low-income and minority communities through homeownership covert 19 has laid bare the inequities facing philadelphians and all areas of life. The time is now to find efficient, effective and practical solutions to address the inequity we see. Thank you to councilwoman brooks for convening this hearing on these incredibly important issues and thank you to all of city council for your continued support of cls's work. Thank you. So much for your time.

B

Thank you so much for your testimony. The store can.

C

You introduce the next mike jones.

O

C

Your name and proceed with your testimony.

P

Oh, can you hear me.

C

Yes, yes, we can hear you.

P

Thank you, I'm mike jones, I'm, the home ownership staff attorney at philadelphia vip. Thank you to council member brooks and to the members of the committee for holding this meeting, and thank you to dhcd for our support.

P

Vip is the agency of last resort for low-income philadelphians struggling with civil matters. Vip has been able to assist over 400 clients each year with tangled title, real estate tax and mortgage foreclosure issues. Data suggests, as many people have mentioned, that 14 000 homes in philadelphia have tangled title problem. 46 of tangled title, clients served by philadelphia, vip are seniors.

P

Tangle title disproportionately affects people of color 61 of our senior tangled title. Clients identify as black tangle title is generally perpetuated by the immense obstacle of opening the estate of a loved one. High costs such as probate, filing fees, transfer, taxes and inheritance taxes are burdens. Many of our low many of our low-income residents cannot afford as time error. Time's arrow moves forward. Things become more tangled, necessary heirs, move or die title to the home is necessary to move forward when individuals face repair, needs utility payment plans or mortgage modifications.

P

All of these complicated issues mean that the case cannot be handled by an individual loan or even just by a housing. Counselor attorneys are necessary in this process. The attorney can assist in accessing a number of programs, including the tangled title fund, which dispersed 84 000 to 37 seniors in 2020..

P

The average philadelphia vip tangled title case takes two years to complete with a volunteer. In the best case, we can get title to the client even to those who are ineligible for vip services. We can get counsel and advice to the client with a vip staff member.

P

However, the best way to prevent property from falling into a tangled title once the owner passes away, is through estate planning, particularly in drafting a will. We are helping current clients, we're helping former clients and we're working on outreach with community partners on assisting residents with getting their wheels prepared.

P

Lastly, institutional importance of vip and the tangle title fund is critical to keep their families in their homes. Vip and its volunteer attorneys have served thousands of home ownership and estate planning clients during its 40 years of existence measures. The measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. We must shelter and protect our seniors. The continued support of city council will assist vip in keeping families in their homes. Thank you all very much for your.

B

Time, thank you so much. Mr. Can you announce the next framework.

C

List for panel 3 is david jonas.

F

Thank you, council members for this opportunity to speak with you about the work of senior law center. My name is dave. Jonas, I'm a staff attorney at senior law where my work centers on guarding philadelphia's, older homeowners against various threats to their homes at senior law center. We seek justice for older adults through direct representation, education and advocacy we're the only non-profit organization in pennsylvania whose mission is dedicated solely to providing legal services to older persons and we're one of a few in the nation.

F

We provide free legal assistance to thousands of seniors each year, including victims of elder abuse and financial exploitation, grandparents raising grandchildren and those facing housing crises and homelessness. We work to help older homeowners facing problems of mortgage tax, deed probate, fraud and home improvement contractors.

F

Our expertise is in knowing what sorts of legal and practical problems older homeowners homeowners face in philadelphia, what resources exist and which partners can work with us to resolve and prevent these issues.

F

The committee on intergenerational affairs and aging's work and opportunities are so important because of philadelphia's philadelphia's population, as commissioner leonard stated, one in five philadelphians, a six-year-old or three hundred thousand people. Nearly half of those seniors live at or less than twice federal poverty level and more than 30 000 seniors live below 50 of the poverty level. In addition to the challenges of aging, your constituents senior laws, clients face the challenges of poverty, lung and long-standing racist systemic exclusion.

F

The racial wealth gap is profound among philly's, older residents and four out of five of our clients with title and probate issues. Self-Identify as black or latinx of course, covet 19 exacerbates many risks and costs for philadelphia's oldest homeowners.

F

The greatest impacts on seniors of color council member brooks introduced this meeting by explaining how threats to older, philadelphians housing are critical threats to every aspect of their lives to health, safety, security and intergenerational wealth nationwide 76 of persons, age, 50 and older would prefer to remain in their home as they age, but for many, low-income, philadelphians aging in place is not an option. Community support is there, but the home's physical condition is the obstacle.

F

Senior law and representatives from pennsylvania's medicaid managed care organizations, see older adults denied access to home-based care, because a worker cannot enter a home due to habitability concerns.

F

So many panelists today identified the tremendous need for home repairs among philadelphia, seniors and our tangled title is a major barrier to accessing, affordable quality repairs and then aging in place.

F

Homeowners told you first-person stories of tangled titles impacts on philadelphia's older occupants, including mr kenneth, jordan, whose testimony I read into the record you've heard today how tangled titles draw new red lines and hurt philadelphia, seniors, really all of philadelphia registered gordon identified 14 000 homes, the number of philadelphians, I'm sorry, the number of homes in philadelphia whose record owners are deceased respectfully and in general agreement with her honor public records, show more than 17 000 small residential properties with deeds older than 48 years, suggesting some degree of tangled title unless a family proactively addresses this issue, often needing a lawyer's help.

F

A tangled title by its nature, remains tangled until the equitable owners lose the home to foreclosure condemnation or often predatory buyers. That means that many of these tangled title properties are now or will become home to older adults and their families, many of whom grew up in the same houses.

F

The homeowners who testified today already told us getting clear title is the first step, but it doesn't make property taxes affordable, as the neighborhood gentrifies doesn't fix the roof or furnace or turn the water back on. As long as title remains, tangled residents are ineligible for free and subsidized city repair programs and have trouble hiring reputable contractors without untangling title. Older adults cannot enroll in property tax assistance programs crafted by the revenue department and cls.

F

They cannot refinance mortgages to prevent foreclosure, lower, lower interest rates or or access the equity they've built over the years, and they cannot pass their home. The biggest financial asset many seniors have onto the next generation to keep well from the family.

F

We at senior law are proud of our ability to harness our resources and collaborate with partners to help people, like mr jordan, stay in their homes.

F

When someone like mr jordan, contacts us for help after an owner, passes away, senior law works with the recorder's office to record a new deed with revenue to make sure taxes passed in future get paid in a way that works for the homeowner with water and gas, to make sure that the client has working service and cls to keep utilities affordable with housing, counselors, pla and dhcd to help protect the family home from foreclosure, with basic systems, repair and adaptive modifications and with pca and our partners at kerry, to connect a client with critical social services.

F

When we cannot take one more case, we refer the client to vip, but going farther, we advise a frightened client how to make a legally valid handwritten. Will a holographic will at home when they're unable to visit an attorney, then senior law center runs pro bono clinics to draft and execute simple wills, financial and medical powers of attorney and medical advanced directives in the five years before covet.

F

Our client records show that 3 453, seniors 3 400 seniors, got free planning documents through senior law about 575 per year, but to empower older persons to end this generational cycle of tangled title on a sufficient scale. Greater resources are needed, cls and other philadelphians and I'm sorry cls and others help philadelphians get a birth certificate for public benefits and employment uh in in community clinics.

F

The same way, expanded drives to connect seniors with uh personal planning documents could be targeted for the biggest impact on the neighborhoods and zip codes, most historically excluded from access to justice and fair economic participation.

F

Senior law center is grateful for city council's attention to address the issues of housing and home ownership for vulnerable older philadelphians. Your support, both fiscal and programmatic and through allied initiatives like register gordon's and commissioner leonard's, will enable our older neighbors to get the legal and practical help they need. Thank you.

B

Thank you so much for your testimony. You're still having this final.

B

Who registered to provide public climate.

C

I think we have um questions first. Oh I'm sorry, I'm.

C

I

B

Do have questions. My first question is for.

K

That your baby is lost.

B

In reference, the loan rate lauren, you mentioned that clarify- offers loans at rates around three percent. For those who do not qualify for the city's grant program, can you give an example of loan rates, a c of if good credit might be offered through the private market? And can you estimate the rate um in an older philadelphia that may have bad credit, but would not otherwise qualify for a loan.

J

Sure, thank you so much uh just to clarify, no pun intended uh clarify is not providing the is not the owner of the loans, the loans come from a bank that originates and services them and they end up being the city's property.

J

So those three percent loans that are being um provided or not from us they're just through us. If you will- and I don't know what kind of rate people can get uh a senior, we have heard some horror stories of people. You know who might as well just use a credit card to um finance some repairs.

J

We, uh so you know those interest rates can be anywhere from 14 to I am to into the 20s, depending on your credit score, so that still plays a role in even loans. If you have good credit, it depends it there's a lot of calculations in the back of the house that happen.

J

um Your loan to value ratio, your debt to income ratio, so your credit score may be great, but your you may have other issues that are causing you not to be able to get a best rate. um Three percent is below market. If you will, um the city's bond funds for this program are buying down that interest rate, and it is a fixed rate um for the term of the loan, which is 10 years.

J

There is no prepayment penalty with a home equity line of credit, for instance from a bank they that they, that rate, can be variable. So this one is fixed, which is another bonus in that.

B

Thank you so much for that. I appreciate that my next question is.

B

Foreign and others spoke about the practice of family members, adding names to the deed as a way to pass those homes over to the next camp. Can you speak more about why many philadelphians might pursue this option to pass down their homes, and can you briefly walk through a scenario where this practice might exacerbate home ownership issues like table titles.

G

I know it's a common uh easy thing to do: there are people out there who are not lawyers who do this kind of work, even though it's basically practicing law without a license, because you need to understand completely what the person's situation is. They might it it could harm harm them in many ways. So I would advise against it in all times, and the best way to do estate planning is not through deed changes, and I see register will gordon shaking her head.

G

Yes, so I think doing doing estate planning through wills and powers of attorney to people that you trust are is the best way to handle this. Some people also consider life estates, but you, you really need advice by a senior attorney, an attorney skilled in senior issues, because the um the estate, uh the medical assistance program, looks back three years. So, if you say like, oh I'm not doing well, I'm not sure what my life expectancy is I'll transfer. The title to my daughter and she'll take care of me.

G

Well, first of all, you might lose your homestead exemption if she doesn't live there or or other you know, other tax relief programs, because you no longer own it or you've added someone to the to the deed, but also, if you die within three years, the medical assistance program can go back and and there's a medical assistance. Estate recovery act claim that they can impose on your estate.

G

So you really need the guidance of people like at the senior law center or other skilled senior, not senior attorneys but attorneys skilled in senior issues, because I just I I think I mentioned when I've in the past would go to outreach programs.

G

I would go to two kind of outreach programs, one on tangle title at senior centers, and I would always be approached by two or three people or more who had added someone's name to their deed and the person either stopped taking care of them or was abusive, and they just couldn't it's just terrible. It's frustratingly impossible to get someone's name off your deed.

G

The other kind of outreach I would go to would be. I represent habitat for humanity and they have an owner-occupied repair program and just wanted to mention. While I have the floor for a minute, a lot of people would, or even if I went to um president uh council, president clark would have outreaches in the bat in the, and I would speak about tangle title and then I would say I can speak with you individually about your situation.

G

If you wish and and I mean I would have at council president clark's, like 12 or 15 people approach me at the end and for habitat, I would say a third to the quarter. The people who came to get find out information about an owner-occupied repair program would would also have tangled title and want to consult with me. So it's I think, tango title is just a big obstacle to uh getting home repairs.

G

Does that answer your question.

B

Yes, thank you so much, I'm sorry. I was having technical issues um yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for um answering that question for me. My next question is from mark myers.

B

In reference to home repair funding, the cost of home repairs and services are rising all while requests for services are rising. Do you know if funding at either the federal or state level has increased to meet that need.

A

um For the program that we managed throughout philadelphia corporation for aging, our sharp program funding has not increased. We've been experiencing flat funding for for several years, and the funding that we've received um is through the aging block grant dollars and that go directly to support that program. But uh yeah to answer your question now there haven't been any any increases at the state level for the program.

B

Thank you so much and in reference to include exclusion from benefits, do you have an understanding of why folks, with tangle title issues, are excluded from receiving benefits um and what's the legal process to come out of a tangle title or deep fraud, um it might take like seven years and many older philadelphians could really use wonderful programs like chop or the sharp program that pca provides.

N

B

A

Well, for for us, we can't do any work in a consumer's home if their name isn't on the deed, um so that that's one of the rules of the program. So what we immediately do when we find out that their name isn't on the deed and usually it's caught at the point of entry through our pca helpline or call center and as as they talk the consumers through the questions about different things related to the program they usually pick up on.

A

That and they'll immediately give the consumer information about senior law, community legal services, any programs that can help them work through the process, and then um we ask them to contact us as soon as those issues have been worked out and then we we helped get them on the waiting list for the program.

B

So can you help seniors and the public understand why having formal proof of ownership is critical before any benefits can be provided.

A

I'm not sure I understand the question um we we basically I mean it is critical that they have the home in their name, because if they don't, we can't provide any services in that home.

A

If that's, if that's what you were asking.

B

Yeah that that yeah, that's right, yeah, that's fine! That that answers the question. Thank you! So much are there any questions or comments from members of the committee.

B

That concludes the panel testimony for well yeah. That concludes the panel testimony for this resolution and we will begin now hearing from individuals who registered to provide public comment. Mr please read the name of the first person registered for public comment.

C

The only person registered for public comment is queen judith, robinson.

C

It's my understanding that council support has not been able to connect with her okay. I just want to put on the record that we gave her a chance.

B

Thank you so much for that. Well, there being no further questions from members of the committee and no other witnesses to testify. I will ask that if there is anyone else present in this hearing whose name has been who whose name we have failed to call that wishes to offer testimony on the resolution being considered today,.

B

Hearing none I want to thank all of the panels and the witnesses for their participation today we value your opinion and this concludes the public hearing of the committee. We will now recess this hearing until the call of the chair. Thank you all very much for your attendance.

B

You're. Welcome. Have a nice day have a nice day. Everyone. Thank you. So very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

P

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