City Council Work Session

Speaker 10Also, one other strategy that we looked at is expanding affordable housing options to foster inclusive communities. With the example being home sharing, there are many examples and models that can be used to help validate the effectiveness of the program. One, it helps workforce housing families meet affordability. It also helps with the seniors being integrated and reconnected and staying connected to the community. So these are some options that could be viewed and reviewed to help the demographics within the city of Fairfax. Another strategy would be strengthening the data collection to improve programs and services. This is very important because being able to recognize gaps and barriers, strengths, weaknesses, areas to improve,

Rachel McQuillenthank you I had another question related to home sharing so we just had a presentation on ADUs would that qualify as home sharing is that considered affordable dwelling units and adding is what other things would encompass what other things would home sharing encompass

Speaker 10did make mention under home sharing and I put an asterisk that you they had been mentioned is the use of existing homes minimize the environmental impact of new construction also so those are some excellent reasons why maybe considering that as a model to use within the community would be beneficial for several reasons.

Ashley SharpleyThat's exactly what I was going to say, but I also wanted to add that the opportunity to facilitate, whether it's directly or through a third party, the actual platform where people are connecting, also allows you to address some of the concerns that we oftentimes hear in and around affordable housing and home sharing and oftentimes student housing, which is that people are uncomfortable or nervous that those kinds of housing arrangements will be noisy or messy or bring undesirable activity to their communities. allow you a level of monitoring. So if you know, we've made these connections, these people are roommates, blah, blah, blah, they're part of this program, that allows you to check in with them.

you also and these opportunities for either for preservation and potentially in home sharing which be an arm of preservation is if you have seniors who are unable to maintain their homes or you know keep up with that upkeep a lot of times what will happen is they'll they'll be in their home and they'll either eventually end up being moved to an assisted living facility or when they pass away find that the home has sustained like significant disrepair because because of that period of time Oftentimes, those are the homes that end up vacant for long periods of time, end up dilapidated. And then you've lost a unit of housing. So anything that you can do to keep those homes in good condition, whether it's home sharing or preservation funds and other support mechanisms, will keep homes in that life cycle.