Okay. Miss Costa, you run the Section 8 Program for PHA?
Have you been asked to provide any documentation as to what the problems or articulate any potential solutions to those problems in the Section 8 program?
No, exactly the same that Miss Moon said applies to me. I was invited to the meeting and I was a part of that meeting. And at that meeting, we identified some issues that we had some concerns with.
Okay, so you as the direct manager of the program, I assume you report to Miss Moon?
Miss Moon, you report to Mr. Pernell, and the three of you were asked to participate in the meeting about this program but you have not submitted any report, LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 61 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections suggestions, criticisms that would impact on the future of the Section 8 program, even though it is within your jurisdiction?
Well, let me ask the question then. From your perspective. What are the problems with the Section 8 program?
There are many areas we definitely could improve the operation, and one of them is definitely the hiring of investigators.
Miss Costa, I ask you again to bring that microphone closer.
Sure. And the investigators, I think, would really help the program to detect fraud. For instance, to detect the instances where we have illegal occupants on a unit, and it would help us to really run a better program. So I think it is very good that that is happening. Another critical issue that was referred here, and I feel it's really critical, is the fact that many of our landlords might owe money to the City. And I think the fact that we are now going to work jointly with the Department LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 62 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections of Revenue, it's going to be able to put in place some kind of a mechanism that will address that. It's going to be very beneficial to us, too. Also, I do believe that the implementation of local preferences is going to be very good for the program, and I think that's definitely a critical issue.
Do you have any particular perspectives -- any of you can respond -- to the issue of changing the percent formula 12 on project-based locations versus the certificate 13 program, where the current guidelines allow a 14 person, once they have a certificate, to live 15 anywhere they want in the City of Philadelphia?
Well, this program is meant for freedom of choice. Everybody should have the right to live where they want to live, and that's what the public program does. Yes, I do have problems. I think that the project-based program doesn't generate as much interest as the tenant-based program. When we do matters of solicitation to our wait-list participants and we offer project-based, the rate of refusal is very high. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 63 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections
Do you think that has anything to do with the general notion that many people, depending on their income, if they happen to be poor choose not to, or would be reluctant to live with a whole lot of other poor people.
I don't know, I don't have no idea I don't know why exactly. I do believe one of the reasons why it's happening is because project-based system is not portable, so the family's really tied to a certain location; while with the tenant-based system, the family can live wherever they want to go, anywhere in the country.
Mr. Pernell, do you have any particular perspective on the idea of the concentrating or over-concentrating of poor people in particular sections of the City?.
On a personal level, I think that it leads to the types of problems that become -- that precipitate the need for these types of hearings. In my official capacity now, I referenced a second ago the C map program. And LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 64 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections one of the mandates of that program, again, is to ensure that the Housing Authority or the Section 8 administrating authority has in place a mechanism that allows tenants -- that not only allows but in some cases steers certificate-holders to areas of low concentration of economically distressed as well as communities that are racially polarized. It is going to be a part of the federal mandate. And to get, as HUD likes to sometimes dabble in the minutia of things, one of the requirements is literally that we are going to have to provide maps of areas that are identified by their concentration of poor and their racial mix. That's from a --
There is a big discussion around the Section 8 programming choices from the standpoint of a fair housing issue. It appears to be the hot-button issue on the Section 8 program. And for the record, I would like to say that the discussion was referred to several times as "the Philadelphia situation." We are on the public housing side faced LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 65 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections with changing legislation on the public housing density issue. We are being mandated in a lot of cases to, in some cases, demolish; in other cases, reduce the density of our public housing units. And the proposed solution as written today is additional Section 8 tenant-based support.
Is that because the national strategy is generally toward deconcentrating poor people or thinning out economically distressed areas?
It is the clear mandate from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
So from HUD, we're getting policy directives to deconcentrate; and at a local level, we're being faced with the prospect of reconcentrating or more densely populating poor people in the Section 8 program?
The two are definitely not in line from a policy standpoint. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 66 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections
In reading the Mayor's report, which got to Council members at least a day after the media were fully informed by the Mayor of his plans, the Council members were kept in the dark. As I read that report this morning, I noticed, or believe I noticed, that the Mayor carefully refrained from using word "cluster" or "clusterization," but the changes that he was proposing would, in fact, make clusterization much easier to attain. I'm wondering, did I read it right or did I read it wrong? What's your response to that? But I would like that question --
Well, yeah, I mean, read it that way, and I guess the folks at the table have to answer for themselves, although they've already articulated the fact that they didn't write the report, they may be constrained in their perspectives. But you can call it anything you want to call it. It is the same thing, in my opinion, Councilman, that's why I was interested in the perspective of the people who actually work on LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 67 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections this on a regular basis.
I raised it particularly because I was called by someone in the news media late yesterday afternoon. And that person, a very intelligent one, very well known, said, Ya know, the Mayor has moved away from clusterization. Everything he's doing is to strengthen scattered sites. And that sounded very good to me, as if maybe our hearings had some kind of impact on him. But when I read the report this morning, it seemed to contradict the impression that was given to the news media yesterday.
The scattered sites, Councilman, are all in just one building, that's all.
I have a question. In dealing with that same issue, we talk about clusters, we talk about issues that involve ADA, handicapped people, and other people LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 68 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections who have the right to participate. How does that impact on this?
From a Section 8 -- I'm sorry, Councilwoman, I didn't follow the question.
When we talk about clusterization, we have to speak to the issues of disabled persons. As I understand, that is still an unresolved issue in your meetings between PHA and OSHA. And they have certain rights too. So if you talk about clustering people, how are you going to deal with all of those people who have rights, handicapped people, people with special needs, etc., who have certain other rights that this could impact?
May I suggest to the Councilwoman, I think that question would more appropriately go to the Mayor's representative.
Yeah, because I don't think PHA would have jurisdiction to deal with that issue.
I only wanted LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 69 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections PHA to admit that that is an issue.
All right, go ahead, direct question to them again, Councilwoman.
Because we deal with individual landlords on Section 8, the Section 504 compliance issues do not show up on the Section 8 side as they do on the public housing side generally because you're dealing with small numbers of units. But that is an issue on the public housing side, but I'm not aware that it's an issue on the Section 8 side as of yet.
Thank you, Mr. Pernell, and I'm happy to see you after a long wait. Miss Costa and Miss Moon, how you doing. You know, during the last week, President Clinton has been going through a lot of stuff, and a lot of charges keep on flying back and forth that are generally unsubstantiated by fact. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 70 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections And we from this side here about the Section 8 program, we ask questions, and we make statements many times that are not substantiated by fact. And we've had three hearings now on Section 8. And I would like to hear from Miss Costa, Mr. Pernell and Miss Moon, because the impression is -- and the Mayor's report says that the problem with Section 8 is a very small one, a few bad landlords and a few bad tenants. However, the impression that is given is that it is a program in chaos and it is causing an incredible amount of chaos out in the community. And that administratively, it is a shambles. And if it is administratively a shambles, that means that you guys have done a very bad job. And I know that HUD performs audits, is that true, on all of these programs?
And they are very stringent audits because PHA has been a troubled agency, so they have been very, very -- they have been providing very careful oversight; is that LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 71 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections true?
And these audits that they have taken, because the Mayor goes to give the impression that there are landlords out there that are gouging the system, gouging, not paying city taxes in terms of water and property taxes, but in essence, gouging the federal government by charging exorbitant rents and not providing services. Has any of the HUD audits caught that, any of the citings?
We are currently, and in our most recent audit, there were no major areas of concern cited by the local HUD office in the administration of our program, save one, and it is in concert with the national review of (unintelligible) Marks. We are required under the program guidelines to keep current data on the rental trends in the area. There was some question as to what "current" meant. In some cases, HUD meant yesterday. In a lot of cases, some of our data was at least two years, three years old. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 72 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections There was also a recommendation around our increased number of staffing in certain areas, particularly in the Investigative Unit.
But in terms of landlords gouging the system, has there been any audit that has been established.
Not that landlords have many properties and so on, because that's not gouging the system, they have properties. But that they have used the system in a wrong way.
So in terms of the other audits, in terms of the other inspections that you have done, in terms of -- because some of the problems of how many people reside in a home do not just pertain to Section 8; they pertain to any home because of zoning problems that says, you know, how many people per scare foot and so on. So it goes to that. But I want to base the record on fact, LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 73 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections not on anecdotal recollections, and I want from your perception of how many of those tenants are problematical of the 11,000 certificates that are out there, would you consider problematical, or as the Mayor says. That we have a few bad apples here? If those bad apples are there, what percentage of it is less than -- I think it's probably less than one percent or something like that?
That would be almost impossible to answer, but we have prior to the hearings and leading up to the first hearing, PHA had been engaged in the process of attending certain town meetings around the Section 8 issues. And in a lot of cases, concerned citizens generated lists of problem units with problem tenants. In investigating a lot of those complaints, it became apparent that there was, in not all cases, where the identified problem people, participants in the Section 8 program. We have been able to deal with complaints as we receive them. As you might expect, because of all the furor around the hearings, the number of calls LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 74 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections to the hot line went up. But I could not give you statistical breakdown as to how many people --
Oh, I'm sorry. My crack staff is able to do that, and I will defer to Miss Moon at this time.
Put those on the record. Because we want to base the record on facts and not anecdotes and not anything else that we may be thinking the problem is without any real substantive empirical proof.
We really began to keep track of calls that were coming into the telephone hot line, and that began on November the 6th, or is that the 8th? I'm sorry, it's hard to see these small figures, but it was either November the 6th or November the 8th. And we did that through December. And in terms of looking at the numbers of Section 8 complaints, and they range from subletting, damage to units, break-ins, percentage of drugs, broken windows, unauthorized individuals and the like. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 75 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Of the complaints that were received, -- it is really very hard for me to see this -- it appears that it was 63 percent of the complaints that were received were not Section 8 participants. And that is from us actually keeping track of the calls that were coming in.
Do you have a breakdown of where those calls came from and so on?
After you give us the record and you put that on the record, could you give us a copy of that?
So roughly two thirds were not; one third were. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 76 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections
Well, had the Mayor not directed you not to come -- and I think Mayor's action was a very real disservice to the premise of people to Philadelphia -- you would have heard live testimony from people at the previous hearings from every point of view, and I think you would have had directly a much better appreciation of the kinds of problems that people in the community see, that they attribute to Section 8. It probably -- the statistics you have, I guess, were pretty much borne out by testimony. Many people testified in support of the Section 8 program, pointing out that when complaints were examined and locations pinned down, sometimes LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 77 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections there were other tenants involved, not Section 8, sometimes there were homeowners that were the subject of the complaint; yet all of that had been attributed to Section 8. Then there were other people that had many different kinds of complaints about how the Section 8 proceeding went on. I think the same thing, Mr. Kromer, applies to you. I think a very valuable source of information was lost to the City by the Mayor's action in refusing to permit the City officials to participate in the hearing.
Excuse me. What period of time does it cover, November 8th to what time?
And you have the same thing from December 4th to January?
We would like to LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 78 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections have that. So you had 49 complaints in a one-month -- I would say a one-month period, almost.
And 67 of those complaints were not PHA Section 8-related.
What happened with the 37 others? What was the follow-up, the 37 percent that was Section 8?
All the complaints we received were referred to the Investigations Unit. They -- some are already completed the investigation and the proper action was taken; others are still in the process of being investigated. And according to the result of the investigation, PHA will determine which action to take.
The majority of the ones that were PHA, could you characterize what the majority were like?
Yes, I can. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 79 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections The majority of the complaints we received, they were for unauthorized occupancy.
That means that some other individuals other than the Section 8 holder was living there.
How many of those were you able to prove that they were unauthorized, and how many of those were authorized?
I don't have those numbers with me. I can provide them to you. We did investigate every single case. Like I told you, on some cases where we did prove that it was unauthorized occupants, the assistance was terminated. On the cases where we could not prove, of course, we take the proper action on those cases, which is continue the investigation.
May I ask, Mr. Pernell, that the responses that are going to come LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 80 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections back to Council from this panel, that if you could coordinate them, put them all together and have ten copies. If they're all forwarded to me, to Room 6 588, City Hall, Councilman David Cohen, I will see to it that every member that is here today will get a copy of your statement with all of the information.
Councilman Cohen, following on that, the question -- it just follows up right here on this. Mr. Pernell, earlier you had responded to Councilman Kenney regarding the number of evictions from 1989 to the present. You said you were going to send all of these numbers. Just in relation to these numbers and complaints and then the number that were actually Section 8 housing, could you just put on the record what were the numbers of evictions of tenants in 1997?
You gave us the total number from '87 to the present, you said LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 81 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections it was 3,000.
We will be able to provide that information. I believe Councilman Kenney requested it for a two-year period, but we can provide it for summations on the two-year period or on an individual year-period.
They had notified us before. They have a six-year compilation. Councilman Ortiz.
Continuing on, you mentioned about the utilization of administrative fees. The administrative fees currently of Section 8, where do they go to?
We, in compliance with HUD regulations, are allowed to use excess administrative fees generated by the Section 8 LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 82 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections program to support the operating budget of the Housing Authority, particularly in those cases where our operating budget has been subsidized at less than a hundred percent.
And if you're going to use the administrative fees for something other than the operating budget, what is going to be the impact in terms of the other operations of Philadelphia?
By the way, I have something here like $3 million. Somebody said to me that actually, the administrative fees are around $3 million.
It fluctuates, depending on the number of certificates that are active in a program at any one time. It has been as high as LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 83 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections 2, $2-1/2 million. What is generally the case, being "a troubled agency," as referred to earlier, PHA is also considered an operationally troubled agency, which means that our liabilities sometimes exceed or projected revenue.
So if you were going to use the administrative fees for something other than the operating budget, it may continue your troubled situation.
I believe that the only other use other than directly back into the Section 8 program is to support operating activities. But the answer is yes, we don't receive any direct state funding, we don't receive on an ongoing basis --
That is the money that the Mayor says should be used to provide some other social services.
Sort of like robbing Peter to pay Paul, or pay Paul to rob Peter, whatever it is. But it does not augur well for a LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 84 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections well-functioning agency.
No. We are dependent on the fees to sometimes balance our operating budget.
And that could happen. Because, I mean, you know, the Mayor puts these things out, and people don't think that there are consequences to the actions that are going to have to be taken, and this is one of the consequences that has to be taken. So that's where the money's coming from; is that correct?
One or two more follow-up questions. The issue of clusterization has been discussed in this forum, and prior to this, in the media and in some of the community meetings. There's a couple different situations I would like LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 85 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections your opinion on. My experience, when it comes to permanent housing situations and opportunities for either mentally ill or former substance abuse individuals that have an opportunity by choice to live in a communal-type setting with subsidized rental assistance, that in many ways, they flourish and are more stable and progress in a better way than people who were formerly homeless, who may be mentally ill or former substance abusers being kind of left on their own. And the issue -- and, again, it's one of my favorite places, but the 15th and Fairmount Project Home is a 32- or 33-unit permanent housing operation that provides dignified, decent housing for formerly homeless people who have experienced both mental illness, substance-abuse problems, and other types of conditions that have put them in that situation. What is your opinion when it comes to the issue of clustering by choice, those types of individuals, to create a support network for permanent housing?
I think, Councilman, you LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 86 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections hit it on the head when you said the support mechanism. In those cases where premise are identified that need a hands-on level of care from a strictly logistic standpoint, it is much easier to provide those services in a more concise area. That is exactly what some of the programs that mandate case management do. People don't go directly from a homeless situation to a totally free living situation. There is a transitional piece. And for those people who have those documented, identifiable needs, it is probably a very good way to approach it.
Under the current situation, as we see with homeless preferences available for Section 8 certificates bringing people to the top of the list, is it in fact fair for individuals who have these special needs to be put in a housing setting on own without prerequisite skills? We may try to provide them with those opportunities, but if they're rejected, we again, as prior testimony indicates, we have no way to LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 87 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections force them to do that. Is that not a more detrimental situation in some cases, for either formerly homeless people, people with mental illness or people with substance abuse problems to be put on their own in a housing setting without the prerequisite support?
It is probably not the best use of the program. Again, in those cases where there are documented needs, there are transitional programs that that individual could be referred to.
But are they required to participate in those referral opportunities?
The issue of clustering, it has been reported and testified to that multiple property openers, landlords who own more than 10 or 12, 20 properties, have on their own ways in many ways clustered Section 8 housing and poor tenants in one particular street or one particular area. Do you believe that decisions by LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 88 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections landlords to accumulate multiple properties, 10, 15, properties on any given street and to 4 convert them to Section 8, in some ways, does that 5 also cluster the poor to the benefit of the 6 landlord, as opposed to what Mayor may have 7 suggested? 8
From the standpoint of 9 introducing a large number of low-income people to 10 a specific geographic area, yes, that would 11 probably constitute clustering as it's being 12 discussed today. 13
Do we do any 14 analysis on property owners, either corporate 15 property owners or individual multiple property 16 owners, that have speculated in various 17 neighborhoods because of the housing values that 18 make it financially attractive to do that, and 19 have created situations where people have been 20 ghetto-ized by landlords?
There currently exists no 22 cap on the limit of the number of units that a landlord can own. There also is not today a specific prohibition on any number of units on any specific street. As long as those units qualify LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 89 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections and met HQS standards, they would be able to participate in the program.
Could you please, if possible, if you have the technical ability to do so, provide to the Committee a list of multiple property owners who have more, say, than five properties in a given zip code.
For Any given zip code any given corporate entity that may own more than five properties in a given zip code, I would just be interested how it breaks down and what in what neighborhoods those concentrations occur. With all due respect to Council member Ortiz, and he's been very cooperative throughout the whole course of these hearings, he raised the issue about HUD audits. And the one thing I just wanted to comment on it is that it would be very difficult for a HUD to review audit to reveal a gouging or a situation because they are basing their analysis LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 90 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections on established rent payment figures that may be too high to begin with. So that if we could to come, for sake of argument, an agreement that some of these prices that are being paid for two- and three- and four-bedroom houses are higher than they ought to be for the area to begin with, HUD, of course, would come in and do an audit, and they would find nothing wrong because they're basing that audit on the numbers that HUD has agreed to. And I don't mean there's anything nefarious about that, but the -- I'm sorry, could we do something about this sound system. (Interruption.)
I don't believe that there's anything nefarious about that, but I do believe that if you are basing your analysis on skewed fair-market rental rates to begin with, you're never going to find or put forth a position that people are getting more money for those properties than they should be.
If I might just comment on that. Part of the discussion that we had with LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 91 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Mr. Kromer when we started talking about working cooperatively with the City to do some analysis on the fair-market rent -- just for the record the fair-market rents are the maximum rents that are allowable. And I think one of the Council people did ask to see the numbers of units that were maxed out at the fair-market rent. But my sense is that when we really begin to do a comprehensive analysis, even though those fair-market rents are existing and are based on the jurisdiction, that when we break this down and begin to look at it more closely in relationship to the neighborhoods, that you will see some varying difference and not see the numbers of units that might be more closely tracked to the fair-market rents. I think you'll find that they will be lower.
You will find that the Section 8 payments will be lower?
I think you will find that as do the analysis that the approvals that are coming into landlords, even though they may be requesting the higher fair-market rent, if the neighborhood and the jurisdiction does not support LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 92 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections that, those requests will not be processed. And that is, in fact, one of the issues that has been communicated to us from HUD, that need to take a closer look at the fair-market rents, and we are prepared to do that.
Okay. Are there any other questions from the Council members? (No further questions.)
Thank you very much for your patience and your participation. (Short break taken.)
We are now going to reconvene our hearing, and the Chair recognizes Mr. John Kromer. Councilman Cohen is on his way, so we'll wait till he gets here.
The next witness will be our good friend, John Kromer, Head of the Office of -- what do you call it? You've got so many different titles the Mayor's given you over the years.
The Office of Housing and Community Development. We haven't changed the name for several years. I think we should LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 93 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections consider it this year.
But I think he calls you "the Housing Czar," among other things. John, we're very glad you're able to be here today with us. We'd like to ask you to go ahead and make whatever statement you would like to make. You can either give the statement that we have seen in writing; or, having given, it will be made a part of the record. And you can, if you choose --
Okay, because we got it so late perhaps maybe you'd better go through it.
Thank you I'm John Kromer, Director of Housing for the City. I'm pleased to have this opportunity today to present the Mayor's policy statement on the Section 8 rental assistance program to this City Council hearing. Mayor Rendell is unable to participate today due to a prior commitment to the U.S. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 94 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Conference of Mayors, which requires him to be in Washington. And I appreciate having the opportunity to speak this afternoon. In addition, I want to thank Fred Pernell, who has been consistently helpful and supportive in support of -- in response to questions and inquiries that I made during the course of participating in the drafting of this policy. It is correct that this was not a joint effort between the City and PHA.
Yes. If I could answer the questions answer after my testimony, I think I could be --
The Mayor's decision was LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 95 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections to prepare the policy paper with the support of his staff and with some participation from my --
To prepare the policy paper, in essence, without the facts or something like that?
No, without the participation of PHA. And this would not be the first instance in which he had done that; it's his choice. He has undertaken housing policy initiatives, some of them, without the participation of me and my staff. The City/State/Philadelphia Plan is one example; his staff organized it, and the result was very effective. One particular --
You don't think it will have the same result in this case as far as being effective?
Clearly, there's much more to come. This is a policy statement; it is not a fully fleshed-out insured policy program. And we have much more to do together to get to that LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 96 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections point.
One broad objective of the Mayor's program is to bring together two housing resources, which can provide substantial benefit to the Philadelphia citizens and to neighborhoods across the City. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development funding made available to the City. The other is Philadelphia's Public Housing system, supported with HUD funding made available to the Philadelphia Housing Authority. In light of the onset of welfare reform and the decreasing level of federal and state funding available to Philadelphia, it is essential that these two resources be combined more effectively. Fortunately, the present is an excellent time to pursue opportunities to combine City and PHA resources. The Mayor and City Council president are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the PHA Board. City housing agencies, including the LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 97 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Office of Housing & Community Development, Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation, and the Redevelopment Authority have successfully collaborated with PHA on a number of mutually supported activities, from the use of Redevelopment Authority eminent domain powers to assemble public housing development sites, to the engagement of PHDC's Development Division to redevelop vacant, scattered-site public housing units. City Council has become more actively involved in addressing public housing issues, from the authorization of City support for Hope 6 Venture, such as the Schuykill Falls Development Plan, to the public hearings on Section 8, which continue today. The Mayor's program is based on several key principles. First, citizens of Philadelphia deserve the best possible access to decent, affordable housing. And to uphold this principle, the City and PHA must ensure that people seeking affordable housing have access to two things: first, the broadest possible choice of housing types and LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 98 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections neighborhood locations, this is the issue of housing choice; and, secondly, the highest quality, best managed housing available. The private real estate market does not provide sufficient affordable housing possessing both of these characteristics. The City and PHA need to work together to combine housing choice and outstanding property management in order to promote fair housing and provide the best possible living environment for our citizens. The Section 8 program in its current form doesn't provide unlimited choice of housing types and neighborhood locations. Some neighbors have many rental units under Section 8 contract, while other neighborhoods have none. Nor does the Section 8 program necessarily provide the highest quality, best managed housing available. Some Section 8 units, such as those located at Brentwood Apartments, on Parkside Avenue, the site of yesterday's press conference, at which Mayor Rendell released this program, combine a terrific neighborhood location and an extraordinary level of management, including supportive services for residents. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 99 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Other Section 8 units in less attractive locations, however, are placed under contract to absentee owners represented by rental agents who have no commitment, nor capability to assist residents in need of supportive services. Second principle. Many low-income individuals and families, particularly those leaving the City's homeless shelter system require the best possible access to supportive services and case management. For formerly homeless people in particular, a housing unit alone is not enough. The City and PHA needs to devote their best efforts to providing residents with access to an array of supportive services, accompanied by case management. Our ability to deliver this support is limited by the declining level of resources available.
But this scarcity of resources makes it all the more important that the City and PHA do more to link affordable housing, supportive house service and case management. The Mayor's program proposes to address this priority through the following actions: Ending the policy of restricting access to the Section 8 program exclusively to tier-one LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 100 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections applicants so that the PHA Board can admit tier-one applicants based on need and on the availability of supportive services and case management for these residents. Secondly, providing more funding. A million dollars in Section 8 administrative fees made to PHA from HUD for supportive services and case management. Third, directing PHA, OACD, and the City's Office of Emergency Shelter & Services to coordinate their efforts to link individuals and families in the Section 8 program with available resources. And, finally, by giving PHA the opportunity to increase the number of site-based Section 8 certificates, bringing the Section 8 program more developers with the capability to offer the best combination of affordable housing and accessible services. Although limitations of resources will continue to be a problem, the Mayor's program represents a significant improvement over current practices and provides $1 million to link housing and services. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 101 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Third principle, high-quality, affordable housing can be made available effectively within a single building, on a single block, or at scattered-site, dispersed locations. As the Mayor's program narrative indicates, subsidized housing, including Section 8 housing, can be produced through either consolidated-site or scattered-site approaches. Development proposals authorized for funding through the CDBG program approved by the Mayor and City Council annually produce outstanding affordable housing ventures; some are consolidated, others are scattered-site. These ventures occupied by many residents supported with Section 8 rental assistance are located in many different areas, from Chinatown to Mount Airy, to Port Richmond. During the past six years in which I've been Housing Director, no City Council member has indicated concern that CDBG-funded rental ventures involve an excessive concentration of subsidized housing at certain locations or create a barrier to fair housing or a limitation on housing choice and housing opportunity. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 102 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections The Mayor's opposed to two kinds of clustering, of grouping subsidized housing units together: First, the grouping of public housing residents in inefficient, poorly designed, high-rise projects; and, second, the grouping of an excessive number of Section 8 units within a single block or a single building. Better coordination between the City and PHA can help determine how best to deal with excessive concentrations of Section 8 housing; just as recent coordination between the City and PHA has led to responsible decision-making about which public housing high-rises should be demolished, such as the Raymond Rosen and Schuykill Falls high-rises, and which should be modernized, such as the recently completed Blumberg Apartments. City and PHA staff developers, communities organizations, and housing advocates need to exercise good judgment and common sense in determining what level of Section 8 housing density is appropriate for a particular location. The Brentwood Apartments an award- winning rental venture sponsored by a nonprofit LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 103 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections organization, with close community ties and widespread community support and developed with funding authorized by the Mayor and City Council. A total of of the 44 unit in this venture are 6 under Section 8 contract.
7 The Section 8 support has enabled the 8 Brentwood to be maintained as an intergenerational 9 housing site, combining Section 8 units for 10 elderly people, with non-Section 8 units for 11 families in the same building. No one has 12 complained that this level of Section 8 density is 13 inappropriate. 14 In contrast, a concentration of 20 15 Section 8 units on one block of Leidy Avenue 16 behind the Brentwood would, in my opinion, be 17 excessive for this small street. 18 An extreme policy of total 19 consolidation or a total dispersion of subsidized 20 housing would not be beneficial to Philadelphia residents and Philadelphia neighborhoods. Instead, we need to take responsibility for finding a combination of subsidized and market-rate units that work best for each site, in each community. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 104 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Let me just add one word with regard to the issue of people with disabilities. My understanding of the HUD regulations is that tenant-based certificates have no association with the issue of people with disabilities, and there's no requirement to accommodate people with disabilities in any special way in the tenant-based certificate program, in terms of developing accessible units. The site-based certificate program, however, has attached to it very specific requirements about making some of the units accessible to disabled people. And this is important because, in part for lack of Section 8's for disabled people, we have set up reserve funds and made a policy of setting up reserve funds from the community development block the shrinking community developing block grant, to support disabled people and make our rental housing affordable to disabled people. With more site-based certificates, we could more effectively address this issue of rental housing for disabled people. The Mayor's program does not call for LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 105 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections the displacement of the Section 8 certificate holders who are currently complying with the program requirements. The Mayor's program does not dictate standards of landlord and tenant conduct that are more restrictive than or different from the standards imposed on landlords and tenants in CDBG-supported rental housing authorized each year by City Council, as part of Council's approval of the annual CDBG consolidated plan. To the extent that Council may be interested in pursuing a broader geographic dispersion of subsidized housing throughout Philadelphia neighborhoods offering broader housing choice and greater housing opportunity, this interest can be pursued much more readily if the PHA Board is given the opportunity to increase the number of Section 8 site-based certificates available each year, as recommended in the Mayor's program, rather than remaining subject to existing federal limitations on the proportion of Section 8 fund available for Section 8 certificates. To achieve broader geographic dispersion, Council could authorize CDBG funding LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 106 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections for rental housing production, the line item, and the CDBG budget for rental housing that appears each year supported with Section 8 rental assistance to be made available on a priority basis, to specifically designated census tracks that currently have no subsidized housing. The way we could implement this would be to have our rental requests for proposals that are issued to developers say, In these census tracks, which currently have no subsidized housing, we will give preference to otherwise eligible rental development proposals over proposals for areas that currently have subsidized housing.
Meaning that we could say, you know, in the far Northeast --
And the result of that would be that we see proposals, I believe for --
We could -- you mean that we could start building subsidized housing up there? LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 107 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections
I think the result would be that proposals would come in for properties in Overbrook, Wynnefield, Manyunk.
I'm getting there. Roxborough, the far Northeast, West Mt. Airy, and other areas of the City. And we're not talking about putting projects in those areas. You're familiar with the rental development that we support. The developers are outstanding, they work with the neighbors, questions that are raised get resolved, and the results are real community assets. So this is one policy that we could consider --
But the conversation today is different, you see, because Section 8 has taken a whole different picture.
We can make it different. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 108 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections And I think the Brentwood Apartments is an excellent example of how a community asset can be created through that combination of the CDBG development funding and the Section 8 site-based certificates. I'm almost done with my testimony, sorry to digress. The result of this priority designation would be CDBG funding of high-quality housing ventures produced by the outstanding private, nonprofit, and community development corporation developers currently participating in the program. The Congressionally mandated distinctions between public housing programs and other federal programs, such as CDBG, really make it possible for participants in discussions of this kind to engage in finger-pointing and assigning blame for past shortcomings of public programs. These Council hearings, along with responsible program proposals by Councilman Kenney the Tenants Action Group and others represent a step in the right direction, away from finger- pointing and towards constructive change in LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 109 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Philadelphia Section 8 approach. Mayor Rendell and I look forward to working with Council to engage PHA and City resources to provide greatest benefit to Philadelphia citizens and neighborhoods. Thank you.
During the testimony of Mr. Pernell, I raised the question of, Isn't it a fact that the Mayor's report yesterday -- and I criticized it then and do again -- somehow the media seemed more important to the Mayor's office than the City Council with respect to getting information as to what the Mayor intends to do? I raised the question as to whether or not the Mayor's report will permit clusterization -- that's a big word and I always have difficulty remembering it. That clusterization would become much more possible than it currently exists? Isn't that true.
Because, as the report points out, decent rental housing with support services can be produced in a consolidated LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 110 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections location that can be a real neighborhood asset, or through a scattered-site approach. And, again, Dignity Housing is a model of the scattered-site approach.
Well, we had the buildings that were torn down recently, they were real good examples of site locations, weren't they? You know, there, if the City wanted to, use some concept of maximum economy at large groupings of families, that didn't seem to work.
Everyone that I hear from on this issue seems to be in agreement that high-rise development is not the way to go, that low-rise, low-density, and especially mixed-income, a mixed kind of development is the way to go. And, again, the Brentwood is an example of how this can happen. And this is part of the Mayor's approach.
Well, one can always use one good example. We're not talking about a single example; we're talking about City-wide policy. LAW AND GOVERNMENT/LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS 111 Law and Government/Licenses and Inspections Incidentally, did the Law Department go over this report?