Brewer praises DOF clinics and asks about Mitchell-Lama SCRIE

And let's turn the microphone to our Councilmember Brewer.

Thank you very much.

I'm a white woman.

I used to have gray hair, but now it's blonde.

And I have a brown top on.

You have to be a little funny in this crazy shit.

Okay, first question.

First of all, Department of Finance, you're phenomenal.

Rita Jen is fabulous.

And there are so many people who want to attend these clinics that you do once a month that we actually have to sign people up as opposed to just waiting in line.

We also have somebody who comes in who's a volunteer.

She's been coming in for 10 years, and she comes in every single Monday from 2 to 4 without fail, and she helps people with squee because people need, these older adults need to have hand-holding, even if they have

knowledge about how to use computers and so on.

They still need hand-holding.

So this, getting the jump from 50 to 75 is fabulous, but it's going to take a lot of hand-holding to get people signed up.

But I want to thank finance.

I'm a huge fan of what you do, and I appreciate the monthly clinics tremendously.

The admiration is mutual, Councilmember.

We thank you for your leadership.

Thank you.

Now, what about Mitchell Lama?

We haven't talked about that.

What's with Mitchell Lama and Scree and Dream?

That's all I know.

You know, so first I just want to thank everyone for just the dedication to protecting our seniors.

I just have to say that.

They vote, you know.

That I know.

And I also just have to say something just real quick.

When my mother reached the age where she could actually apply for SCRI, she was so excited.

And I had to help her with her application.

She's a school safety agent.

And then I had to remind her about the renewal and everything else.

And so I just wanted to lift that up because she had a daughter that was engaged and she still had questions and everything else.

And so we understand that need.

And she was one of those seniors that passed away during COVID.

And so you lost that application.

But I just wanted to say that.

And again, thank you.

And so when it comes to Mitchell-Lama, the conversation is just a little different.

And that's because it's targeted and is focused on what we can and cannot do based on the rent increases that are approved.

So when it comes to enrollment and outreach, we have the numbers, you know, we have 6,187 of our households that are enrolled.

But we also see a lot of our households and families have Section 8.

And we understand that you're not eligible for SCRI when you have another subsidy.

So I just wanted to mention that just so you can get an understanding of what we're seeing in the picture.

of Michelama.

But again, when it comes to outreach, when there is a proposed increase to the maintenance charges and carrying charges, we go into the buildings, again, very targeted because it's development specific, and we are working directly with the residents.

We're hosting workshops.

And when we talk about workshops, we are flyering the buildings.

We are working through the pre-populated applications, thanks to this council body.

But we're also going there on weekends because we understand the population.

And so, again, it's a targeted effort.

And so we're seeing a lot more robust outreach because of that.