Housing Matters

For the single mother who does not receive child support on a regular basis, Section 8 might be the opportunity for her children to move out of crowded conditions into a modest home where they have room to do their homework in peace and quiet.  For the landlord who got burned by a tenant who moved out owing three month's rent and leaving behind ruined carpets, soiled laundry, pet waste and broken toys, "Section 8" is fightin' words.

It has gotten to the place where "Section 8" has become a term applied to any property that has toys strewn across the front yard, crooked broken mini-blinds at the windows, too many cars, too many children and too many parties.  So, while lower income seniors, disabled households and families struggling to make ends meet come to my office looking for help from our Section 8 program, when I am promoting our agencies offerings, you'll probably hear me saying that we run "rental assistance" programs in the County, outside the City of Hagerstown!

Yes, there ARE some good reasons why "Section 8" has a bad reputation.  When the program was first created, a landlord could not collect a "normal" security deposit, and housing agencies across the country got entangled in every move-out involving unpaid rent or tenant damages.  Luckily the program has been improved, and today Section 8 landlords collect a full security deposit.  Today housing agencies screen out violent criminals and life-time sex offenders, but it is still up to the landlord to determine whether a prospective tenant is "suitable" for their property.

Like any program, Section 8 has been abused by its beneficiaries (and by landlords, too).  If you know of a particularly heinous Section 8 story, share it with me.  I will fix it if I can!

What kind of a deal are the taxpayers really getting at the Housing Authority of Washington County (HAWC)?  On a monthly basis, $227,500 in federal funds come into Washington County (not counting the City Section 8 program) to assist 470 lower income families with their rent.  In addition we pay the salaries of a half dozen employees to the tune of $29,000 to administer Section 8 assistance in the County, which works out to an administrative burden of 11.3%.  In the non-profit sector, if your cost of administration is 10% or below you are doing well.  So, what does an 11.3% rate tell you about HAWC?

I'll tell you how HAWC is doing.  For HAWC to be able to pull this off is nothing short of a miracle!  First off, housing programs that use public dollars are some of the most heavily regulated in our economy.  Local policies alone to support a Section 8 program fill a 300-page binder! Our employees are currently:

·                     maintaining waiting lists for over 1,000 families,

·                     keeping track of confidential family information, 

·                     performing criminal background checks annually and reading the police blotter daily, 

·                     verifying income keeps one person busy year-round, 

·                     collecting rental information on hundreds of non-subsidized rentals so we can insure that rents we help pay with federal dollars are "reasonable", 

·                     inspecting each assisted unit at least once a year, 

·                     counseling families on their lease obligations and on how to find suitable housing; 

·                     AND, we maintain a program to help families become more self-sufficient. 

$500/month of the $29,000 administrative cost, or 1.7%, keeps our computer software up to date, a small but powerful investment compared to the 62% that goes to paychecks. 

Unfortunately last year Congress only funded the administrative cost of Section 8 at the 83% level, and we have NEVER gotten 100%!  And, now they are contemplating an even further reduction!   The numbers show that we're doing a great job with what we get; but that won't be possible much longer if Congress keeps cutting the money we need to keep our administrative staff.  As a taxpayer, don't you feel that you have the right to expect federal housing programs to evict drug-users and sex offenders?   If the administrative staff are cut,  we would not only be endangering our neighborhoods, but also making it impossible to spend our/your tax dollars with the care they deserve.  What would YOU have us eliminate - the criminal background checks? the income verifications?  the inspections?  We're in this leaky boat together.  Some of us gotta keep bailing, while others of us gotta take action to plug the holes.  Call Congress and tell them that cutting Section 8 administrative fees is penny wise and pound foolish!  

Several members of the Housing Authority of Washington County (HAWC) attended a presentation on customer service recently.  One of the topics emphasized was caring for "internal" customers (usually taken to mean our co-workers), without whose professional support, we would be unable to do our own jobs properly.  In the private sector the "external" customer pays for your services and refers other customers your way, but who are the internal and external customers for a public agency like HAWC?

When it comes down to it, our external customers are YOU, "all-taxpayers," and our internal customers are not only our co-workers but also all of our clients.  Think about it - if our clients behave poorly, funding for our programs will be cut - if our staff performs poorly, funding for our programs will be cut - all of which puts our staff and our clients in the same boat!  This is why HAWC emphasizes "winning community respect and support" in our strategic plan.  We screen tenants for criminal records because taxpayers expect us to spend public monies wisely and because our current participants depend on our programs to make ends meet.  We do what we do in the name of HAWC and all of the qualified families in our programs; and, beyond that, we see the link to all of the public agencies and their internal customers.  (Yes, we encourage our employees to see their jobs as depending on how housing authority staff perform their jobs from Los Angeles to New York and points in between!)  This is why some HAWC senior staff participate in email exchanges with colleagues at the national level sharing our experiences with how to solve tough problems and why some of us serve on the Maryland Association of Housing and Redevelopment Agencies committees - we are all in this together!

So, having said all this, if you agree that we at HAWC work for you, the taxpayer, tell us -- how are we doing?  Do you have any concerns, any pointers? 

A safe place to call home is really important.  When you think about it, the experiences of families dealing with homelessness underline what those of us with stable housing situations have long appreciated:  A safe home is key to physical, mental and emotional health. 

In recent years agencies trying to help families deal with losing their homes have increasingly subscribed to the belief that stable permanent housing should be provided first - before budget counseling, and before referrals to mental health counselors, and before arrangements are made to keep the children in school and before the host of "programs" we have created to deal with the symptoms of homelessness. 

In the final analysis the absence of stable housing will quickly undermine the gains made on other fronts to such a degree that housing practitioners created the concept of Housing First.  Housing First centers on providing homeless people with housing quickly and then providing services as needed.  What differentiates a Housing First approach from other strategies is that there is an immediate and primary focus on helping individuals and families quickly access and sustain permanent housing. This approach has the benefit of being consistent with what most people experiencing homelessness want.  So, for homeless families, housing matters; and it matters for families that have homes, too.

When you realize that housing is such a critical part of our economy both in terms of dollars and in terms of human resources - just possibly Congress needs to keep its budget cutting hands away from housing.  After all, housing matters.