Starvation is bad for you
The simple fact comprising this post’s title seems to have escaped notice, for HUD (and Congress) seem determined to fulfill the prophecy of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come; at the moment, housing authorities across the country are being funded at a mind-boggling 76% of their requirements. In other words, housing authority funding has been arbitrarily cut 24%.
You’ve got 76% of the legs you need, don’t you?
“You can’t run an organization on 76 percent of its operating budget. You just can’t,” said Noah Schwartz, executive director of the [Chattanooga] housing authority. “I don’t know how this situation could get any worse.”
Public housing authorities across the nation have been struggling to cope with the budget cuts, which were brought about because HUD was directed by Congress to adjust its funding formulas and because its appropriation for local housing authority subsidies has remained stagnant at roughly $500 million for the past three years.
Ben, this won’t hurt your city a bit …
The cutbacks are hitting housing authorities differently. As we’ve seen in previous posts, the well-run and successful New York City Housing Authority has been raising some resident payments (long overdue) and burning up its reserves (very risky). Farther south,
We’re from the government and we’re here to help you
As summarized in its press release:
Philadelphia Housing Authority laying off 22% of workforce
We’re cutting your funding, but here’s a bow-tie-wrapped Poor Richard’s Almanac!
The approximately 350 workers were given layoff notices today. PHA Executive Director Carl Greene said the cuts are painful. “The cuts are deep, and they hurt. They hurt our employees, both those being let go and those who remain. They hurt our customers. And they hurt our customers’ neighbors,” he said.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported it:
Mr. Greene said that the layoffs, which are expected to save $24 million, would hit particularly hard on the maintenance staff. Also affected will be the authority’s police force, which will lose 20 officers and about 10 other security personnel.
Greene predicted that the cuts would diminish the quality of life in PHA units and lead to increases in crime in PHA neighborhoods through reductions in security and in the authority’s ability to evict problem tenants.
Dieting is one thing; starvation is another. And that’s what the housing authorities are facing, as revealed by this NAHRO graphic (link in .pdf):
Funding has declined every year in nominal-dollar terms
When the body runs out of reserves of fat, it starts to consume itself. The result is irreversible decline:
Greene said the authority may have to begin selling some of its scattered-site properties to raise enough money to maintain operations.
From the press release:
PHA will also realize savings by reducing the size of its vehicle fleet and will soon announce other plans for further cost savings as well as sales of property.
Director Greene said this cutback should not have happened. “PHA is an agency that has earned a reputation for efficiency. We have gone from 2,500 employees in 2000 to 1,600 employees today, and we did that as we increased our resident population by 68%,” he said.
Assuming as I do that those figures are correct, that represents significant economizing. But as we have seen in previous posts, the funding schema renders authorities utterly dependent on a higher level of government (in this case, HUD):
PHA receives virtually all of its revenue from the federal government to provide housing to low-income families, the disabled and the elderly. Households pay slightly less than 30% of their income in rent. PHA has also built hundreds of houses for sale to middle-income families.
Nor is
Newark, NJ, housing authority Executive Director Keith Kinard and Jersey City’s housing chief Maria Maio, both of whom recently enacted major layoffs, stood with Greene and emphasized the fact that this is a national crisis for public housing brought on by deliberate under-funding by the Bush administration. Maio has said the repeated cuts have left housing authorities choosing “between plumbers and police.”
FY 07 represents just the latest in a series of chronic annual under-fundings. In FY 06, HUD funded only 89% of requirements, and in fact, every year since 2001, public housing has continued to be under-funded, as shown in these NAHRO graphics:
Each year’s cuts are against the previous year
The PHA’s Greene said one man has the power to stop the bleeding. “I urge President Bush to reverse course and come up with a new strategy for affordable housing. Stop the cut-and-run policy and restore the value held by most Americans of helping the vulnerable among us,” Greene said.
It is not merely the Administration whose hand (or lack thereof) has brought housing authorities to this pass. Congress has failed to enact the FY 07 HUD appropriations legislation, and is instead operating under a Continuing Resolution whereby FY 07 authorities are being funded at FY 06 levels. In other words, it has taken joint inaction — by the Administration and Congress — to bring matters to this pass.
Nor is relief likely to arrive any time soon.
If only it were this easy
As the National Low Income Housing Coalition puts it:
The House and Senate hope to enact the joint funding resolution by February 15, when the current short-term continuing resolution runs out. There has been speculation by Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) that Congress will have a hard time meeting the February 15 deadline and an additional, short continuing resolution will be necessary. A continuing resolution until February 15 is currently keeping federal programs funded.
Unless “cataclysmic” harm can be shown, funding levels will remain at FY06 levels.
If this were happening to a child, it would be considered criminal neglect. Because it is happening to large public bodies, it rates statistics and small stories.
I won’t show pictures of starving people because they are too wrenching
Nevertheless, and regardless of whose fault it is, this is a disgraceful way to operate housing for the poorest, most vulnerable Americans.
PHA Commissioner Nellie Reynolds, a resident of Johnson Homes, says the budget cuts are outrageous and disgraceful in the richest country in the world. She plans to organize tenants across the country to send a message to
I wish a message would be enough, but that will not do. It’s past time for an extremely bold stroke — time is running out.
What the future holds unless we change course
