Over 5,000 Poor Are Dumped From Housing Authoritiy Waiting Lists

Commentary: Berkeley Housing Authority’s Plan To Dump its Waiting List
By Lynda Carson (08-24-07)

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article2.cfm?issue=08-24-07&storyID=27866


On Aug. 22, Berkeley Housing Authority board members were scheduled to vote on a resolution to terminate it’s existing housing assistance waiting list. There was little to no advance warning that this was about to occur, and it caught the housing community by surprise.

On the surface, Berkeley’s plan to terminate it’s current housing assistance waiting list appears to be little more than a political statement claiming that things are better, when in reality this plan does not seem to be a real solution to the past problems in the agency.

The plan to dump over 5,000 people from the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) waiting list is a slap in the face to all of the elderly, poor and disabled families who have done everything right to get on the list, and stay on the list.

Worse yet, it appears that the newly installed board members of the BHA have not come up with a viable plan or proposal that would guarentee that a new waiting list would be properly maintained in the future. Destroying the BHA’s housing assistance waiting lists does nothing to resolve the present crisis for those needing assistance, and only makes the present scandal worse because destroying the current waiting list precisely hurts those that it was meant to assist. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) may establish local preferences for selecting applicants from its waiting list. As an example, PHAs may give a preference to a family who is homeless or living in substandard housing. Or for those who are paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent, or have been involuntarily displaced. Families who qualify for any such local preferences move ahead of other families on the list who do not qualify for any preference. Each PHA has the discretion to establish local preferences to reflect the housing needs and priorities of its particular community.”

Preferences mean that people are being bumped out of line all the time in housing authorities all across the nation for various reasons, and this is nothing new to those familiar with the way housing authorities are being operated. It certainly does not mean that the PHA’s waiting lists need to be destroyed or purged, and that everyone in line should be dumped from the waiting lists only to have to start all over again.

After the Huricane Katrina disaster demolished the gulf states, housing authorities across the nation ignored their current waiting lists to give preference to disaster victims who relocated to their regions, and it created a whole new set of problems and resentment for those that were bumped out of line by Katrina’s victims. This same sort of scenario would play out in Berkeley, if a new list bumped everyone out of line, and new people were given their place. In addition HUD says, “During the application process, the PHA will collect information on family income, assets, and family composition. The PHA will verify this information with other local agencies, your employer and bank, and will use the information to determine program eligibility and the amount of the housing assistance payment. If the PHA determines that your family is eligible, the PHA will put your name on a waiting list, unless it is able to assist you immediately.”

Whether the waiting lists in Berkeley have been properly maintained or not through the years, as long as the current people on the waiting lists meet the eligibility requirements for housing assistance, and no one improperly bumps them up in line ahead of others, there should be no problems and the current waiting lists could easily be updated if necessary when openings occur.

Currently the BHA website says, “The BHA is not currently processing applications from the wait list for new vouchers. This is because the BHA does not have funding available to provide new vouchers at this time. You will be contacted in writing, by mail, when your name reaches the top of the wait list and funds available for additional vouchers to be issued.” If there are no funds available for those already on the current waiting lists and the BHA is not processing applications regardless of one’s status, one can only wonder what is the point in spending tens of thousands of dollars to create a whole new waiting list... As is, thousands needing housing assistance in Berkeley have already patiently waited for as long as 8 years, and many have done everything required of them by the BHA to update their files when a change in status occurs. They should not be punished and told to go to the back of the line because of staff mismanagement in the agency.

Since the proposed purge is not being mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), or being demanded by any other over-sight agency as a means to save the BHA, this all sounds like another political blunder and a big waste of time and money during a very crucial period for the BHA’s scarce resources, and needy clients.

People should keep in mind that when the Oakland Housing Authority last opened up their waiting list during January of 2006, an astounding 40 percent of Oakland’s low-income families filed applications for housing assistance.

If the BHA purged their current waiting lists and started taking new applications over the proposed five-day application period, they can expect way more than 5,000 low-income families to fill out applications for the new waiting list. When considering that it would take (new) BHA staff members a minimum of 15 minutes or more to prepare a new file for each client that just signed up for the new waiting list, this dubious venture may easily end up costing around $75,000 or more before the dust settles.

Creating a new waiting list for the BHA would only guarentee that everyone on the current list has to start all over at the back of the line. It would be cost prohibitive, and it is not a guarenteed solution to problems of incompetence or mismanagement that has plagued this much needed agency through the years. The City of Berkeley needs to respect those who are already on the BHA’s waiting lists, and stop wasting precious resources for political reasons that do not offer solutions.

Lynda Carson is one of the founding members of Save Berkeley Housing Authority.


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Housing Authority Scraps Conflicting Wait Lists
BY Brian Whitley
Daily Cal Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007

http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=25672

Thousands of people in line to receive low-income public housing no longer know where they stand after the Berkeley Housing Authority voted yesterday to scrap its error-filled waiting list.

Those on the old list—some of whom had been on it for five years or more—will have five business days to re-apply. The new list, restricted to families requiring three or four bedroom units, will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

“I think the board struggled,” said Carole Norris, chair of the board. “’We feel sad about it.”

None of the members of the new governing board, which took over oversight of the authority from the Berkeley City Council on July 1, voted against the decision, deeming it a painful but necessary break with the agency’s troubled past.

Those troubles, according to reports by the Berkeley city attorney, included egregious failures to keep accurate records and attempts by former authority staffers to hide the problems.

Although the old list contained 5,000 applicants, the authority’s executive director, Tia Ingram, said many of those were ineligible to be on the list.

Ingram told the authority’s governing board that while trying to update the list, she found three substantially different versions of the waiting list for the 75 public housing units, maintained at different times by three different entities: the city of Berkeley, Alameda County and Affordable Housing Associates, a nonprofit developer that managed some of the units.

The version recorded on Berkeley Housing Authority computers cannot be trusted, she said, because staff members could not produce proof that they actually sent a round of ineligibility notification letters to past list members.

Board members rejected an idea offered by Ingram to give preference on the new waiting list to those applicants who could submit written proofs of being on the old list

They also passed on a suggestion by Norris to establish a sub-committee that would take 30 days to seek alternative solutions. Ingram said the authority would lose revenue if that idea were adopted, since the six currently vacant units would remain unoccupied.

Since the often huge discrepancies among the three waiting lists cannot be reconciled, Ingram said, that left no other options except a new approach.

“What’s a fair, clean way to do it?” Ingram said. “I don’t know.”

While the decision to start from scratch received a reluctant smattering of applause from audience members at the board’s meeting, some expressed anger at the authority.

“It’s totally unfair to all of those that have done everything right to stay on the list,” said Lynda Carson, organizer of the advocacy group Save Berkeley Housing Authority. “Some have been on the list for eight years or more. Now their hopes and dreams are being shattered.”

Contact Brian Whitley at bwhitley [at] dailycal.org.


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The Berkeley Daily Planet

City Housing Authority Throws Out Waiting List
By Riya Bhattacharjee

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=08-24-07&storyID=27851


(Photo - Angel Bertha Elzy has been waiting for a house since 1983.)

On Wednesday Elzy’s hopes were shattered when the Berkeley Housing Authority voted to erase the existing low-income public housing waiting list and start afresh.

The lists, said housing authority executive director Tia Ingram, were inaccurate. The housing authority wiped clean as many as 5,000 names on the affordable housing waiting list and has asked everyone to apply again to determine whether they are eligible.

“We struggled a lot about what to do with this list,” Ingram told the board during Wednesday’s public meeting. “In November we attempted to salvage some people on that list. Our effort was not successful. Do we have accurate information in any of our reports? I don’t know. What’s a fair, clean way to do it? I don’t know. Anything short of a new list is riddled with challenges from the past.”

Rocked by a recent scandal that led to the resignation of former Housing Department Director Steve Barton and the formation of a new governing body independent of the city, the agency called the decision to abolish the existing lists a difficult one.

“I understand the difficulty of trying to come up with a fair way to do it,” said member Adolph Moody, who abstained from voting. “I am blessed because I live in a house. At this point I don’t have the conscience to go ahead and purge the list. It’s not because I think I have a better solution. I can’t prove anything and feel for all of you. I can’t deny anyone.”

The board’s 5-1 vote will also allow families potentially eligible for three- and four-bedroom units five business days to get on the new low-income public housing waiting list. An independent agency hired by the agency will review the applications.

The low-income public housing program was privately managed by Affordable Housing Associates (AHA) from September 2003 through June 2007, during which AHA was responsible for drawing families from the wait list to fill vacancies.

After AHA’s contract was terminated in June, the Berkeley Housing Authority took over this responsibility. While preparing to fill five vacant units, agency staff stumbled across a multitude of inaccuracies and decided to purge the list.

“We learned that there were three different versions of the wait list,” Ingram’s report to the agency stated. “The active list that had been used by AHA for the preceding four years and two separate and distinct wait lists that were being retained by two BHA staff members.”

The report further states that after studying each of the internal waiting lists and consulting with those previously responsible for them, agency staff were unable to determine whether either of the two lists were “the” list or whether to combine both lists into one.

The AHA list met the same fate.

“The papers report up to 5,000 families will be taken off the wait list, but that number is at the extreme high end,” Ingram said.

According to Ingram’s report, the largest list dated back to 1999 and contained over 5000 applicants, including those that only qualified for one- or two-bedroom assistance.

“These applicants should have been removed from the list because they did not qualify for placement on the wait list for three- and four-bedroom units.”

Staff’s proposal to abolish the existing waiting list and create a new one was approved by both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Stephen Schneller, Director of Public Housing.

However, a number of people at the meeting vociferously opposed the move.

“I think it’s horrible,” Elzy said as she broke down into tears. “They have been taking me through hell. I applied in the early ’80s and then they made me reapply again in 2000. And I am still waiting. I am living on and off in Berkeley and Oakland. I am practically homeless. I am devastated by the news.”

Lorin Cook, a diabetic, demanded the reason for being dropped over the years to number 934 when at one time she was number 108 on the waiting list.

“People need to have proof,” she told boardmembers. “What is the excuse for this?”

Rent Board commissioner Jesse Arreguin called the decision drastic.

“It will have serious implications for tenants in Berkeley,” he said. “How are you going to process the new applicants? I am not sure you have the capacity to do so.”

“The lists are invalid and the only solution is to start all over again,” said commissioner Allen. “It’s important to create a system to prevent this from happening again.”

“What could be done to ensure that this does not happen again?” asked commissioner Marjorie Cox.

Ingram said that the new list would be static and password protected and it would form the baseline for the future.

“We would also be keeping notes everyday for our knowledge,” she said.

“It pains me to establish a new list,” said commissioner Dorothy Hunt. “But we have to start somewhere. Everybody will be affected but we can start clean.”

Lynda Carson, founder of the group Save Berkeley Housing Authority, condemned the decision to abolish the lists.

“It’s shocking news to all the low-income tenants who did everything they had to do to receive assistance,” she told the Planet.

“It’s a slap in their face. A lot of people call the housing authority every day to check where they are on the list. They will have to start all over again.”

Carson added that a lot more people would be signing up for the new list.

“If we compare what happened in Oakland in June 2006,” she said. “Over 40 percent of Oakland’s low-income families signed up for the list. People are very desperate. These are hard times for everybody.”

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.

Angel Bertha Elzy is comforted by friends after learning her place on the low-income public housing waiting list was purged Wednesday at the Berkeley Housing Authority meeting.

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Berkeley tosses housing lists out
Thousands waiting for subsidized living lose place in line

By Doug Oakley, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 08/24/2007 02:46:30 AM PDT

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_6707070

BERKELEY — Berkeley Housing Authority commissioners voted Wednesday night to toss out three lists of 5,000 people waiting for subsidized housing despite protests from some who had been on the rolls for more than eight years.

The board of commissioners voted 5-1, with one member abstaining, instead to create a new waiting list. The abolished lists were so poorly kept that housing authority staff could not determine who was eligible for housing assistance and who was not, executive director Tia Ingram said.

People on the lists that go back to 1999 have been waiting to live in one of 61 three- andfour-bedroom units owned by the authority.

The authority, which receives about

$25 million a year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, also subsidizes housing for about 1,800 people renting from private landlords. In addition, it owns

74 one-bedroom units for people making the transition from being homeless to housed. In all the programs, clients pay 25 percent to

30 percent of their income as rent and HUD pays the remainder.

Getting rid of the lists is just one move the authority has taken to recover from a scandal that surfaced in May, which forced the dissolution of the previous housing authority June 30 and the formation of a new body with some new employees and a new board.

"This discussion somewhat validates the move to establish a new housing authority," said Carole Norris, chairwoman of the board of commissioners.
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"The old authority did not have the procedures in place to make sure people didn't get hurt."

The plan now is to open applications for five days and start one new waiting list. The authority will hire an independent consultant to take applications. Six of its 61 units are vacant.

Housing authority executive director Ingram promised the board her staff would have "tight controls" on who has access to the new list and to update changes on a daily basis to avoid repeating the problems with the previous lists.

Commissioner Dorothy Hunt said she didn't see any other alternative to abolishing the three lists and starting over.

"It pains me to do this, but I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of it," Hunt said. "A lot of people will be unhappy, but if we start clean, it will be fair to everyone."

One of those unhappy people is Lori Cook, a diabetic with high blood pressure who has been on the list since 1999.

"In 2003, I was number 108 on the list," Cook said. "I walked into the office last month and asked them why am I now number 934? This has got to end. There has got to be some way to fix this list. How could I have gotten from 108 to 934? What is the excuse for that?"

Ingram suggested giving people who can provide documentation that they were on one of the lists "bonus points" that would move them to the top of the new list. But commissioners rejected that idea.

Angel Elzy told the board she applied for housing in 1983.

"I've gotten the run around, and it's been devastating," Elzy said. "I don't know what has been going on, but I haven't been treated fairly. I'm asking for your mercy here."

Jesse Arreguin, chairman of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, urged housing authority commissioners to try to fix the three lists.

"I feel that abolishing the wait lists is a very drastic move," Arreguin said. "It will have some very severe implications for residents. How will you process the new applicants? I'm not sure you have the capacity to do that."

Commissioner Adolph Moody, who abstained from voting on the issue, said he could not vote to toss out the lists even though he didn't have a better solution.

"I feel for all of you and I can't deny anyone the opportunity (to be in line for housing)," Moody said. "I can't in good conscious approve abolishing the list, and starting a new one. It's not fair."

But in the end it was Commissioner Wise Allen's assertions that spurred the vote to scrap the lists and start over.

"The problem I see is there is no valid list and there is no way to create one," Allen said, "so the solution is to start over and put in place a system so this will never happen again."

E-mail Doug Oakley at doakley [at] dailynewsgroup.com.
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