Oxnard Housing Authority staff seek adoption of five-year PHA plan, capital fund action plan and budget

Brenda Lopez, interim housing director for the Oxnard Housing Authority, presented the authority's proposed five-year public housing agency (PHA) plan, the 2025 annual PHA plan, the capital fund five-year action plan and the 2025 capital fund budget and asked the Board of Commissioners to hold a public hearing and adopt a resolution to approve the documents and authorize required HUD certifications and fund acceptance.

Lopez said the proposed five-year PHA plan covers fiscal years 2025 through 2029 and that, for the Oxnard Housing Authority, the fiscal-year timeframe runs July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2030. She said the plans are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under 24 CFR part 903 and that the annual PHA plan also serves as the application for capital fund grants, which pay for capital improvements to public housing units.

The staff presentation listed multiple program priorities and programmatic updates. Lopez said the authority updated its Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) administrative plan and its continued occupancy plan to implement requirements of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016 (HOPMA). She said HUD has moved from Housing Quality Standards to the INSPIRE national physical-inspection standards for Section 8 and that all housing authorities must comply by Oct. 1, 2025; Lopez said Oxnard Housing Authority intends to be in compliance before that deadline.

Lopez described several planned activities tied to the capital fund and five-year goals: use of a FY2024 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant for La Colonia and Central Oxnard neighborhood planning; continued pursuit of project-based voucher allocations; conversion and repositioning of public housing under the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program to leverage public and private debt and equity for rehabilitating units; and capital repairs and accessibility work, including a multiyear Section 504 conversion project.

According to the presentation, the authority received a FY2024 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant in the amount of $500,000 to support a comprehensive neighborhood transformation plan for La Colonia and Central Oxnard and associated public housing modernization. Lopez said the authority has nearly reached the 20% prong that limits conversion of tenant-based vouchers but will continue to pursue project-based voucher options. She said 18 existing units are part of the Section 504 conversion work and that approximately $800,000 of the requested capital funds would be used to complete that conversion and make repairs to an alley at the Colonia site; Lopez also said the Althea Creek Project suffered the loss of eight public housing units in a prior event and that any remaining capital funds would be allocated to that project or to administrative expenses.

Lopez told the board that the Board of Commissioners approved staff submitting a HUD application on Dec. 17, 2024, and that the authority will proceed with next steps if that application is approved. She said HUD requires proposed PHA plans and capital fund budgets to be published for at least 45 days for public comment; staff published the proposals beginning Nov. 28, 2024, and held public meetings on Nov. 14, 2024, and Jan. 30, 2025. Lopez said there were no written objections and that staff received 11 verbal comments asking program-specific policy questions.

As presented, staff recommended the Board of Commissioners of the Oxnard Housing Authority hold a public hearing on the proposals and adopt a resolution to: approve the five-year PHA plan and the 2025 annual PHA plan; authorize the chairman to execute HUD's public housing agency certification of compliance; authorize the housing director to submit required reports and certifications to HUD; approve the capital fund five-year action plan and the 2025 capital fund budget; and authorize the housing director to accept and expend capital fund resources as indicated in the submitted plans. The presentation did not record a vote on those recommendations in the provided transcript.

Several numeric and phrasing details in the staff presentation were unclear in the transcript. For example, the transcript reads the requested capital fund budget as "million 57"; the amount was not specified clearly during the presentation. Staff-supplied dates and dollar amounts summarized above are taken from the presentation as spoken by Lopez.