------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/NsdPZD/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/tOsolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: CPPH_Info-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are 7 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Student of Housing looking for a position From: Grant 2. Fwd: HUD's HOPE VI report From: Grant 3. Article on "False HOPE" in Miami Herald From: Grant 4. Urban renewal in West End, Boston, goes around, comes around From: Grant 5. Renee Glover in Atlanta - Future head of HUD? From: Grant 6. Fwd: PHADA article on two HOPE VI reports, and WS response From: Grant 7. Chicago residents find it hard to find new housing From: Grant ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 15:05:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Student of Housing looking for a position m.k.johnson@lse.ac.uk > > To Whom It May Concern, > >> > >> I am currently finishing my M.S. in Social Policy and > Planning at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since my undergraduate studies, I have been interested in the blight of urban public housing. My master's disseration focused on the identifying a process of gentrification in the renewal of public housing in London and the effects of displacement on original populations. I am very keen to continue to work in this area and was wondering if your organisation had any job openings. If not, I would still like to received more information about your orgainsations research and activities. > >> > >> Sincerely, > >> > > Meridith K. Johnson > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com [This message contained attachments] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 10:47:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Fwd: HUD's HOPE VI report --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: > > I have received a copy of the 77 page report, "HOPE VI, > Best Practices and > Lessons Learned, 1992-2002," from PHADA. > > The report is dated June 14, 2002, apparently because the > report was due > from HUD to Congress by June. I know of a number of > housing advocacy > organizations that asked HUD for copies of this report > only last week, > however, and were told by HUD that it would not be > provided to them. I > don't know how widely it has been distributed, or when. > Thanks to PHADA > for making this copy available to me. > > I do not know if this report is now available from HUD, > or on the web, or > in other forms. However, I would be happy to stroll > over to the local > copy shop and make copies for anyone on my e-mail list > upon request, and > mail a single copy to you, with a bill for the copying > and first class > mailing costs. > > To me it is very interesting that, at least in the copy > PHADA gave me, > there is no indication of who wrote the report. The > report does not even > contain a transmittal letter to Congress signed by any > HUD official. > There is no indication of whether this report was > prepared under the > direction of Secretary Martinez, or Deputy Secretary > Jackson, or Asst. Sec. > Michael Liu, or by the HOPE VI shop, or by the Office of > Policy Development > and Research (PD&R), or by a contractor to any of the > above, e.g. Abt > Associates or the Urban Institute. The only way of > identifying the > report as HUD-related is by the HUD logo on the cover. > Apparently no one > claims responsibility for preparing or writing or > approving or transmitting > the report to Congress. It is "by Anonymous." > > Much of the information is anecdotal, and appears to have > been taken from > Housing Authority plans, progress reports or press > releases, although some > of the information has apparently been extracted from a > small number of > very preliminary case studies that are not very far > along. There is > little data and few tables or charts. There is no > information about how > the HOPE VI money has actually been spent, although there > are a couple of > pie charts showing the percent distribution of funds > budgeted, in major > categories, for all grantees taken as a whole. > > When a federal agency submits a report to Congress > purporting to evaluate a > program that has been in operation for 10 years, and for > which Congress has > appropriated over $4 billion, one expects to be told who > authored the > evaluation, so that one might form one's own opinion as > to: (1) the > authors' qualifications for doing the evaluation; and (2) > their relative > degree of independence from those who are administering > the program. > > That would surely be true if a new weapons system were > being evaluated by > DoD, or if a new drug were being evaluated by the Food > and Drug > Administration, or if a piece of funded research were > being evaluated by > the National Science Foundation. But at HUD, it's > different. This > evaluation report was apparently prepared only by "Mr. or > Ms. Anonymous." > > In terms of "lessons learned," it is not clear who > learned these lessons. > Most of the "lessons learned" do not rise above the > level of wooly > generalizations that would appear to state the obvious, > e.g. > > "Accountability and legitimate partnerships are crucial > to the successful > implemention of a HOPE VI project." > > "Affordable housing options should involve a continuum of > choices. > Residents should be presented with viable options to > select housing that > best meets their needs." > > "Housing designs should reflect the community in which > they are located." > > "CSS programs should include services for special needs > groups. Youth, > elderly, and the disabled all have their own unique needs > that require > specific programming." > > "Market rate units can provide a strong foundation for > the viability of > HOPE VI developments." > > "The involvement of public housing residents and other > stakeholders must be > integrated into the broader revitalization plan." > > > The "best practices" appear in some cases to reflect HUD > policy choices. > For example, one "best practice" selected by HUD is time > limits for HOPE VI > residents, which are being used by four grantees: > Raleigh NC, Spartanburg > SC, Knoxville TN and Charlotte NC. The criteria by > which this has been > selected as a "best practice" are not stated. The > description merely > states that "public response" to time limits has been > good in two of the > communities, and "Charlotte has received positive > feedback from other > agencies..." > > > The New Haven Housing Authority was listed as a "best > practice," with the > following description: > > In 1993, the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven > (HANH) received a > $45 million HOPE VI grant to revitalize Elm Haven, a 1941 > public housing > development consisting of over 800 units in both low rise > and high-rise > buildings. > The early years of the HOPE VI grant coincided with HANH > falling into > troubled status, with little capacity to administer the > grant or the > redeveloment. > The City and Housing Authority did not work > cooperatively, and Housing > Authority administration was widely viewed as a separate > entity with no > controls and little competence. > By 1998, with the project in default and the grant at > risk, the City, HANH > and HUD came to the table with a sense of urgency. > (After that, things improved.) > > > If that's a "best practice", one has to ask..... > > Wayne Sherwood > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:14:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Article on "False HOPE" in Miami Herald --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: Posted on Tue, Jul. 23, 2002 Miami Herald Housing program for needy criticized BY ANDREA ROBINSON arobinson@herald.com HOPE VI, a federal program touted as a savior for the country's most decrepit public housing projects, has caused severe shortages and undue hardships for people who can least afford a place to live, according to a study by national housing advocates. The study -- contained in a report titled ''False Hope'' by the California-based National Housing Law Project and other advocacy groups -- was released as Congress is about to consider whether to renew the $574 million program for another 10 years. HOPE VI is designed to replace dilapidated public housing complexes with single-family homes. But critics say there would not be enough new homes built to accommodate all the people being displaced. In fact, the majority of tenants would likely have to move away from their neighborhood and seek public or private housing elsewhere. The redevelopment program is particularly controversial in Miami-Dade, which was included in the national study. A group of Liberty City tenants have squared off against county officials over a sweeping redevelopment plan. ''HOPE VI is knocking down public housing, which is available to the very lowest income people, and replacing it with housing that is less available to them -- but more available to people making higher incomes,'' said Chuck Elsesser, an attorney for the tenants. Residents from the Scott and Carver homes, which have 880 units occupied mostly by large families, want plans redrawn to accommodate more of them. The fight has landed in federal court, with a trial date scheduled for the fall. HOPE VI was launched in 1992 by the Clinton administration to reinvigorate the worst of public housing stock. The idea was to replace them with single-family homes that would attract low- and moderate-income families. The local community, including tenants and government, were supposed to decide the composition of the redevelopments, which can include rentals and home ownership. In the last decade, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded more than $4.5 billion in federal funds to renovate or raze 165 sites in 98 cities. Three years ago, Miami-Dade landed a $35 million HOPE VI grant to assist with the redevelopment of Scott-Carver, two side-by-side projects between Northwest 68th and 77th streets and 19th and 24th avenues. EFFECT ON TENANTS The ''False Hope'' report uses data about the program from HUD and the General Accounting Office. It says that a majority of the former project tenants have not benefited from the redeveloped communities -- which is what the Liberty City group contends. Authors say the program's aim at lowering density in poor neighborhoods resulted in more than 40 percent fewer homes for those families. ''The purpose of the program is to help people in projects and that mixed income projects are better for tenants,'' said Elsesser. ``Nobody can disagree with that and it sounds very good. But is it accurate?'' Based on the data, only 11.4 percent of families from housing projects return to the neighborhood of newly built homes after construction is finished, the report states. Another 30 percent get vouchers that are used to rent homes in the private marketplace and almost 50 percent are transferred to projects outside the HOPE VI area. The remaining families ''disappear'' from the agency's tracking system, the report says. Only a few of the former residents ''can expect to live in [the] high-quality housing'' that results from a redevelopment project, authors said. National housing advocates argue the current program should be revamped to allow residents greater participation in the planning of the new communities. A spokesman with federal HUD would not comment specifically about the findings, except to say that some were inaccurate. He did not identify them. ''The program is in the midst of evaluation and reauthorization is coming,'' the official said, referring to a vote by Congress in September on whether to renew HOPE VI. U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, the Miami Democrat who helped the Miami-Dade Housing Authority get the $35 million federal grant, said she is troubled about the displacement of residents. Meek, who is retiring from Congress, had been seeking another $1.5 million this year, most of which would go toward rehabilitating homes for displaced residents. MEEK'S BILL Earlier this year, Meek filed a bill that would allow local housing agencies like Miami-Dade's to convert unused housing vouchers to defray a portion of rehab and construction of homes in low-income neighborhoods. In the last two years, the Miami-Dade Housing Authority has forfeited about $42 million in vouchers because clients could not find qualified rentals, Meek's aides said. Meek still supports HOPE VI, but ''she'd like to see changes so it will accommodate all the people living in that community,'' said chief aide John Schelble. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 10:55:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Urban renewal in West End, Boston, goes around, comes around Wayne Sherwood wrote: Urban renewal may come to upscale apartment complexes in Boston. What goes around comes around. "Hey, don't mess with OUR neighbor-hood!!" Wayne ========================================= LOTS & BLOCKS Apartment dwellers say status quo's fine By Thomas C. Palmer, Jr., 7/14/2002 Boston Globe They both live in high-rises. They've both lived there for years. But the city is changing, filling in, and both women are concerned for their way of life. Nancy Sonnabend moved into the Fairfield, one of the three Prudential Center residences, 23 years ago for $900 a month, plus $60 for parking. Now, she pays close to $4,000, and $250 to park. She liked raising a family in the suburbs, but loves the city. ''The reason I stay here is location, location, location,'' she told us on a recent visit to her spacious apartment overlooking Boylston Street. ''It's heaven.'' She and others have been unhappy about many things since Avalon Bay bought the buildings. Security isn't as good, she said. But her biggest worry is the hotel, resi-dential, and retail complex that is going to be built on that oddly vacant space between the Fairfield and Boylston Street. The city has approved a plan that would fill in the large gap on the south side of Boylston. It's got a little of eve-rything, development-wise, so it's good from the city's point of view. But it will significantly block Sonna-bend's views. The new buildings will come within 30 feet of her north wall, she said, and a portion of a new walk-way will be just below her windows. ''You can't bring fire engines or ambu-lances to any of the front doors of the three buildings,'' she said. ''This build-ing is going to be totally landlocked.'' In the West End is Linda Ellenbogen, who owns a condominium in Hawthorne Place, one of eight buildings that make up Charles River Park. They're not the greatest looking buildings as you drive by on Storrow Drive, but take a walk through the interior. You'll see why El-lenbogen and other residents speak af-fectionately about the place. It's green, it's open. A refuge. Of course, the old West End neighbor-hood was destroyed in what is today considered a terribly mistaken urban re-newal project. In Charles River Park, eight tall buildings went up, four of which have become condos, four of which remain apartments. The apart-ments have been purchased by Equity Residential, which wants to add about 500 more apartments. ''Is the original intent less density, more open space being kept?'' asked Ellenbo-gen. ''The '50s concept is no longer chic. They want more density, less open space ... '' Her's is a variation on Sonnabend's don't-mess-with-success message. Or are they both just pulling the ladder up be-hind them, now that they're on the boat? Ellenbogen makes the novel argument that there was a highly successful prod-uct of the sad story of the West End's demise. Its name is Charles River Park, and it shouldn't be tampered with, she contends. It's not about obstructed views, she said. Charles River Park in-creased the city's tax base and brought middle-class people back to Boston. ''There's a world here, a world we fiercely want to protect,'' said Ellenbo-gen, who formerly worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban De-velopment. ''I've never seen any urban redevelopment in any other city that has worked like this. We created a new West End.'' Larry DiCara, a lawyer representing some residents, said this is a matter of ''What say do people have about what goes in their neighborhood?'' ''It's a public policy issue,'' he said, ''when a neighborhood is working, and this one is, whether people from outside, even the city, should come in and say it's not working and change it.'' Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com. This story ran on page H1 of the Boston Globe on 7/14/2002. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:05:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Renee Glover in Atlanta - Future head of HUD? Wayne Sherwood wrote: Rene Glover may be the Future head of HUD -- What has been the result of her "success"? from the article below: "A lot of young women who had children thought that when they got out in Section 8 they had it made.... A lot are young and naive, and want to come back but can't. Where are they now? Scattered. Living with relatives. Homeless." 'Great common sense': Atlanta housing director Renee Glover has earned praise nationwide for transforming run-down complexes into mixed-income communi-ties Ernie Suggs - Staff Monday, July 15, 2002 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sitting on a plush couch inside the man-agement office of one of Atlanta's mixed-income apartment complexes, Renee Glover carefully stacks the mas-sive pillows to her liking. Two in front to lean on and another behind her to rest on. Someone had just delivered a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies and the deli-cate scent drifted through the office, while the hoots and cackles of summer camp kids playing in the swimming pool provided the soundtrack. This is Centennial Place. A place so bad in its previous incarna-tion as Techwood Homes that people were scared to drive by it. Now, Geor-gia Tech students jog on its carefully manicured paths. "This is really what we should be do-ing," said Glover, the increasingly popular executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority. "The same resources that created this type of result is what we need to be doing all day. This makes great common sense." Centennial Place is one of Atlanta's former decrepit housing projects that have been transformed into neatly ap-pointed apartment complexes, where families from all economic backgrounds live side by side. Glover, who was appointed AHA di-rector in 1994 by Mayor Bill Campbell, is considered around the country and in-side the Washington Beltway as a leader in public housing reform. There have even been some rumblings that she might be the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the glory days of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Campbell's name was being ban-tered about as a likely HUD secretary. Now, with HUD Secretary Mel Martinez rumored to be gearing up for a 2006 run for Florida governor, Glover's name keeps popping up. On June 17, President Bush and Martinez visited Atlanta to promote home ownership. In the process, he toured and praised the housing author-ity's public housing program, which has razed several traditional public housing complexes and replaced them with nine lush mixed-income apartments, with swimming pools, patios and cookie-scented clubhouses. Later that week, Deputy HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson came to Atlanta for a closer look, taking a bus tour through several AHA properties. That only fu-eled the rumors about Glover and Washington. Whether or not Glover goes to Wash-ington, she has already adopted the lan-guage. "We have a great secretary in Mel Martinez," said Glover, who was recog-nized in June as one of the top women in government by the Ford Foundation. "He is doing a fantastic job, and Presi-dent Bush's vision of closing the home-ownership gap is a great one. They are both right on target, and all I can tell you is that I will enjoy working with them to continue to close that gap." Jackson, a longtime friend of Glover's and the former CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, said Glover is get-ting a lot of attention in Washington. He said that Atlanta, Charlotte and Dallas are the country's best in creating work-able mixed-income units. "I wish everybody was as innovative as Renee about the process of integrating people," said Jackson. Starting over A former corporate attorney on Wall Street, Glover said she grew tired of New York City and, wanting to start over after a divorce, came to Atlanta in 1986. She began working at an Atlanta firm and started to make friends in the city. One was Maynard Jackson, who by 1990 was on his third term as mayor. "I am not saying he fooled me into this, but he called me and said he would like for me to sit on the Atlanta Housing Authority Board," said Glover, holding in a giggle. "I asked him if there was something else I could do." Two days later, she was on the board, eventually becoming chairman. In 1994, when Earl Phillips resigned as AHA's executive director --- after a HUD audit revealed, among other things, that the AHA failed to fix critical maintenance problems and lost $2.5 million in 18 months because of its high vacancy rate --- Glover headed up the search for his replacement. When several top candi-dates turned down the job, Glover took it. "I thought that as long as we had the po-litical will --- and with my background in corporate finance and business law --- I understood a lot of what it took to put a business plan together to make this work," Glover said. "With God's grace, it has become successful." Big plans ahead Glover --- whose ideas are now being used as HUD's redevelopment blueprint --- has big plans for Atlanta. As the bus rolled down Joseph E. Lowery Boule-vard, Glover looked at a row of vacant lots and ramshackle houses and said, "Look at all of that potential." She sees a "college town" around the Atlanta University Center that would in-clude replacing Harris Homes. Like the old Perry Homes, where an 18-hole golf course will anchor a $300 mil-lion to $400 million project in southwest Atlanta. Dubbed the West Highlands project, it will be AHA's most ambitious project and will include a charter school, library, a YMCA and 2,211 housing units on 462 acres. Then there is Capitol Gateway, a pro-posed 1,033-unit mixed-income apart-ment and townhouse complex with 45,000 square feet of offices, shops and restaurants, which would replace Capitol Homes. Those projects would follow in the foot-steps of places like Centennial Place, Carver Homes, and the Villages of East Lake, a golf course community in East Atlanta that revitalized a place where shootings happened so often that locals called it Little Vietnam. Later, places like Herndon Homes, Grady Homes, University Homes and McDaniel Glenn will be targeted for revitalization. One area that has already been improved is the former John Hope Homes. As part of his massive redevelopment for the whole area, Atlanta developer Herman J. Russell has helped transform the for-mer project into the Villages at Castle-berry Hills. "I think it is one of the best programs that HUD has ever approved," said Rus-sell, who is spearheading an ambitious $200 million development in the area that will include loft apartments, condo-miniums, offices, shops and restaurants. "It is a wonderful concept where you bring together all income levels of peo-ple. That, in itself, has to be inspira-tional to young people. It has made a big difference in the quality of life in this city." Russell, the owner of H.J. Russell & Co., should know about inspiration. It was while visiting relatives at John Hope Homes about 60 years ago that Russell saw his first refrigerator and stove. Dedicated by FDR On Nov. 29, 1935 --- in the midst of the Great Depression --- President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood on what is now a cracked piece of pavement and dedicated Techwood Homes as the nation's first public housing project The barracklike compound was simple in its uniformity to match its simple mis-sion --- to provide interim, safe and sanitary housing for millions of poor Americans. But as years progressed, some public housing nationwide became havens for the unemployed, so-called "welfare mothers," crime and drugs. Glover said it was bad social and public policy and bad management that brought down public housing nationwide. Rules and ideas that came about during the Great Depression had little merit in the age of crack and submachine guns. "We forgot to think about what kind of society we were creating, and we had to come to the painful realization that the program had bad, unintended conse-quences,'' she said. In 1993, HOPE VI was created to help refurbish, build and create communities instead of warehousing people. The AHA has taken full advantage, raking in $186 million in HOPE VI money. "Atlanta has the most successful HOPE VI program in the country," said Jack-son, who should know. He dreamed it up. "Renee has done some remarkable things with it." Old residents want in But not everyone is singing the AHA or Glover's praises. Because while Glover is changing the landscape of the city, some of Atlanta's poor are being left out. Once a complex is razed, anyone who previously lived there has the op-tion of coming back. But only 40 percent of the units are earmarked for them, and moving back in comes with rules. There is a criminal background check. No staying home refusing to work. No lease violations. No history of trouble. "They have to say that they will buy into the vision," Glover said. "They will be a great neighbor." Louise Watley has lived in Carver Homes and now the Villages of Carver for 45 years. As the former president of the Carver Homes Tenant Association, she is swamped with requests from peo-ple seeking assistance in getting back in. "I explain to them it will be very hard for them to come back," said Watley, adding that many people simply didn't understand the rules. "A lot of them found out that once they left, they couldn't come back." Watley, who has complained vigorously that dozens of her neighbors have been forced out of their homes, said the pro-gram is designed to help people in the position to help themselves. Everyone else is out of luck. "A lot of young women who had children thought that when they got out in Section 8 they had it made," said Wat-ley. "A lot are young and naive, and want to come back but can't. Where are they now? Scattered. Living with rela-tives. Homeless." Glover contends that while everybody will not qualify for the new housing, they do have options, including Section 8, moving into other properties, or even buying their own homes. She said that she believes in the program and has no regrets about how it works or the results that it has created. "This is the most important work being done in America." WHO IS RENEE GLOVER? > She be-came executive director of Atlanta Housing Authority in 1994. > She razed traditional public housing com-plexes and replaced them with mixed-income communities. > Atlanta's West Highlands project will include a charter school, library, a YMCA and 2,211 housing units on 462 acres. > Her ideas are being used as HUD's nationwide re-development blueprint. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:21:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Fwd: PHADA article on two HOPE VI reports, and WS response --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: The following is an article that appears in "Advocate," the newsletter of the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA), Volume 17, Number 13, July 24, 2002, followed by some of my comments on the PHADA article. Wayne Sherwood ============= "Two new reports discuss HOPE VI reauthorization" HUD, critics address the program's record With the HOPE VI program up for Congressional reauthorization this year, two reports have been issued recently outlining the program's successes and weaknesses. HUD's report, entitled "HOPE VI, Best Practices and Lessons Learned 1992-2002" emphasizes the new vision of mixed income public housing promoted by the HOPE VI model and calls for reauthorization. At the same time, the report acknowledges construction of new units has been slow and that the original goal set by the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing of demolishing 86,000 units has been met. A second report, "False Hope," which is critical of the administration of the HOPE VI program has been written by the National Housing Law Project, in conjunction with the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Sherwood research Associates and Everywhere and Now Public Housing Residents Organizing Nationally Together (ENPHRONT). This report opposes the reduction of public housing units questions the mixed income model and believes residents have been hurt rather than helped by the program. The current HOPE VI model Between 1993 and 2001, HUD distributed $4.5 billion through HOPE VI, awarding 165 grants to 95 different authorities. Twenty authorities have received half of this funding with Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia leading the list. As of March 31, 2002, $1.78 billion had been spent. Although originally conceived as a glorified modernization program, the HOPE VI concept has become much more ambitious. There are now three main components. The first is to create mixed income housing, generally on the site of the distressed development. The mix of housing consists of market rate rental units, apartments affordable for low and very low-income renters, and public housing units available for extremely low income renters. Some units available for homeownership may be part of the mix. Constructing apartments for this mix of incomes also means that the development will be financed by a mixture of sources, combining private funds with the HOPE VI grant. In this fashion, HOPE VI leverages additional resources. The second component is neighborhood revitalization. Ideally, the transformation of the distressed public housing development serves as a catalyst for further investment in the neighborhood. There have been examples of commercial development in the form of new office buildings or retail outlets, such as grocery stores. The city can participate by improving its services, through building a new school to make the neighborhood more attractive to higher income residents for instance. Finally, non-profits can partner with housing authorities, construction new community facilities such as a Boys and Girls Club. In this fashion, the HOPE VI grant leverages even more financial resources and has a beneficial effect beyond the public housing development itself. Thirdly, the residents are helped through a community and supportive services plan that assigns a caseworker to each family to develop individual improvement programs addressing obstacles to self-sufficiency. Residents are then connected to services that can assist them with their individual needs, whether they be addiction prevention, job training, education or childcare. HOPE VI is an ambitious program designed to improve the lives of the residents of the distressed housing, the residents of the new mixed income development and the city as a whole through the improvement of entire neighborhoods. According to HUD, this model has been achieved, but since only 15 out of 165 grants have been completed to date, HUD recognizes that it may be too ambitious. HOPE VI grants are very complex HUD's report explains the many reasons it takes so long to carry out a HOPE VI project. First of all, there is the inherent conflict that many authorities which had distressed properties were also poor performers. Thus, some authorities, with capacity problems to begin with, were expected to carry out extremely complex projects for which they had no experience. To make matters more difficult, some of these agencies continued to be awarded new grants, even as the existing ones languished. As HOPE VI became more and more ambitious, and new stakeholders were brought into the process, such as private developers and financial institutions, the process became more and more complicated, and was often accompanied by a clash of cultures. With the need for additional funding sources, such as Low Income Housing Tax Credits, other application procedures and timetables were added to the mix. The need to coordinate with the city administration and non-profits further added to the number of stakeholders. Resident participation is crucial and cooperation was often made difficult by histories of mistrust between housing authority administrations and resident leaders. HUD itself was often unprepared to expedite the approval process, especially with staff cutbacks during the late 90s. Despite these growing pains and he steep learning curve, HUD believes that timeframes are shortening and performance is improving. Some agencies have learned over the years how to manage this unwieldy program. Nevertheless, if the program is reauthorized HUD recommend reducing the size of the grants to simplify the scopes of the projects as well as increasing the pool of recipients to bring in authorities with proven management skills. It also believes that the process needs to be further along before applications are approved, with financing and site control, for instance, already in place. HUD has approved the demolition of 140,000 units One of the primary criticisms of "False Hope" is that too many public housing units are being lost. The authors of this report have a favorable opinion of public housing, writing, "In fact, the public housing program's reputation is greatly undeserved. Apart from a comparatively small number of visible and dramatic failures, public housing is a vital national resource that provides decent and affordable homes to over a million families across the country." Thus, they are concerned that HOPE VI, without adequate replacements, is tearing down too many units, including ones which are not severely distressed, especially in light of the nationwide decline of units available for extremely low-income people. They point out that there is no firm definition of what "severely distressed" means and which housing developments are severely distressed. The report recommends that HUD publish a new definition of severely distressed and issue a list of developments across the country which meet that definition and are thus eligible for the HOPE VI program. The report also calls for the return to one for one replacement, requiring that a new unit of public housing be constructed for each one demolished. In the 1980s and 90s, one for one replacement was one of the main impediments to public housing reform as agencies could not reduce density or demolish obsolete units because of a lack of funding for new construction, available sites or public support to construct new units. HUD addresses the issue of the loss of public housing units in the HOPE VI program in its report. First of all it makes a distinction between units demolished under HOPE VI and units approved for demolition with no revitalization activity attached. As of June 2, 2002, HUD has approved the demolition of 140,000 units. Of these, 71,902 have been approved as part of HOPE VI revitalization programs, while the rest have been processed through the Special Applications Center, sometimes as a result of mandatory conversion. Certainly, this 140,000 did exceed the 86,000 units originally identified in the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing's 1992 plan. For the 71,902 HOPE VI units, housing authorities plan to replace them with 34,000 public housing units, 29,000 non-public, but still affordable units, and 16,455 housing choice vouchers. This total comes to 79,455, so an argument can be made that there has actually been an increase in affordable housing under the HOPE VI program. Of course, fewer units are available to extremely low-income households, which is a concern to the authors of "False Hope." HUD's report recognizes that vouchers are not an effective housing choice in all locations. Therefore, it recommends that authorities in markets where vouchers are difficult to use include more public housing replacement units in their HOPE VI proposals. The residents in distressed housing developments In addition to their concerns about the loss of public housing units, the authors of "False Hope" believe that the residents who live in developments slated for HOPE Vi revitalization do not enjoy many benefits from the program. Certainly just being forced to move because of demolition is a hardship, so it is important that the development be genuinely distressed. It is true as well that relatively few of the original residents wind up moving back to renovated HOPE VI developments. This phenomenon is true because there are fewer public housing units on the site generally; there are stricter screening requirements in place usually, and in most cases since years have elapsed between the original move and the opportunity to reoccupy the site, residents have organized new lives either using a Section 8 voucher or relocated in another public housing development, and do not want to disrupt them again. HUD believes it is offering residents a sound continuum of choice of housing options which offers them a chance to improve their living conditions. Certainly a voucher, combined with mobility counseling, although not for everyone, offers residents in many markets an opportunity to live in the type of apartment and neighborhood they desire. Indeed HUD cites statistics showing that the average poverty rate of the census tract for these residents declined from 61 percent to 27 percent after they moved, with 92 percent having lived in high poverty neighborhoods before the move and 39 percent after the move. As an alternative, another public housing unit can be the right choice for some residents. Since they will be moving out of a distressed development, and since, as "False Hope" itself points out, public housing provides decent and affordable housing for millions of residents, this choice will probably be an improvement. If this move is successfully combined with the supportive service casework which is an integral part of HOPE VI, there should be no question that the original residents have grater opportunities even though they do not move back to the original site. A central issue for the authors of "False Hope" is whether mixed income housing is a desirable goal or not. This question is an important one not only for the HOPE VI program but also for Section 8 where housing mobility has become a policy issue. While HUD basically asserts that mixed income housing has a positive impact on low-income residents and "False Hope" basically asserts that there is no evidence to prove this conclusion, both acknowledge that there are two sides to this question and that the answer is still open to debate. Given this uncertainty, HUD believes the mixed income model is preferable because it provides improved living conditions, while the authors of "False Hope" believe it better to continue to house extremely low-income people together and to try to improve incomes from within the group. "False Hope" also concludes that the residents do not have enough formal input into the HOPE VI process. It proposes enforceable rights extending beyond the application stage to the entire redevelopment process. HOPE VI has clearly succeeded in transforming many blighted public housing developments and improving their contiguous neighborhoods despite the complexities involved. Yet, "False Hope" raises an important question of whether or not too many units are being demolished. In the final analysis, HUD itself appears ambiguous on this issue. It ends its report on a note that seems to reflect its uncertainty. "The Department supports reauthorizing the program for one year, during which we hope to make some significant improvements to the program. However, we also recognize that some in Congress may feel that the program has successfully served its purpose set out by the Commission on Severely Distressed Housing and Congress, and therefore, may elect to let the program sunset and re-target these precious Federal resources to other affordable housing priorities." END OF PHADA ARTICLE ---------------------- The following are some comments by Wayne Sherwood on the above review in the PHADA Advocate. Todd Espinosa of the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) in Oakland CA took the lead in writing the report and did by far the most work on it. I and the others mentioned in the PHADA article also made contributions to the report. In the following comments, however, I am speaking only for myself, not for the other authors. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the PHADA review. Clearly, PHADA has read the False Hope report and grasped and summarized its main points well. There are a few places where I would disagree with how PHADA has characterized the False Hope report, and I have noted a couple of those below, but it is gratifying to know that a major public housing organization is willing to openly discuss the issues around HOPE VI, and try to begin the job of sifting and sorting through what is actually happening with the HOPE VI program, as compared to the claims of total success included in the HOPE VI press releases. The debate over HOPE VI is a debate over the future of the public housing program, a debate about whether the public housing program has any future at all. Although originally conceived as a way of transforming public housing, by rehabilitating or replacing public housing in developments of smaller size and lower density, while providing residents a substantial amount of help in improving their financial and other life circumstances, HOPE VI has been converted by HUD into an entirely different program. HUD's new theory, pushed also by OMB, is that family public housing is a dying program and that the only viable alternative is to gradually demolish all aging family public housing developments and replace them with mixed income housing (not so incidentally reducing the federal commitment to funding affordable housing for low income people). According to this approach, only a small proportion of the new units built under HOPE VI would be public housing units for very low income families. HUD apparently lacks the capacity to conceive of any alternative to severely distressed public housing other than the mixed income model. This comes close to being another way of blaming the poor for their condition and seeing the solution as demolishing their housing and shipping the poor off to someplace else. The authors of "False Hope" believe that there are other alternatives to severely distressed public housing, including good, well-run public housing. Instead of providing Congress with an objective evaluation of HOPE VI, HUD has assembled a collection of "best practices," largely based upon the self-reporting by the Housing Authorities themselves. But it is important to evaluate not only the "best practices" claimed on behalf of HOPE VI, but also its many problems. And the PHADA article says that only 15 out of 165 grants have been completed to date. In this obvious vacuum of information about actual HOPE VI outcomes, PHADA says that HUD "believes" that the program has still been a great success. Congress and the public need better information than that from the primary federal agency responsible for administering this program, HUD. The PHADA article recounts the "False Hope" report's concern about the substantial reduction in the number of affordable housing units available for very low income families, the need to replace public housing units being lost with other hard units, and the lack of involvement of the residents in the process. The PHADA article also points out the need to define the meaning of "severely distressed," and to develop some systematic rules and procedures for administering and implementing the HOPE VI program. The "False Hope" report does not suggest that all of the public housing replacement units need to be built back on the same site, or at the original concentrations. In many cases, it would be preferable to acquire or develop buildings for use as public housing on other sites to use as replacements. The "False Hope" report also claims, as the PHADA article states, that there is little evidence that mixed income housing by itself improves the lives of very low income people through any kind of "role model" effect. I think I would disagree with the PHADA characterization, however, that "the authors of 'False Hope' believe it better to continue to house extremely low-income people together and to try to improve incomes from within the group." That overstates the argument we made. What "False Hope" claims is that the mixed income model is being used as an excuse to demolish public housing and reduce the number of units that are affordable to very low income people according to an unproved role model theory. If an equal number of public housing replacement units were provided, for example as a part of other developments, that would change the situation entirely. An extreme degree of concentration of very low income families is probably a bad thing, e.g. over 300 such families on a single site; but there seems to be no reason to believe that it is necessary to replace all family public housing with the mixed income model, as HUD has often claimed. Family public housing developments of moderate and smaller sizes can be successfully managed by conscientious Public Housing Authorities, if adequately funded by Congress and by HUD. The calculation of how many units are being lost in the HOPE VI process also needs to be looked at carefully. The figures provided by HUD, which apparently count 29,000 "non-public but affordable units," apparently fails to recognize that most of these are probably Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units. These units would have been built in any event, whether on the HOPE VI site or not, so they cannot be considered as an increase in affordable housing attributable to the HOPE VI program. If you take those units out of the calculation, you can see the HOPE VI results in a large loss of affordable housing units, but especially those available to the lowest income families. Once again, I would like to express my appreciation for PHADA's thoughtful review of these two reports, and I look forward to a wider debate over the future of the HOPE VI program as Congress continues to consider reauthorization and further appropriations. It is especially important to get more factual information from HUD about how the HOPE VI money has been spent, whether it is being spent wisely, and whether very low income people are truly benefiting from this program. We can no longer rely, a decade after the HOPE VI program was initiated, on continued HUD assertions that HOPE VI is a success, based mostly upon the PHAs' own self-reporting, in an almost complete vacuum of factual reports on project finances or programmatic outcomes, and with little reference to the consequences for those displaced by HOPE VI or to the affordable housing needs of the many people who are not living in public housing but who still need it. Wayne Sherwood Sherwood Research Associates 218 Grant Ave. Takoma Park MD 20912-4234 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com [This message contained attachments] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:12:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: Chicago residents find it hard to find new housing --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: Moving not easy for CHA tenants Many landlords hesitant to rent By Ray Quintanilla Chicago Tribune staff reporter July 21, 2002 Across the street from Robert Taylor Homes, Laritha Smith is working the public phone again, trying to find a place to live and running into the same kind of difficulties countless other Chicago Housing Authority tenants face when they try to begin lives outside public housing. "I'm calling about your newspaper ad," Smith explains, a folded periodical in her left hand and a black marker in the other. "Yes, I do have children," she adds, her hand clenching the phone tighter. "Yes, I do live in the projects. What? You just rented the apartment?" Smith's 17-story building at 4950 S. Federal St. is next in line for demolition as the CHA continues dismantling what once was the nation's largest concentration of public housing high-rises. In the days since the agency began notifying tenants to vacate, Smith and others have come face to face with a surprising personal discovery: Leaving public housing isn't nearly as simple as they once imagined. The federal rent subsidy they receive as an incentive to move out is no guarantee of a smooth transition, they say. Many contend their biggest challenge is finding a decent apartment in a competitive private housing market. In some instances, landlords would rather not rent to a former CHA tenant, they add. "It's like we are being punished or something," Smith said, concluding another round of disappointing calls to suburban landlords. "When it comes right down to it, I don't think a lot of people want to rent me an apartment because they are afraid. Thing is, I have to leave here." It's a problem very much on the minds of CHA officials, who point out that screening out CHA residents borders on discrimination. The CHA estimates that nearly 1,000 tenants will be asked to relocate this year as it demolishes a handful of high-rises in the coming months. Those leaving are offered housing subsidies that cap their out-of-pocket expenses for rent at no more than 30 percent of disposable income. But officials say the difficulty in finding new apartments is a big reason that only about half of the residents slated for relocation accept a rent subsidy. The other half choose to relocate to other CHA units, where they pay little rent, if any. Those who remain often have other reasons. Some have excessively high electric bills they can't afford to pay off, so they simply move into other CHA apartments, where heat is free and ComEd is more apt to be forgiving of late payments. But Terry Peterson, the CHA's chief executive officer, said, "The CHA is committed to ensuring that our families move smoothly through relocation. That's why we have increased the number of relocation counselors who help residents with landlords and with identifying at least five apartments to visit." Last year, 88 percent of the tenants being relocated found apartments within 90 days, Peterson said. CHA earmarked $2.5 million last week to hire counseling firms to help CHA residents find apartments across the region. A survey by the Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing showed that more than half of the 207 landlords contacted in April 2002 refused to rent apartments once they discovered the prospective tenants planned to use a Housing Choice Voucher, a subsidy formerly called Section 8. Daniel Romero, a director of the Coalition to Protect Public Housing, said residents come under intense pressure to leave public housing altogether once they receive a 180-day notice to vacate before demolition. Many are not capable of getting their affairs in order in time, he added, so some accept the first apartment they are offered, even if it's in worse condition than the one they're leaving behind. "It's sad because here we have a housing authority that is supposed to shelter people," he said. "What you end up with is a situation where residents don't get access to decent housing because some landlords just won't rent to people who are coming from developments with bad reputations. It's frustrating for the residents." Romero says the extent of the relocation problem may never be fully understood primarily because no one has any idea how many people are squatters in the high-rises. With only about eight weeks to go before demolition crews arrive at 4950 S. Federal St., one longtime resident still isn't sold on the idea of leaving for an apartment. The dozen or so phone calls to prospective landlords she has made in recent days haven't been fruitful. "I'm not really sure where I am going to be in the future," Aquila Vartley, 22, said one morning in her 16th floor apartment while one of her two toddlers scampered across the living room floor. "I know that I got to get out of here. But nobody wants to rent to you once they find out you've been living in Robert Taylor. Sometimes they hang up on you or just take your name and don't get back into contact with you. It's really pretty upsetting." Vartley said that until she finds a place to live, there's no sense worrying about moving or finding someone to care for her children should she decide to return to work. Some residents choose to remain in public housing because they want to be around during construction of the 25,000 units of replacement housing expected to become available by 2010, said Kathryn Greenberg, a senior assistant to Terry Peterson. If they stay in the CHA, she said, those residents can be easily notified of apartments as they are constructed. It's more difficult to find former residents once they enter the private housing market. Shareen Williams is one Robert Taylor resident who isn't waiting around. She has been biting her nails and hasn't slept well since being told a few weeks ago that she and her three small children must leave 4950 S. Federal St. Williams, who grew up in Robert Taylor, said she expects to move into a three-bedroom apartment in Harvey in two weeks. She attributes her success at finding her new place to persistence and hard work. And some luck. "The first few times I called people, I got the runaround, too," said Williams, 31, standing in line at a public health agency office with her 6-month-old daughter, Jasmine. "Then I got smart and started calling landlords from my cell phone, and for every one that told me they didn't have anything for me, I decided to make two more calls. Then, I guess, someone up above was looking out for me." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/