News

July 14, 2008

County Housing Authority makes do

But due to high demand and fed funding cuts, agency may have to raise flat rental rates.

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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Despite repeated cuts in federal funding and a high demand for public housing, the Luzerne County Housing Authority has been making strides in providing, improving and building attractive, affordable housing for the low-income, disabled and elderly of the county.

Still, some authority renters who pay flat rental rates might soon see rent increases at a time when energy costs are skyrocketing and impacting the authority’s budget as well as homeowners’ and renters’ household budgets.

At an authority meeting last week, executive director Dave Fagula updated the board on several ongoing and future projects and shared information from a report by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials – a lobbying organization for adequate housing for all Americans – particularly those with low and moderate incomes.

According to the report, the Bush administration’s budget for fiscal year 2009 proposes deep cuts in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s affordable housing and community development programs.

It would leave the Public Housing Operating Fund underfunded by $1 billion and cut the Public Housing Capital Fund by 17 percent, the report said.

According to the report, the federal government subsidized an average of 98.2 percent of monies needed in the Public Housing Operating Fund between 1983 and 2002. The average subsidy for fiscal years 2003 through 2009 is only 87.6 of the need.

“We’re being shortchanged 18 percent of about $5 million. So that’s $700,000 to $800,000 that we are entitled to and should be receiving, but they’re claiming they don’t have enough money to give to us,” Fagula said.

Fagula said the board will soon have to consider raising flat rental rates for authority properties because of rising utility costs and federal underfunding. “We haven’t really raised our flat rents in public housing for years now. … Our rents are lower than most other authorities,” he said.

Tenants have the choice of paying a flat rate or 30 percent of their gross monthly income in rent. Fagula said out of the authority’s 1,352 public housing tenants, about 200 pay the flat rate, which hasn’t been increased in many years.

Fagula points his finger at the Bush administration when defending increases in fees or rents.

“It’s amazing how bad the funding levels have been for both operating subsidy and modernization money during this current eight-year administration. We’re looking forward to possible changes in the future. I don’t know, though. With them spending billions of dollars every month for this war, there’s not a lot of money left over for these types of programs. So I think regardless of what administration comes in, they’re going to be hard pressed to find the kind of money we need,” Fagula said.

Still, Fagula said, the authority is making strides, with improvements and constructing more housing units as funding becomes available.

He said the final piece of funding for a $4.2-million 30-unit apartment complex for the elderly and disabled in West Hazleton fell into place on July 1 when the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh announced the award of a $650,000 grant for the project.

Board Chairman Jerry Bonner congratulated Fagula and his staff for winning the grant, which he said “was hard to get. Only a handful in the entire country were awarded,” he said.

Fagula anticipates groundbreaking by the end of the year and construction to end in 2009.

Fagula said the demand for public housing is as high as ever, especially Section 8 program housing that subsidizes landlords who provide reduced rents to qualified low-income renters.

“We’ve got 1,115 (Section 8) slots and only two available vouchers, with 440 people on the wait list. … We haven’t taken applications in months and months, just to give you some idea what the need is for rental assistance,” he said..

While building more public housing in the county is important, so is maintaining and modernizing existing housing.

“There’s a huge backlog of modernization work across the country. There’s almost $20 billion (needed to) modernize public housing across the country,” Fagula said.

“Right now, they’re appropriating about $2 billion a year. That’s down from $3 billion a year that was being appropriated back in 2001 when the Bush administration came in. … We have a lot of items on the table and not enough money to do them all. So we’re prioritizing,” Fagula said.

High-priority future projects include the installation of security cameras at the authority’s 10 elderly complexes and the Exeter Family project at an approximate cost of $350,000. Another important project will be the installation of firewalls in the crawlspace attic areas at the Meadowcrest, Fairview and Exeter Family projects, he said.

Current modernization projects include the replacement of kitchen, bath and light fixtures at authority units across the county. The roofs at Kingston Manor and Kingston Gardens are also being replaced.

The board on Thursday also voted to buy 49 new coin-operated washers and dryers for various apartment buildings from Yenason Mechanical of Wilkes-Barre – the low bidder at $63,405. Fagula recommended the board raise the usage fee from 75 cents per load to $1 per load – fees he said would still be substantially less than what commercial Laundromats charge.

Fagula credited much of the authority’s success to his staff, noting especially the maintenance staff.

“I go through our public housing and it doesn’t look like public housing. It’s in very good shape. … I don’t see any graffiti, I don’t see any hanging rain gutters. I’ve got to credit our tenants also. … A lot of the tenants have taken the time and money out of their own pockets to purchase flowers and annuals, etc.,” Fagula said.

Facts about public housing

• More than 2 million people are housed in nearly 1.2 million public housing units nationally.

• 40 percent of public housing residents are children.

• 15 percent of public housing residents are age 62 or older.

• More than half the families in public housing are headed by seniors or people with disabilities.

• The average income of public housing families is $12,720.

• More than half the families in public housing have been living in it five years or less; 23 percent have lived in it less than one year.

• More than 5 million unassisted households face severe rent burdens with housing costs more than 50 percent higher than their reported incomes.

• On any given night, an estimated 745,000 men, women and children are homeless in America.

Statistics provided by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials

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