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National Low Income Housing Coalition Point of View, by Sheila Crowley The negotiations on the HUD appropriations bill by the conference committee last week yielded lots of good outcomes. At the top of the list is 60,000 new housing vouchers, the primary measure of forward progress in the affordable housing movement. Much credit goes to HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who is unexcelled in articulating the wisdom and justice of investing in housing that is affordable for poor people. Thanks are also due to OMB Director Jack Lew, and to Congressional appropriations leadership, including Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Representatives James Walsh (R-NY) and Alan Mollahan (D-WV) for figuring how to do the right thing in this year's particularly layered and volatile appropriations process. Among the big victories in this year's bill are over $1 billion in homeless assistance funds, which nearly restores the program to its pre-1995 level. The appropriators also dealt with the opt-out crisis in the Section 8 program by approving the mark-up-to-market and enhanced voucher provisions in H.R.202. The bill is not without disappointments, though. The matching grant proposal that will engage states and localities in the preservation of assisted housing was deferred to another day. The sensible and long overdue movement of Shelter + Care out of the McKinney program and into the mainstream Section 8 fund did not get serious attention. Amid the frenzy of last week's information and influence quest, I had a couple of well- spent hours with several hundred social work students who came to the Capitol to learn about policy advocacy. I had the pleasure of meeting Winnie Cooper, a Delaware State University social work student in her senior year, a resident of public housing and an advocate who is challenging the manner in which public housing reform is being implemented in her state. The good news is that Ms. Cooper and other residents have successfully formed the Statewide Association of Tenants, and are making real progress towards establishing duly elected tenant councils in the nine public housing sites operated by the Delaware State Housing Authority. The bad news is that their housing security is being seriously undermined by decisions that the Housing Authority is making, apparently with the permission of HUD. The Delaware State Housing Authority is one of 24 high performing housing authorities that has received a Moving To Work demonstration grant. Last week, DSHA held a public hearing on their Moving To Work annual plan, at which over 40 residents spoke about their concerns with the plan. And their concerns are many. The MTW program is a demonstration, with an evaluation component to assess what works and what does not work in helping public housing residents improve their economic well-being. In fact, in Delaware, MTW is being used to impose a 3 year time limit on every family (over 900 of them) who receives DSHA housing assistance, except elderly and disabled people. The DSHA MTW program requires each of these family heads to sign a Contract of Mutual Participation (COMP), which lays out the requirements they have to meet in order to continue to receive housing assistance and indicates what services they may receive in order to fulfill these requirements. There is nothing mutual about a contract in which one party must do something, while the other might not have to do their part. The MTW annual plan includes a list of services that may be available to the residents. Most are operated by agencies not affiliated DSHA and there is no indication that these agencies have an agreement with DSHA to provide services to residents, much less revenue to increase their capacity to take on new clients. In a letter to DSHA, residents stated their desire to improve their economic well-being, while clearly asserting the relationship between their housing and their ability to do so. "Tenants need to understand that the housing we are living in is stable and not at risk." Requiring residents to enter into a contract of unproven merit, under which they can lose their housing if they do not fulfill some requirements over which they have little control, is a dubious intervention, and unlikely to result in what DSHA officials say they want. Ken Smith of the Delaware Housing Coalition reports that many residents are simply leaving, rather than add another layer of case management and service runaround to their lives. Since 74% of the DSHA families have incomes at less than 30% of the area median, the FMR for a two bedroom unit in Delaware is $650 a month, and the maximum rent that someone at 30% of AMI can afford in Delaware is $443 a month, it is not likely that the families who leave will find affordable housing elsewhere. Indeed, the DSHA seems to be counting on attrition. The 3 year time limit is cited as one reason why they expect to serve 662 more families during the five years of the MTW program. What is remarkable about this story is that one of the objectives of MTW is to allow Public Housing Authorities to experiment with new ways of doing business by granting them enormous latitude in changing existing policy, while simultaneously "streamlining' the reporting and citizen participation processes in a manner that significantly reduces their accountability. The irony is that MTW is a devolutionary program, i.e. more power away from the Federal government, but actually reduces the power of the residents and the community. Because it is a MTW demonstration site, DSHA is exempt from most of the accountability provisions in the 1998 Public Housing Act, such as resident advisory boards, the public housing plan, and outreach to citizens. This leaves the residents with very little opportunity to have anything to say about what is going to happen to their homes. Thank goodness for Winnie Cooper, the Statewide Association of Tenants, and the Delaware Housing Coalition. Lest we get too caught up in the victories of the moment, Winnie reminds us of all that much more still needs to be done. |
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