Ian Evans, executive director of Yolo County Housing, presented the agency’s first organization‑wide five‑year strategic plan to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, outlining goals to expand affordable housing production, strengthen resident services and improve internal administration.

The plan is structured around three pillars — people, housing and administration — and includes targets such as increasing homeownership opportunities for participants and growing the agency’s portfolio. Evans described the housing pillar as the most developed because it reflects the agency’s core work of owning, managing and operating affordable units and administering vouchers.

Why it matters: Yolo County Housing manages public housing, voucher programs and migrant centers that serve farmworker families; changes in its portfolio and operations affect hundreds of households countywide and intersect with state and federal funding and program rules.

Evans said the agency currently owns about 1,100 affordable housing units and manages roughly 1,500 leased housing choice vouchers countywide. He described long wait lists: “For our housing choice voucher program, we have a wait list of 47,100 people on there currently. For our public housing program, we have about 14,000 unique individuals on the wait list for public housing,” he said.

The plan highlights several development and preservation priorities. Evans said the agency is pursuing a repositioning and redevelopment of the Yolanda Donnelly public housing site, which now has 132 units; he described the effort as a major undertaking that will require a substantial funding stack of state and federal tax credits, voucher subsidy and other resources. He estimated construction and development costs for larger repositioning projects can be on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars and said the agency will rely heavily on federal (HUD) and state (HCD) funding streams where available.

Evans reviewed the agency’s programs: three seasonal migrant centers (Davis, Madison, Dixon) operated under HCD’s Office of Migrant Services rules, public housing (total countywide inventory described by Evans as 431 units), the Housing Choice Voucher program (tenant‑based and project‑based vouchers, VASH, mainstream, family unification and emergency housing vouchers), and New Hope CDC, the agency’s nonprofit affiliate that acts as managing general partner on tax‑credit developments.

On migrant centers, Evans noted recent state legislation that sets a target and research timeline for converting some centers to year‑round housing by 2031 and said operators expect substantial one‑time capital costs to support a transition to year‑round occupancy. He said significant infrastructure work — for example extending a municipal water and sewer connection — could require multi‑million‑dollar investments and that operators have communicated those capital needs to the state.

Evans described recent local projects and funding partnerships: the agency used $1 million in American Rescue Plan county funds to acquire property at 145 East Street in Woodland to ease resident relocation during redevelopment; it received cannabis funding to replace HVAC at a migrant center; PLHA funds and other local contributions are supporting smaller projects. He also pointed to a recently awarded PLHA allocation the agency plans to use toward a 36‑unit new construction project in West Sacramento.

Board members pressed for details during a question‑and‑answer period. Supervisors asked about the scale of current need and the agency’s dependence on county funding; Evans said most ongoing funding is federal (HUD) and state (HCD) and that Yolo County Housing receives little ongoing county general fund support beyond discrete, one‑time partnerships. He confirmed the agency uses a small client services team that performs light touch case management and described the Family Self‑Sufficiency program, which holds escrow accounts for participants who increase earnings while enrolled.

Next steps: Evans said Yolo County Housing plans a countywide “roadshow” to solicit jurisdictional feedback and expects the housing commission to consider adopting the plan at its March meeting. The presentation materials and Evans’s remarks will inform applications for state and federal funding, tax credits and predevelopment capital as the agency advances specific projects.

Ending: The board thanked Evans for the overview and indicated interest in continued coordination between the agency and county departments — particularly on migrant center infrastructure, PLHA planning and the Yolanda Donnelly repositioning.