Street roots., June 12, 2009, Page 8, Image 8

a DECADE
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street roots"
Education .Dialogue .Independence
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P H O T O B Y K EN H A W K IN S W W W .K E N H A W K IN S .C O M
Jennifer Cherry and her fiance; Jeff Crist, stand outside their home. Their sons, Tucker and Deeshawn, play ball in the background. Both are on disability and qualify for Section 8 rental
assistance, but have been trimmed from the program because o f a shortage at their housing authority.
LETTER, fro m page 1
obstacle course of waiting lists, paperwork
requirements, landlord discrimination
rights, affordability, and economic flux. All
of which were in play in the months leading
up to the termination letters from NOHA.
Like all housing authorities,- NOHA
distributes Section 8 rental assistance based
on the funding support provided by the
federal Department of Housing and Urban
Development NOHA is approved to support
1,077 housing units across Clatsop,
Columbia and Tillamook counties, and
funding for those units is deterniined by .
HUD according to a formula based onthe
housing authority’s previous year’s success
at meeting 100 percent of the unit goal.
In mid-2008, NOHA realized it was under­
leasing, falling short at 96 percent,
according to HUD. It needed to fill more
units. So it did, going beyond its federally
allotted 1,077.
But, despite the financial assistance,;
people couldn’t find affordable places to '
rent. To even use their Section 8 vouchers,
renters needed more financial aid. So at the
start of 2009, NOHA raised its payment
rates to landlords, all the while continuing
to exceed its 1,077 allotted units.
It also started dipping into its reserves to
pay the higher rates - reserves that had
exceeded $1 million, according to HUD,
accrued from money not spent from its
Section 8 voucher budget, (However,
reserves, by law, cannot be spent on new
vouchersbeyond the housing authority’s
limit.)
.
By March, NOHA was expecting its
funding notice from HUD for. budgeting. It
didn’t arrive until May. Still, NOHA is
receiving more HUD housing assistance
money than it had last year — $300,000 for
a total of $5.33 million.
And by May, NOHA was over-leased,
exceeding its voucher limit, and paying more
in rents.
At the s^me time, people were not
leaving the program at the normal attrition .
rate. Typically, about 15 people per month
leave the Section 8 program, but because of
the economy and the rise in unemployment,
more people were staying on the program.
Only about four or five were leaving each
month, according to NOHA.
Columbia County’s unemployment rate is
15.4 percent, more than double what it was
one year ago. The self-employed, such as
builders and.carpenters, make up a large
portion of the region’s work force, and those
jobs have slowed, stifling income if not
generating unemployment figures. The bulk
of remaining work is in lower-wage service
jobs.
“People aren’t moving,” Says Teresa Sims,
second in command at N0HA. Sims runs
the tenant-based assistance programs in
conjunction with other agencies. “They’re
not earning the income to actually move off
the program by earning a living wage.
They’re hanging onto the program as long
as possible.” ,
(Carol Snell, NOHA’s executive director,
was not available to return Street Roots’
calls.)
When the funding from HUD finally was
determined, it was $600,000 short of the
obligations already àsisumed by NOHA — a
Conclusion weighted heavily on the majority
of the year when NOHA was under-leased.
/And soon thereafter, Jennifer, and
hundreds of other people like her, received
their letters.
“HUD is looking at Us, saying, -you
should have all the money in your net asset
reserve,’” Sims said. “And by May we had
already spent that on the higher rent
standard.”
“For a housing authority like NOHA, if is
basically ¿ forecasting issue,” said Lee
Jones, a spokesman for HUD’s Northwest
region, based in Seattle. “It’s a life of
forecasting; over and under.”
When HUD looked at NOHA’s books,
NOHA was still under-leased. By HUD’s
assessment, NOHA hadn’t “earned”
$600,000 in vouchers, as Jones’ puts it.
“What unfortunately happened in this
incidence, when all is said and done, is
NOHA didn’t hit right on its forecast; on
leasing patterns, when and where it was
leasing, when and where it was putting
families on to the program,” Jones said.
Essentially, he said, over-leasing, timing
and the economy dug them a hole. “The die
was cast,” he said. “It was a perfect storm.”
State Sen. Betsy Johnson, who represents
Northwest Oregon, doesn’t give a damn
about the appropriate metaphor/
“At the end of the day, she says, “families
are out in the streets because of somebody’s
bureaucratic error.”
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'T 'h is isn’t the first time this has happened
to NOHA. In 2004, the housing
authority found itself in a similar shortfall -
although with about a third the number of
terminations. At that time, the state rustled
up funding to bridge the gap, with Oregon
Housing and Community Services, the
umbrella agency for housing and homeless
programs iri Oregon, kicking in about
$38,000 to help 23 families. This year, the
state is dealing with its own billion-dollar
deficit, hut Oregon Housing and Community
Services says it has earmarked $50,000 in
discretionary resources to stabilize housing
for the most vulnerable families. In a letter
to Johnson, OHCS Deputy Director Rick
Crager says that, “the management of
NOHA remains a concern to OHCS.”
“Right now I don’t see a clear path to a
complete safety net,” says. Johnson, who is
in discussions with local, state and federal
lawmakers to address the situation. “I don’t
want to extinguish hope, but I don’t see an
easy path to an immediate solution. The
bottom line for me is I want to find out how
this happened, where the vulnerabilities are
in this system, and why if is that the burden
of whatever occurred rests on the back of
these displaced families. We owe them
better than this.”
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iven a 30-day notice, people who
received the letters began calling
agencies and knocking on doors. The
Community Action Team is the umbrella
B