Moving to Work Demo

The Moving to Work Public Housing Demonstration Program (MTW)

The Moving to Work Demonstration in Delaware

MTW in Brief (1999)
Public Letter on MTW from Delaware's Statewide Association of Tenants (1999)
DHC Letter on MTW (October 1999)
DHC Comments on MTW (April 2002)
DHC Analysis of MTW Safety Net Issues (May 2002)
DHC Comments on MTW (April 2003)
DHC Comments on MTW (April 2007)
NLIHC Comments on Delaware's MTW (October 1999)

Nationally

The Proposed Expansion of Moving to Work

NLIHC Letter sent to all Senators on this bill is at www.nlihc.org/news/061606mtw.pdf.
DHC Letter to Senators Carper and Biden, June 23, 2006
CBPP Report on Moving to Work Program Deficiencies: http://www.cbpp.org/7-13-06hous.htm
NLIHC’s Memo to Members article on S. 3508: www.nlihc.org/mtm/mtm11-24.html#3.
Urban Institute Report (January 2004) on MTW and Public Housing Deregulation
HUD Inspector General Report (April 2005) on MTW Program Design and Implementation
NHC Report (March 2007) on Need for Rigorous Research Before Expansion of MTW

Public Housing: Budget Balancing and "Personal Responsibility"
In an atmosphere of austerity, public housing authorities (PHAs) have begun to turn to programs which share some of the following preferences: 1) to apply "welfare reform" guidelines to housing assistance, 2) to return PHAs to their historic role of "step" or "starter" housing for the "temporarily" disadvantaged, 3) to promote income mixing and higher median resident incomes within developments, and 4) to improve public housing developments and make them better neighborhoods. One element that all of these programs have in common is a better "bottom line" for the PHA. Another element which they share in theory, though rarely realized in the practical unfolding of the process, is great latitude for tenant participation in the shaping of these programs. Overlooked, as well, is the reality that much of current public policy seeks to gloss over, Delaware tenants are trapped in a market failure, caught between stagnant real wages and persistently high housing costs.

Moving to Work: Marrying Public Housing to Repeal of Welfare
On December 18, 1996, HUD published a notice inviting public housing agencies and Indian housing authorities to submit applications for the Public and Indian Housing/Section 8 Moving to Work demonstration program (MTW). The Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) submitted an application by the deadline of March 18, 1997 and was accepted by HUD as one of some thirty housing authorities nationwide to participate in this demonstration program.

According to HUD, " The statutory purposes of MTW are to give HAs the flexibility to design and test various approaches for providing and administering housing assistance that reduce cost and achieve greater cost effectiveness; provide work incentives to promote resident self-sufficiency; and increase housing choices for low-income families." (Federal Register, March 3, 1997)

In its overview of the application which it sent to HUD, DSHA estimates that 950 families living in Public and Section 8 housing in Kent and Sussex Counties will be affected by MTW, approximately 475 of whom are already participating in "A Better Chance." DSHA says that, "Of the remaining 475 clients, approximately 350 are employed."

The overview goes on to state that:

...The ABC participants are required to sign a Contract of Mutual Responsibility and must work with DHSS employees to become assistance-free. The ultimate goals of MTW and ABC are identical, and DSHA plans to cooperate with DHSS in working with our [sic] mutual clients.
Of the remaining 475 families, 125 will be served through DSHA’s Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS). Because FSS can serve only a limited number of clients, acceptance into the program will be reserved for those most in need of intensive case management.

A non-ABC tenant family will become part of MTW by signing a Client Obligation Plan (COP) which includes provision for them continuing to receive housing assistance from DSHA for only three additional years, after which they will have to have moved from the public housing or Section 8-assisted unit or else be faced with paying market rent for that unit (see FMRs for Kent and Sussex, above). MTW will increase rents to 35% of income, up to a maximum rent of $120, with any further increases going monthly into a savings account deposit.

Tenants participating in ABC will receive a companion DSHA "strike" for each ABC sanction received. Upon "strike three," those tenants will lose both their remaining ABC benefits and housing assistance through DSHA. Tenants not enrolled in ABC are under a similar Three Strikes policy.

The DSHA overview summarizes the administrative benefits of MTW as follows: "By establishing a three year time limit, DSHA will reduce its per client costs by almost $3,000 for Public Housing clients, and over $10,000 for Section 8 clients. After year three of the Demonstration, DSHA will be able to serve over 100 additional clients per year."(p. 5) DSHA expects to save $350,000 from the benefit of increasing tenant rents to 35% of income. It expects to realize an additional $540,000 by virtue of "time-limiting" housing assistance.

By comparison with the MTW plans of some of the other housing authorities across the country, the DSHA application lacked a systemic approach to the problem of poverty, relied solely upon the ABC program for case management for half of its tenant families, and made no special provisions for those tenants who will be most difficult to "graduate" to market rate housing. (See, "The Moving-To-Work Demonstration: What Housing Programs Can Do to Help Welfare Recipients Make the Transition to Work," by David B. Bryson, The Housing Law Journal, April 1998.)

The Statewide Association of Tenants has organized in Kent and Sussex Counties to reshape the MTW to assure tenant participation in the program and to put in place more effective mechanisms for transition to work and market-rate housing opportunities.