m. - - - RES. 970558 - Authorizing the Council's Committees of Licenses and Inspections and Law and Government to conduct an investigation into the Section 8 Housing Program. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN, Chair, Law and Government COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY, Chair, Licenses and Inspections COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILWOMAN HAPPY FERNANDEZ COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO COUNCILWOMAN ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center Plaza, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 I N D E X RESOLUTION 970558 PAGE Kirk Brown, Member, Dickinson Street Neighbors-- Dorothy Moody, Member, Dickinson Street Neighbors------------------------------------ 20 Felicia Adams, Member, Dickinson Street Neighbors------------------------------------ 21 Maria Perez, Member Dickinson Street Neighbors-- 26 Lynne Rotoli, President, Mayfair Civic 7 Association---------------------------------- 55 Dr. ) RESOLUTION 970558 PAGE Dennis McCarthy, Real Estate Broker------------- 332 Asia Coney, President, Tenants Improvement Council-------------------------------------- 347 Corlis Gray, President, Queen Lane Tenants Council-------------------------------------- 347 Charles Reeves, Director, Grays Ferry West------ 348 Leo Bazzoli, Board of Directors, Kensington Independent Civic Association--------------- 367 Don DeMarco, Representative, Open Fund for the Future of Philadelphia----------------------- 379 Wade H. Lockey, Citizen------------------------- 387 Anthony Lewis, Managing Director, Housing Association of Philadelphia------------------ 395 - - - 4 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN COHEN: The joint Committee of Law and Government and Licenses and Inspections is called to order. Notices were properly published. There is a quorum present of both committees. To my right is Councilwoman Joan Krajewski. Next to her is Councilman Mariano; Council Frank Rizzo; Council James Kenney, who is chairman of Licenses and Inspections Committee, the other Committee, together with Law and Government. I am David Cohen, Chairman of the Law and Government Committee. To my immediate left is Councilman Ortiz. To his left is Councilwoman Blackwell. To her left is Councilman Nutter. And then Councilwoman Tasco, Councilwoman Fernandez. And Councilwoman Verna, the majority leader of the Democratic Council, is in her seat, as is Councilman Frank DiCicco. We have far more than a majority of City Council that are here today for this joint meeting. I am going to introduce Councilman Kenney, who has a short statement to make. 5 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Just before you do, where is the clerk of the Committee? Wanda, would you read the title of the resolution?
Resolution No. 970558, authorizing the Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections and Law and Government to conduct an investigation into the Section 8 housing program, its Administration, the condition of Section 8 residential properties, the responsibilities of landlords to provide appropriate maintenance and services for their tenants, and the overall effect of this program on the quality of life for Section 8 tenants and their families. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. Councilman Kenney. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for coming here today. I would like to open up today's hearing with a brief statement. 6 RESOLUTION 970558 Over the past few months, and especially during the last few weeks, there has been a great deal of discussion about the federal Section 5 8 Housing Program. Some of this discussion has been very informative and constructive, and some of it has not. Our purpose here today is to be as constructive as possible. We are not here to trash the Section 8 program or to gather testimony based on emotion and misguided fears that will only inflame the embers of an already simmering fire. The Section 8 program has helped thousands of American families in need since 1932, and it should continue to do so. But like any government program, there are some problems. And we are here today to listen to your suggestions and complaints about these problems and, working with Mayor Rendell and the Philadelphia Housing Authority, find workable solutions to solve many of these problems. Before this hearing starts, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing. Some will come before us giving testimony with ulterior motives in mind. 7 RESOLUTION 970558 They may paint the Section 8 program with a broad brush in an ugly attempt to polarize us as a city and prevent people of lesser income from living where they choose. I will remind those individuals with this intent that this type of activity is wrong and blatantly illegal. And I, along with the other members of this Committee, will not allow this hearing to be used as a forum for any misguided addenda that attempts to tear us apart, rather than bring us together to find workable solutions to this and many of our problems. I thank you all for coming today and for your attention and for your cooperation in making sure that this hearing, some positive things come out of it to help everyone involved. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you, Councilman. I am going to call on Councilman Ortiz, who has been working very hard with Councilman Kenney over a period of time on Section 24 8. Councilman Ortiz. 8 RESOLUTION 970558
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Over the last few months a debate has started in this city that has attempted to blame all of the ills that happen in a neighborhood on residents and people who live in Section 8 programs. Obviously the problems of a neighborhood are much more complex, much more extensive, and much more directed and caused by other situations, rather than people who are in Section 8. Section 8 has been a program that has worked, has worked in this nation for over 50 years, since 1932. We have had a program that has taken people from being poor, and, through integrating them into other neighborhoods, have allowed them to integrate themselves into the middle class and been able to formulate their families and lead a very, very good life. Today Section 8 is being used wrongly. It is becoming a code word for things that we thought we had transcended over decades of 9 RESOLUTION 970558 struggle for equality in this nation. We need a program that can integrate poor people into the mainstream of society. We have tried to cluster people into segregated ghettos of poverty and projects, and that has failed. Section 7 has worked. 8 Are there some bad tenants? Of course there are bad tenants. Are there bad landlords? Of course there are bad landlords. Do we need to fix certain things so that program works better? Of course there are certain things that need to be done so that the program works better. That is what this hearing is all about. This hearing is about what can we do, as we listen to people, to make the program work better. It is not to come in and try to destroy or cast aspersions or make charges or claim that a certain group of individuals cause problems that they do not in fact cause; it is to work towards a resolution and see where the problem lies. It is government that can fix it. It is a government program that can work, because it 10 RESOLUTION 970558 has worked. And I believe that we in this city can come to a very fair conclusion and make Section 5 8 what it should be. If PHA is not doing the work that it needs to do, we have to make sure that PHA sets those instrumentalities in those systems that will make the program work. If landlords are doing and block-busting and going ahead and destroying and using Section 8 for their own benefit, economic or otherwise, we have to make sure that those landlords are taken out of the program. Because they do not benefit the neighborhood and they do not benefit the person who is on Section 8. Let us not blame the victim. Let us not put the blame on those individuals who are trying to better themselves. Let us begin this discussion as to how we can do and make this program function much better than it has. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. The two statements set the tone that 11 RESOLUTION 970558 we hope witnesses whom we are very glad to see here today follow. But this is an open forum. We have called this meeting together so that we could hear. And from listening, the City Council and the Mayor can make recommendations with respect to the program. The program is a national program. And the agency that enforces the Section 8 program in the first place is the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Now, we are told that there will be representatives of the various city agencies here to listen to the complaints, so that the city agencies themselves can go to work. For example, one of the many charges is that License & Inspections has not done the proper job of inspecting, hasn't issued the proper number of violations called for by the conditions that exist. These are all things we want to hear about, and so we welcome all of you to participate fully. The first group of witnesses we're 12 RESOLUTION 970558 going to hear from are a group that we're going to call, in general, the Dickinson Street Neighbors. They are going to tell us about their experiences with the program. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Mr.
Chairman, if I may, just for a matter of background, these neighbors are from the 400 block of Dickinson Street in South Philadelphia. In discussion on your testimony, I would just advise you that we don't need to be specific about the address of the property involved, but just the general issues that you would like to raise. And we, Councilman DiCicco and I, attended a community meeting recently, and were in one of the homes of the neighbors and had an opportunity to meet this group of people, which is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic of people that are very important to South Philadelphia. So with that background, I would like to allow the Chairman to allow the testimony. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I would like to add one other thing to what Councilman Kenney said. If there are names of people or 13 RESOLUTION 970558 addresses that seem to require attention, we would prefer, instead of names and addressed being used at this hearing, with perhaps charges that may later be found to be unfounded or founded, require corrective action, instead of giving their names out publicly here, I am going to ask -- Wanda, would you stand. Wanda is a staff member. We would like at the end or during the course of the hearing, please go over and give her the information, the names of the people, the addresses, and a general nature of the problems. And the City Council will accept responsibility for initiating the investigations that are going to be needed to determine whether corrective action is needed. And if corrective action is needed, we are going to work very hard to see that correction takes place. Go ahead, sir. Will you identify yourself for the record? This will be for all witnesses. When you testify, begin by giving your name and your organization, if you represent an organization. 14 RESOLUTION 970558 And please, because while this room 3 looks a bit fancy and what they say ornate -- whatever ornate means -- the amplification system is terrible. And that means that for you to be heard -- and we want everybody in the room to hear all of the testimony -- you have to bring the microphone as close to your mouth as is possible; otherwise, you won't be heard. So we are urging everyone. The reason you are giving your name is that the testimony is being recorded, and the record has to show who is speaking at any given time. Thank you. Please proceed.
My name is Kirk Brown. I live in the 400 block -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: You are going to have to bring your microphone much closer and speak with some force.
My name is Kirk Brown. I live in the 400 block of Dickinson Street. And I would like to start off by saying that on my block we have African-Americans, 15 RESOLUTION 970558 Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Asian-Americans, Lauisian immigrants, Polish immigrants, Cambodian immigrants, Vietnamese immigrants, and Hispanics. We have Muslims. We have Jews. We have Christians and Buddhists. We have lawyers, actors, house painters, hat makers, retirees, business managers, cooks, migrant field laborers, and others. We have got dogs, cats, and birds; athletes, invalids, and all points in between. By now you should have an idea that this is one of the most diverse blocks in Philadelphia. It is a living example of what Philadelphia means. This is a street in the Pennsport Dickinson Square area of South Philly, just between the Italian Market and the riverfront. This is a place where more movies have been shot than people. This wondrous, strange assortment is currently being tested by a government program that was designed to do what so many communities refused to do, integrate. This is Section 8. This is a community ripe for the failings of a misguided government subsidy that has 16 RESOLUTION 970558 become the scourge of many other communities. When you find a neighborhood that is relatively old and urban, with single-dwelling homes of retirees, many of whom are settled and uncomfortable with the thought of following their adult children to suburban sprawls, juxtaposed with multi-unit dwellings, occupied by renters who express little or no concern for their properties, the mix can be disastrous. This is particularly painful for the elderly, already feeling abandoned by their former neighbors who have opted to fly, rather than fight. In other instances the original occupants of a property have passed, and the current owners, having no intention of living in the area, see an opportunity to gain guaranteed above-market rental income from Uncle Sam. Too often this is a cleverly veiled scheme for many well-off individuals to use the housing needs of the poor to enrich themselves. I originally rented the unit I now own and have been incensed by the pattern of abuse I have observed in neighboring properties. This is an area where zoning codes 17 RESOLUTION 970558 will allow homeowners to reap windfalls from the taxpayers' purse -- which, if I am not mistaken, is empty -- through the Section 8 program. For the slumlord it is an excellent opportunity. For the misbegotten Section 8 tenant, it is a delight to live in a property that is partially paid for by the government. And if your third or your fourth isn't paid, the chances of eviction become slim because there is no place left for you to go. For the Section 8 tenant that plays by the rules and hopes to maintain a clean and comfortable home for his or her family with the temporary assistance this program was designed to offer, the schemers have siphoned all hope. At the outset I mentioned how diverse my block is. And I mentioned it because, lately, I have seen tenants' rights groups play the race card with respect to the Section 8 housing issue. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for continuing this sham. (Applause.)
The problem is, quite simply, the unwillingness or the inability to 18 RESOLUTION 970558 conform to acceptable standards of community living. And education on how to live in a neighborly fashion is sorely missed. Perhaps a mandatory in-service for all Section 8 candidates on community etiquette could temper the situation. Once again, the lack of education is the root of the evil. I convened on Monday, October 20, to discuss this, as well as some other matters, with my neighbors and were pleased that we had Councilmen James Kenney and Frank DiCicco, along with Officer Loviccio from the 3rd District to attend. They offered us a great deal of hope and guidance. or more neighbors, representing 17 all occupations, gathered. This included a couple 18 of Section 8 tenants and their courteous children, 19 proof that Section 8, indeed, has participants that 20 are model citizens. My neighbors and I have always welcomed everyone --
This included a couple of 19 RESOLUTION 970558 Section 8 children and their courteous children proof that, indeed, Section 8 has participants who are model neighbors. My neighbors and I have welcomed everyone. It is only those residents who scream profanities at the children, exceed occupancy regulations, disturb the peace well beyond respectable hours, and who continuously express belligerent behavior towards others that are responsible for part of this crisis. Unfortunately, on our block this describes a Section 8 tenant. The balance of blame must go to the unthinking bureaucrats -- none of them present -- and their patron slumlords. Additional culpability rests with communities that hold the power and clout to block mixed-income housing, which has been an effective means of easing the plight of the poor. We need solutions, not studies; understanding, not lip service. A centralized grievance committee to effectively address the bad-neighbor issues could go a long way towards resolving the Section 8 problem. Because it is 20 RESOLUTION 970558 always the few who ruin it for the many. With centralization, the problem tenants could be identified, educated, and, if necessary, eliminated from the program. The 1-800 number would be a simple, effective tool to follow the abusive patterns of the few. I thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is there anyone else from your group who is going to be speaking? Because we would like to hold the questions until everyone that's going to speak has spoken.
My name is Dot. I live right next to the Section 8. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Excuse me, Dot. You have to give your last name for the record.
Moody. I am not a moody person, though. But these people are very, very belligerent. Now, I had an argument with her a few weeks ago. And the cop that came was a black cop. 21 RESOLUTION 970558 She is a black woman. And he said to me, "It is going to get worse for you, instead of getting better." And it is getting worse for me. They make fun of me walking, which I have a spine problem, and they tried to hit me with a car. So I know it is going to get worse in the summertime. But I don't know what else to do.
My name is Felicia Adams. I am from 3rd and Dickinson; they are 4th and Dickinson. So we are not in the same block, but we are neighbors. And just about everybody in the next block, and attending their block meeting, I got to meet Kirk here. I feel I have to go after her. And I feel like I have to go after Kirk. Because I think I can speak for a lot of Section 8 tenants and recipients who are good neighbors. I am the block captain. And I am a Section 8 tenant; I am not a homeowner. So it is like how can a Section 8 tenant be a block captain if she is not a homeowner? 22 RESOLUTION 970558 Well, I am a block captain because I saw that a lot of things needed to be done on my block. And I went to the neighbors and I knocked on their door one morning, and I said, "Get up, get dressed, come out, sweep your block." And a lot of the tenants -- (Applause.)
A lot of the tenants got up, came out, and swept the block. And from there, we have had an organized flea market. We are trying to organize the 300 block and the 400 block. We are trying to get the 500 block included, so that we can do things together. I have nothing but good things to say about Section 8. I was in need; they helped me out. And, in return -- not saying that this was requested of me -- but I do my part of being a good neighbor to those who could have rejected me, you know, but they didn't. And they're helping me. Like I said, I am the block captain. I go around, inform the neighbors of, "This is the day you put your trash out." 23 RESOLUTION 970558 When we had that blizzard, the 300 block of Dickinson was one of the only blocks in South Philly that was cleaned. Not by the city, but by the residents. I don't have a car. Why should I go out there and shovel, when I don't have a car? But myself and my two children, who were and at the time, got out and shoveled. We helped our fellow residents dig their cars out so they could go to work. So what I'm saying to you is, I'm a good neighbor. I am a Section 8 tenant, but I am a good neighbor. My landlord, I praise him every single day. Thanksgiving is coming up. I can thank this man. If something goes wrong in my property, it is repaired. Recently there is an empty lot on the corner of 4th and Dickinson. It was weeded for a very long time. From the moment I moved in there three years ago, until this past month, the weeds were up here. I organized to get it cleaned up. I 24 RESOLUTION 970558 got the owner's permission of that lot to clean it up. He gave us permission. He said we could clean it up; we cleaned it up. He said we can put flowers on there; that's what we are going to do. We want to put a mural up on the wall. Since my landlord owns the property where the wall is, I went to my landlord and I said, "This is what we would like to do." He says, "Felicia, do you mind that mural being on your wall?" Now he says my wall, because I am a tenant. He has a lot of respect for me. He treats me respectfully, just like I treat his property respectfully. I said I didn't mind. He says, "Well, then, do what you want." He says, "If you need it in writing, just call me back up and I will put it in writing." Now, this is a good neighborhood, working with a good tenant, who has an excellent landlord, who takes care of his property. (Applause.)
All the problems people are talking about, I don't know what you are talking about. 25 RESOLUTION 970558 And I get really, really, really upset and hyped when I hear -- like that inflammatory article that was in Sunday's paper pissed me off. I wanted to burn the paper. And other inflammatory comments about color and stuff, it just -- it angers me. It angers me. Now, the other Section 8 tenant in the other block, I am new to hearing about this. I wasn't aware of her. And I said to them, what could we do as a community? I don't think the answer is kicking her out of our neighborhood. Because we could be sending her to someone else. I don't think the answer is necessarily making it a bureaucratic, mandatory issue or statement or idea that we have to go through some kind of training. Because I am a good resident. So why do I have to go through training to be a good resident? But I think the answer is in the landlord, the tenant, the community, and the government all working together to make it a RESOLUTION 970558 peaceful situation for everybody. That's how I think. I could be wrong. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. (Applause.)
You are not wrong. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Give your name and go right ahead.
My name is Maria Perez, and I live in the 400 block of Dickinson, too. I am a Section 8 resident for over ten years. And we are having problems in the community with drugs, with housing, with everything. And I am not here to criticize nobody. I am here to stand by those that believe in the law, and they want to follow it. I got a grandson that he is 5, and he just went to school. Now, he is attending in the same room, in the same school with these kids that just moving in the block. The kids come to my grandson and say, "Because you Puerto Rican and we are other 27 RESOLUTION 970558 nationality, you have to move. We just moving in the block. We are not getting out." And he is only 5. He come to me and say, "Mom-mom, why we have to move?" I say, "No, we don't have to move. We have to work together and work on these kids to come into the neighborhood and be part of it." The kids come and knock on my door and ask to play with my grandson at the end of the summer. I watch them. I let them play. I feed them juice and cookies. And then the kids, they don't want to be involved. The kids say they just moving in the block, we have to move. I don't see why tenants, that we are living in the block for 10, 11, maybe all life, like this lady here, we have to pack us up and move and let them come and take over. I don't think it is fair. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Anyone else who is going to speak? Thank you. Councilman Kenney. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: No, sir. 28 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Nutter.
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The gentlemen who started the testimony, I am sorry I didn't catch your name.
Kirk Brown. I get the impression from the testimony and from some information that I have that there are two Section 8 properties on the 400 block of Dickinson; is that correct?
I have no idea how many Section 8 properties are on the block, per se. There are two that I know of, but there could be more.
Quite frankly, I don't care that there are more. And I only say that not because I don't have an answer for you, but because I don't care if a person is Section 8 or not Section 8, so I don't make it an issue for me. It is behavior. And if that behavior continues and is 29 RESOLUTION 970558 fostered by a Section 8 program the taxpayers cover, then I think that I should feel comfortable coming to City Council and hoping that there can be some resolution.
I appreciate that. I am trying to understand, though, the start of your testimony. Did you seem to indicate in your testimony that there were Section 8 participants who were exhibiting some inappropriate behavior on your block?
Okay. And what do you do on your block if non-Section-8 people exhibit the same behavior?
There would be an approaching of the owner of the property, if they themselves are the owner of the properties. If it is direct belligerence, then it is 911.
Some resolution. The largest issues have been with the children and the way we have observed their treatment. I understand that the organizations that come to rescue kids like this, in the situation, have been informed about it, but they don't consider it their priority. Apparently there are more serious situations in the city that require their limited attention. So it is a tough nut to crack, I know. But if, in fact, it is continuing repeatedly because an owner, a property owner, is bringing in tenants that exhibit the same behavior repeatedly, then I think the problem may rest with the owner.
How many problem properties do you believe you have on your block?
And are either of them the two folks that are at the table?
No. No. There are no 25 problem tenants here at the table. 31 RESOLUTION 970558
The reason I asked the question is because the PHA records seem to indicate that there are only two Section 8 properties in the 400 block of Dickinson Street. And your testimony is that the two people who occupy those properties are at the witness table.
Okay. I apologize. So it sounds like you may have some Section 8 tenant problems, but it sounds like you may have some non-Section-8 problems.
I should tell you, Councilman, that there are a lot of times when you 32 RESOLUTION 970558 have problems with a neighbor, it could be passing, and you don't give it -- it could be a passing problem.
In the sense that it may happen once in a while. We all have problems.
But when it is a repeated problem, from the same party, it needs to be addressed. And the best thing for me to say to you is that I would not be taking the time to come here now if it were not an enormous problem that may worsen because it involves children. And that's largely why I am here. If it was just someone playing their music too loud at a certain hour from time to time, it is not worth your time and trouble. But this is a serious situation. And because it is something that we have all observed, and something that we all have to endure, that I am hoping that this might make a difference.
Okay. I mean, do 33 RESOLUTION 970558 you think that there are, I guess, different rules of behavior or there should be a different response from the government based on the behavior of people, determined by whether they are a participant in the Section 8 program or not?
I personally think that if a person is receiving this type of assistance from the government, from the taxpayer, then they should, at minimum, behave in accordance to community standards. (Applause.)
And the people who are not receiving the benefit, whatever it may be -- there are various types of benefits --
Let me finish the question. If you are not receiving the benefit from the government, then you can do whatever you want to do?
I think you are saying if you are not receiving subsidy from the government, you can behave -- you have a license to be rude and belligerent to your neighbors. 34 RESOLUTION 970558 At some point you have to say that there may be some cultural issues about the way people treat their neighbors, about the way they treat their children, about the way they treat their properties. And if that stems from coming from an environment where you do not have direct responsibility for your property, then it shouldn't be dismissed; that's what I'm saying.
Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Just before Councilwoman Fernandez, could you tell us what government agencies you went to with respect to the problems from the children?
I have called abusive centers. I have called the police. They came down one night, and the kids were in the house by themselves and they had locked the door. This 15-year-old was supposed to be watching them. Now, they locked the door and they were all the way down the street, this kid. When the cops got there, they had to 35 RESOLUTION 970558 go find this child to get in the house with these three little kids by themselves. Now, suppose they would have turned the gas on and started the fire? That would have been my problem, too. I mean, this lady just don't want to listen to anybody. Now, the Section 8 investigator came down to me last week, and we have been talking to him. He wants to find out, the guy that lives with her has a car. And he wants to find out the number of the license number. Because this guy just got out of jail. We don't know what happened, where it happened, what happened. But this is the -- the man wants to find out who the captain of our district is, so he can get in touch with him. CHAIRMAN COHEN: May I just ask one question?
But this has been going on for over a year. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Did you contact any of the city agencies, like the Human Services Department or the Health Department. 36 RESOLUTION 970558
Yes. I tried. But they said it was no abuse. There is no abuse. CHAIRMAN COHEN: That is an an area that we would be --
She can talk to her children the way she wants to talk to them. And every word that comes out of her mouth is MF. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. Thank you. Councilwoman Fernandez and Councilwoman Krajewski.
Thank you, Councilman Cohen. Mr. Brown, these are hearings where you can help us understand both what the problem is and then what might be some ways to resolve it. And I am trying to separate out what might need to be resolved on your particular block, which would depend on all the facts on your particular block. And, you know, since it involves DHS, the Child Abuse Unit, that might be a different issue than Section 8 housing as it relates to HUD and PHA, Philadelphia Housing Authority, that's 37 RESOLUTION 970558 supposed to supervise these units and landlords, if I am correct. Do you have any recommendations to this Committee in terms of what you think ought to be done that might affect not only your neighborhood, but other neighborhoods?
I am glad you asked that, Councilwoman Fernandez. Because I want to tell Felicia that the type of behavior that she exhibits is the type of behavior I expect from everybody. It is not -- as I said, it has nothing to do with Section 8 per se. It just happens to be that there are repeated incidences in at least two of the Section 8 houses in the community and in the house that is across from me, that I can witness on a daily basis. That tells me, in all fairness to the program -- which I think does a great deal for a great deal of needy people. But, in all fairness, it tells me that there is a pattern in some instances with Section 8 and the way they screen or do not screen certain tenants. If the funding is so limited and the 38 RESOLUTION 970558 need is so great and the waiting list so long, it seems to me abusive that there are people in the program who do not deserve it the way Felicia does. And that's what I'm hoping can be the type of change. So if it means that the Section 8 community or the Section 8 organizers can say, this is a program that is very limited, and we are only going to bring, allow in, those who will behave by community standards, then that to me is an improvement. So that you don't see the type of nightmares that we have been witnessing, and you don't have them in the types of communities that we have been witnessing. (Applause.)
Do I hear you saying you think there needs to be -- one would be screening people before they come in?
And the second step would be removing someone who turns out to be an irresponsible or destructive tenant once 39 RESOLUTION 970558 they were there?
Have you taken any steps, do you know who to turn to, to pursue that line of action in the case in your neighborhood?
I am completely out of the loop. Because I thought Section 8 was a federal program. But I am receiving some information that the responsibilities have been given to local authorities. So I don't know if I should be communicating with my Congressman, I don't know if I should be communicating with my Councilman, or if we should be communicating with our neighborhood associations. If all of them, at least on this issue, can come together and say, that's the crux of the matter, getting folks who are not behaving in accordance to community standards off the line, so that it creates an opportunity for someone that does deserve, so that's what I'm hoping can be the resolve. 40 RESOLUTION 970558 But I want to say that if we are, as neighbors, trying to do the best that we can, and we are the ones who have not run from the city, especially when we have the opportunity to -- I mean, some are so frustrated that they don't have a choice. My concern is that this is a house, a particular problem house, is a house that has young kids in it. Those young kids are going to duplicate what we are experiencing from their parents. If it is not going to change -- I mean, where are they going to go? You have got kids. Are we going to send them to another neighborhood? Are you going to send them to some other community? It has to change there. It is not about saying, "You can't live here." It is about educating people to say, "This is what you do as a neighbor." And what you do inside of your own home is your business. But, as a neighbor, these are simple rules that make this place better. I am hoping that we can start that type of dialogue so that Section 8 can reformulate how people can get on the Section 8 program. 41 RESOLUTION 970558
Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. (Applause.)
I wanted to find out, as a homeowner, what rights do we have? None. Everybody told me none. (Applause.)
None. I am there 34 years. And I have to move or take stuff off of this woman for the rest of my life? No way. No way. I can't live like this. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And you have been given the wrong advice. As a homeowner, you have many rights. And this hearing involves, among other things, those rights. You ought never be subjected to the kind of abuse that, you know, is being talked about from those two homes.
Everybody I asked said -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: And that's what we're working towards. Councilwoman Krajewski. 42 RESOLUTION 970558
Thank you. First I want to ask, is there anyone here from the Philadelphia Housing or the Administration? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is there anyone here from Philadelphia Housing Authority?
The people came down here with questions regarding Section 8. There is frustration out there. They have no one to talk to. They are coming down to Council, but no answers are here. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is there anyone here in the audience from Philadelphia Housing Authority? I am told that the Mayor has advised the Philadelphia Housing Authority not to be present today. I cannot understand why he gave that advice.
But this is such an important issue. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I agree with you.
Councilwoman, 43 RESOLUTION 970558 Helena Dixon from PHA is here.
Is she the proper person we can address these questions to? Can she make decisions? What can she do about them?
Well, she can take it back, but Mr. Purnell is the proper person. And the key situation is, Mr. Purnell and the Mayor have agreed that they will come down after this. They will come down, we will have a record of what is going on, what are the questions. And the Mayor and PHA have committed themselves to a date very soon, right after we recess this hearing, to be here to answer all of the questions, to begin putting forward whatever plan and what recommendations we have.
So, in other words, Councilman, we are saying this was all in vain with the buses?
No, I don't think so. I don't think it is in vain, Councilwoman, because I think this is going to be reported. It is a very different atmosphere 44 RESOLUTION 970558 than has been reported in the Inquirer. Because what the Inquirer and the Daily News have put forward about Section 8 have been very inflammatory, has been only one side, and has only given the viewpoint of a very small percentage of the citizens of Philadelphia. (Applause.)
We are trying to set a record, as Miss Felicia has stated, of what Section 8 really is and what the problems are. It is not in vain. If it were in vain, I would not be here. I wanted the Mayor to be here. I think the Mayor should be here. I think PHA should be here. However, to me, the important people that we have to listen to are the citizens who live in neighborhoods and the residents of Section 8 that are here. And I want to hear from them, and then we will deal with PHA, we will deal with the landlords, and we will deal with the Mayor.
We also have, Councilman, people who feel that Section 8 is 45 RESOLUTION 970558 a bad program. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: We are going to hear from them.
My question is, what can we in this Council do to help the people who have problems with Section 8? It is destroying every neighborhood in the city. Look at the map here. The people -- (Applause.)
-- the people who live in the red marks should be up in arms. Now they are moving slowly, the whole entire city. We have no neighborhoods left. We have to do something about the Section 8, but I refuse to sit here if we don't have anyone from PHA or the Housing Authority or Mr. Kromer. What about OHCD? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman, it is the belief of this --
I just blew 46 RESOLUTION 970558 a fuse. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman, it is our belief that City Council has a very important role to play in overseeing these other agencies. Based on the information we get here today, it is my view that City Council will take action to enforce the changes that may be necessary --
In what way? CHAIRMAN COHEN: -- to get rid of these abuses. Well, we have budgetary power over a number of the agencies.
Councilman, we have questions about the criteria. How do they apply for Section 8? CHAIRMAN COHEN: This is the first hearing, Councilwoman. We will deal with that. We will be dealing with all those things. We may not cover it all today.
Will we be able to go to Congress? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Yes. 47 RESOLUTION 970558
Will we be able to stop it? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Congressman Fattah that is going to be here at this hearing very shortly.
First of all, I think we should have a million taxpayers march to Washington. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead.
My name is Felicia Adams, yet again. You are talking about -- and these are my neighbors, too. And I was at their block meeting, held by their block captain. I was invited by an invitation. When they brought up the issue of this problem, Section 8 tenant, I said to them, "Did you go to Section 8?" When they brought up the issue about the children, I said to them, "Did you go to DHS ?" I brought all this up. It is not just a problem with Section 25 8. In the 300 block, there are owners on my block 48 RESOLUTION 970558 who live in their property who do not sweep, who do not shovel, who -- (Applause.)
-- who, when I first walked on that block, allowed their dogs to defecate on my property. I had to go out there and clean it up; they did not clean it up. These are owners. These are landlords who own other properties on this block. Okay? These are people who are taxpayers, who pay their mortgage. And just because they pay their mortgage, they are supposed to be better than me? I don't think so. (Applause.)
So what I am saying to you is, what I'm saying is, it is not a question of whether it is a Section 8 tenant or whether it is a homeowner; it is people, period. That's the bottom line. It is people who do not take care of their property, and then there are those that do take care of their property. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Excuse me. 49 RESOLUTION 970558
This is the thing, this is my suggestion, and this is how I try to handle it as the block captain. We go to the Philadelphia More Beautiful Committee, we go to City Hall, we go to anyplace we have to go to to get the brochures. You all print so many brochures on what a homeowner is supposed to do, on what a tenant is supposed to do. The Tenant Action Committee gives it out to you. I have gotten stuff from Section 8 myself on what you are supposed to do and what you are not supposed to do. So the information is out there. The information is there, if you want it. And because I want it, I went and got it. There are people who refuse to go get it. These are my fellow block captains -- I mean, fellow residents because we live 300, 400. We are in the same area. I am a good tenant and there are other good tenants. The information that they need 50 RESOLUTION 970558 is out there; it is just that it is not getting to them.
No. No, I am not ruining the neighborhood. And like he said in his address, in his testimony where he said the resident with her two beautiful kids, that's me. Everybody in South Philadelphia, in our area, know my two kids. I mean, I can walk down the street and they say, "Hi. You're Mark's mother," because my son knows absolutely everyone. We are a benefit to the neighborhood. And what I'm saying is not just Section 8 tenants who can be a benefit to the neighborhood; it is homeowners. Because like I said, on my block alone, 300 block, as the block captain, I know of homeowners who are landlords to properties who do not take care of those properties. I hear complaints from their tenants, and they ask me what I can do. And I try to find out the information for them. 51 RESOLUTION 970558 It is just not a Section 8 problem.
This is not a Section 8 problem. Bad neighbors are bad neighbors, and they come in all colors. (Applause.)
And I just want to put something straight. Federal subsidies are federal subsidies. An individual that is a Section 8 gets a federal subsidy. I get a federal subsidy; I have a mortgage. That mortgage is tax deductible. That is a federal subsidy. (Applause.)
That is a federal subsidy. So a federal subsidy is a federal subsidy, whichever way you want to put it up. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And everybody in this city has a right to live peacefully and to be able to enjoy the possession of their home, whether it is an owned home or whether it is a rented home. And no one should ever get the answers that were given to this woman when she called for help. The city exists for the purpose of 52 RESOLUTION 970558 helping people that need help. And every way, whether they are homeowners or tenants -- and we would like you to go see Wanda, who stood up before, at the end to give her some more details on what you talked about. And we want to be assisting you. City Council has a job that very few people know about. That job is an oversight job. It is our duty as Council members to see to it that all of the city agencies do what they are supposed to do, provide the kind of services that makes living in Philadelphia something we can enjoy, rather than suffer from. And that's why we are holding this hearing today. We thank the Dickinson Street Neighbors very much for their questions. We are going to have to bring on other witnesses. We have a very tight time schedule. But we thought that the example set by the Dickinson Street Neighbors is an outstanding example of how the community gets concern, begins to deal with the problems it has. We want to be of service to you, and we intend to be. Thank you very much. (Applause.) 53 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is Congressman Fattah in the room yet? Is State Representative Curtis Thomas here? They are due in very shortly. Councilwoman Blackwell would like to make a statement.
Thank you very much. Upon reviewing the map that's behind me -- in fact, at a glance -- it would appear that my district, the 3rd District, has more Section 8 tenants than anywhere in the city. Let me say this -- and this is why I was really, really concerned about having hearings -- Section 8 was designed to enable people to live anywhere they want. It is a federal subsidy, because of these harsh economic times, to give people a break. It has nothing to do with who you are, how you are, what your moral feelings are, what your religion or ethnic background is. I find it very, very dangerous in getting into -- in fact, I was really concerned about having hearings in the first place because of 54 RESOLUTION 970558 those issues. People are supposed to live anonymously in neighborhoods, and that was the design of the entire program. And that is what we needed to do, especially during these harsh economic times. And let me say that there are many, many, many reasons why people have problems. And as has been said back and forth behind me at the table, we get complaints all the time. But problems are based not on whether or not you are on Section 8, but we have neighborhood and community problems overall. So let me say that, certainly, I have and always will support any subsidies that allow people to live in neighborhoods, to live decently in neighborhoods. And let's be very, very careful that we don't send the message back to Washington that we want somehow to threaten this subsidy. We just can't afford it. I don't know what we are going to do. We can't put everybody in a shelter. (Applause.) 55 RESOLUTION 970558
So let's be very, very careful about how we handle hearings. Because this is a program that is designed for and does help people. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much, Councilwoman Blackwell. Lynne Rotoli, the Mayfair Civic Association. We are going to ask, in order for everyone to be able to hear, it is very important that there be no second conversations going on at the same time. It interferes with the very difficult amplification. Miss Rotoli, we are glad to see you here. Please identify yourself for the record, keep the microphone as close to you as is possible, real, real close as mine is to me, and go ahead.
My name is Lynne Rotoli, R-O-T-O-L-I. I am with the President of the Mayfair Civic Association, and here as a representative of the people of Mayfair and some of the people from the Northeast. First I would like to commend our 56 RESOLUTION 970558 Dickinson Street friends for a wonderful outlook on what can and cannot be done and what should and should not be done. They were wonderful. (Applause.)
Councilman Ortiz said that this program is working throughout the nation. But I am here to say, Councilman, that it is not working here in Philadelphia --
-- for the people in the Northeast that I am representing. And I would like to read these few pages of information that we have gotten. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Please go ahead.
We understand that the Section 8 was set up to help the needy, and that's great. When I get older, I hope there are ways of helping me if I am in need. Or even if I were widowed or something, I want to know that the government is there to help me, too. And we appreciate that. The problem with this program as we 57 RESOLUTION 970558 have seen it and as what has been told to us firsthand is that the program in Philadelphia has been not accountable for monitoring any of the actions of the owners or the tenants or taking into consideration the community at large. We feel that this program right now has become a free-for-all from what are our observations. As a representative of the people, we have listened to many, many complaints about the program on all sides. We are afraid that the Section 8 embodies everything that we, the middle-class people, fear. And that is the unfairness of we the middle children paying for -- holding the entire economic burden of this type of program, with little or no proportionate help from the upper or lower socio-economic groups, whether it be in terms of money or in terms of help in aid to your community. This is purely an economic issue. And I would like to say that very loudly. An economic issue through and through. But make no 24 mistake about it, it is a serious issue. We are trying to help bring a change 58 RESOLUTION 970558 to the Section 8 program in order to bring about economic equity, while living a peaceful existence with all of our neighbors. With due respect now, I would like to submit to you the two programs that we have been able to ascertain, the two problems about this program that we have been able to get from the people in our neighborhood only that we represent. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Please go ahead.
First of all, it is money. The first one is money. Fair market values, which are the economic determinants of the amount paid to owners, are surveyed on all of the people in the Philadelphia counties, which includes the pricier Bucks County and Montgomery County, Delaware County. And this escalates rents in Philadelphia and makes it more attractive for people to have rental properties in Philadelphia; while the suburbs, it makes it less attractive. And there are -- we don't know the percentage of those out of Philadelphia, but it is not as attractive for owners to want to have Section 59 RESOLUTION 970558 properties outside of the city. Also, in Mayfair, our properties taxes have increased and been reassessed, while the amount that we can sell our properties for is decreasing. While that's not a Section 8 problem, it is a rental problem. What's happening is, we have witnessed rising rental properties throughout our neighborhoods. And we fear that additional property, rental properties, may hold to its decline. And I am trying to explain this is what a fear is, and this is something that may be addressed. Many neighbors are choosing to flee. But in our area, many people are contractually obligated to stay in Philadelphia, or we just love the area.
Excuse me. Could you go back? Because I didn't understand the bit. You are talking about the taxes may cause people to flee?
That's a possibility, too. 60 RESOLUTION 970558 We are not saying that people are fleeing just because of this one program. But we're saying, with the culmination of other kinds of things that are happening in our city, our property values are declining, while the taxes are increasing. It is an incentive to leave an area. These are the people we don't want to leave the area. We want to keep them here somehow. So in looking at the Section 8 program, trying to help it and change it a little bit, that may be one reason we may be able to keep them here in Philadelphia. The first problem, as I said, was money. The second problem is a stake in the community and appreciation for the community at large. We have seen the property owners, who have disposable income to invest in these rental properties, rarely, rarely live in their rental properties. Cries have come for many generations about the decline of the generation, but the abundance of drugs and the abundance of crime is not decreasing in our area. 61 RESOLUTION 970558 At a time when communities must rely on their own residents to volunteer to maintain the area in terms of Town Watches and civic associations, little leagues and church organizations, where are these non-residential property owners? The same question can be posed of the renters, who, as we have experienced firsthand, tend to keep to themselves and rarely become an active part in the community. Once again, the burden of maintenance is on the homeowners, who in many cases have more than one job per household and very little spare time. We listened to our Dickinson Street friends who helped shovel snow. That's what we need. It is not, "I was out there helping"; it is you just do it because it needs to be done. That's the kind of community that you need to build in order to strengthen the areas.
Excuse me, ma'am. I don't mean to interrupt you. Can I just ask you one quick question?
Finally, no one has recognized the needs of the community at large, which was also said by our friends in the Dickinson Street group, in discussions that surround this whole entire issue. We ask that, along with recognizing the rights of owners and the tenants, that you also recognize the rights of the community at large. Sensitive need has to be made to the owners and the renters as you discuss any way that might aid this program. And if I can take two more minutes of your time, we have come up with solutions. And that's the one thing I would like to give to all of you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead. We would like to hear your suggestions.
Okay. Well, thank you, sir, Councilman. 63 RESOLUTION 970558 We hear about a General Fund. I am sure that this is public record everywhere, except that we haven't been able to see it in the past few weeks. We wonder what this General Fund is all about. It seems as though monies get lumped into this group, this fund, and no one -- everybody gets pulled off of this, and then Council votes that a little piece gets put here. And besides the general funds -- I don't know monetarily what money can come from that for help, but we would like to take a look -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: The General Fund is the main budget of the city. It provides the financing for all regular city departments. There will be public hearings probably beginning sometime in February, running through to the end of March, in which the public can come, express its views with respect to financing. In the area we are talking about, public housing does not receive any city funds; it is a federally operated program. The federal government provides the money for Philadelphia housing, just to bring it at hand. 64 RESOLUTION 970558 But the General Fund, in your home, if you keep your own personal records, it is from where you would pay all of the day-to-day expenses.
The living in Philadelphia fund, though, would that also come from the General Fund or is that something -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: I don't know what that fund is. Living in Philadelphia fund?
Well, that's at the very end. CHAIRMAN COHEN: You will have to talk to me separately about the existence of that fund. It is not a city fund.
I would be very happy to. We would like to propose that we work and vote together with other government officials to change the fair market values to reflect an area, whether it be a zip code or a county or -- not even a county, because each area gets its own rents; that might be a viable solution. We ask that you impose a community, just like the people from Dickinson street, impose a level of community service that is paid back by both 65 RESOLUTION 970558 the owner and the tenants who are benefitting from the program. If the owner doesn't have the time, but does have the money to give back, maybe a 6 percent -- if you are receiving $800 in rental fees 7 from a Section 8 property, maybe 10 percent of that 8 per month could be put into whatever community group 9 they would like to put it into, and this way they 10 are doing their part. If there is no money involved, if there are services that can be offered back to the community. If it is a tenant, ask that they work within their community X amount of hours. If in that same $800 rental, 600 of it is being subsidized, then whatever the minimum wage is divided by that $600, might be put 12 hours per community service. Communities would welcome that kind of help. That's part of being part of the community. And that's part of the problem, as we stated in number two. We asked that -- 66 RESOLUTION 970558 (Applause.)
-- in keeping with that possible solution, we ask that you require affidavits from the people who are benefitting from the program that be signed by the local community groups, just like they do in the local high schools and other youth groups, where we give back to the community. We are asking that people, somebody give something back to "we the people" who are supporting this program. We ask that when you are giving incentive to builders, when builders are incentivized to build new housing, that a fair and equitable market rate be set, that these rates be published so that the taxpayers can see them, the formula be published, along with the conclusion and the names of the people who made that decision so that we know. We know where to vote, what to do, who to talk to, who to call, who we should address with any kinds of problems that we have. We ask that you, our City Council, organize a Section 8 reform panel that includes 67 RESOLUTION 970558 community members from all the communities so that we may be able to help this situation. (Applause.)
We ask that -- and these are solutions, possible solutions. We ask that a five-year time limit be placed on the ownership of Section 8 certificates. We don't know how they are monitored, but we had this one woman, who I would gladly hire in a second, as an administrator who comes out and she gets people together to do her area. We think that during the time that recipients are on Section 8 certificates, that there should be some training involved with that on house maintenance or marketable job skills or resume building or other items that might help them be productive in the future and may help them produce productive Philadelphia. (Applause.)
We ask that abandoned homes throughout the city be revamped through other kinds of funds that may be gained. Maybe the owners, in their money that they give back to the communities, revamp homes 68 RESOLUTION 970558 within a given area. Now we get into the spot inspections, and this is the ending. And these are -- we ask that internal spot inspections be made at Section 8 properties to monitor both the owners and the tenants. If a tenant does not allow for entrance into their home -- and I know we are getting into the Constitution right here, but there is a law enforced in Wildwood, New Jersey, called the Three-Knock Rule. They get three opportunities to allow someone to come into their home for inspection. The fourth time, -- don't know what the exact rule is that doesn't violate Constitutional rights, but there is something that allows the right for the owner to come in and look at his own property, or to allow the governing, subsidizing body to come in and be able to ascertain that this money is being spent properly and carried through. We ask that you try to get a rule somewhere along the lines that will help the owners and the tenants live in the best of circumstances. We ask for a limited amount of houses 69 RESOLUTION 970558 that be rented in a given street, in a given neighborhood, owned by a slumlord, owned by a landlord who is not taking care of their properties. We ask that calls be made bi-monthly, every six months, to the tenants and the owners to make sure that they are involved and doing what they should be doing in terms of the lease, in terms of their responsibility. We ask that both be held accountable, and very strict enforcements be made for those people in violation, in terms of either losing their Section 8 certificates or losing their properties. And, finally, we ask that additional inspectors be trained and placed on the payroll immediately. (Applause.)
It is absolutely, positively -- whether this is rumor or whether it is not, we have heard that the 11 inspectors, out of those 11 inspectors, there are only six that are actively working. Now, whether that's true or not -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: That's to cover 8500 70 RESOLUTION 970558 properties. It is an impossible situation.
11,000 properties. And so, therefore, something needs to be done as far as that is concerned immediately, so that the other concerns may be answered. And we do ask you that you do take the community at large seriously. Because it is a community problem in terms of money and in terms of stake. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. There are going to be some questions. We are going to ask the questions be very brief and the answers be brief. Congressman Fattah is here. He has graciously consented to wait while we do this questioning. And we would like to give him the opportunity to be present and to be heard. Councilwoman Blackwell.
My question to you is, do you realize that we do have communities where Section 8 tenants are involved? One young lady just spoke who talked about her involvement in her community. 71 RESOLUTION 970558 Because a person is living in a Section 8 building doesn't mean that they don't care, that they are not leaders in their community, that they don't clean up, that they are not involved. We even have college students who are renters in my area, which has a majority of the Section 8 in the city. People work together, they are involved. To imply that because a person rents makes them irresponsible is absolutely unfair. (Applause.)
And certainly you mentioned owners and tenants. On one hand you mentioned owners should be involved; on one hand you mentioned tenants should be involved. Well, ofttimes you have both involved or either/or who are involved. I only want to say in closing that in America, everybody has rights, not just homeowners. And that you have to realize that when people have rights, people in communities are doing many of the things that you are criticizing them for. Communities are working. I don't 72 RESOLUTION 970558 know, maybe you live in a closed community where you don't see it. But where the majority of us live, we see people who do work together, with a minimum of problems, with all rental programs. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you, Councilwoman. That doesn't require an answer. (Applause.)
With all due respect, I can only talk about my neighborhood and what I see. And I am on the front line, volunteering at least 30 hours a week to the community, an over-abundance of what one person should possibly do, but that's what I do. So I can tell you that we have on each of our -- on the corners of each of our neighborhoods, there are four rental properties. And I can tell you that not one person is involved in anything. And I'm not saying they are Section 23 8; I am saying they are rental properties. And I can tell you that of those people, very few of the owners are seen, and none of the renters are heard 73 RESOLUTION 970558 from. Just so that you know what --
We can rent as well as own. And we can be on Section 8 and other rental programs, as well as buy. Everybody can't live in your world. But in America, they can live here.
That's correct. Absolutely. And we welcome them all. Finally, this is a homeowner's issue, though. We are talking about the Philadelphia Housing Authority and those people that -- not homeowners, but people who live in properties and take stake in the community. So that's the second part of this whole thing.
You said they are not renters that are not Section 8. I don't know what program you are talking about. You talk about assessments, that seems to be a tax issue. This hearing is on Section 8.
It is not on general rental programs, it is not on the tax issue and reassessment. That's another hearing. As 74 RESOLUTION 970558 Councilman Nutter just said, that's for tomorrow. Today we are talking about Section 8. And as I said, everybody has a right, not just homeowners in one neighborhood. Everybody who lives in this country and in this city has a right. (Applause.)
Just a couple of quick questions. And what Councilwoman Blackwell was referring to is that there is a public hearing tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock to talk about the city's assessment and reassessment process and program that's run by the Board of Revision of Taxes. That's at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Ma'am, I appreciate your testimony. But I have to admit to you that I am not exactly clear on what you believe to be the problems of the Section 8 program in your neighborhood specifically. You talked about taxes; you talked about home ownership, you talked about rental. But I am left unclear as to what the specific problems are with Section 8 properties in your particular 75 RESOLUTION 970558 area. But I did want to put on the record that -- you indicated that you live in the zip code of 19149?
All right. You have 92 Section 8 units in the zip code of 19149. That's as compared to, say, 19144, where there are 956. But in your particular area, the Section 8 units represent 3 percent of all of the rental units in your zip code. You have 3,310 rental units in the zip code in which you live. 92 of them are Section 8. Now, what's going on with the other 97 percent of the rental properties in your zip code? What's going on with them?
You asked where I live. But where I represent, there are 12 zip codes involved. And it is not in numbers; it is a feeling, it is a problem. It is the specifics we talked about --
I understand 76 RESOLUTION 970558 that. You are entitled to your feelings. I am trying to understand them. And you can pour them out on this record, if you like. I don't live where you live, and I don't understand completely what the issues are. That's why I told you that I wasn't clear on what the problems were. But all I have is some factual information. I am trying to match that with, in your words, your feelings. What is the problem?
I was not asked to bring specifics down here. If I were, I would have brought all those people who spoke at our meeting two weeks ago and came to tell us what their specific problem was.
Well, you were at the meeting, and I wasn't. Tell me three things that the people said at the meeting.
They said that the neighbors don't upkeep their property, are staying out late at night, and staying up too late.
Okay. And are they Section 8 tenants, or are they the other part of the 97 percent in your zip code that are not Section 8? Who are they?
When we were able to have them call PHA, we found that they were Section 10 8 people.
Okay. So the Section 8 people stay up too late at light.
No. I am trying to go through the various problems. I am dead serious. I am dead serious. I am trying to understand what the problem is and how that can be addressed.
We can reiterate exactly what our friends in the 400 -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Let's have order. Lively questioning and answering is okay, but let's have order. The questions are not intended to 78 RESOLUTION 970558 offend the witness.
In no way, shape, or form, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I'm sure the witness is not intending to offend anyone. But we are trying to get at some facts, and that's what's involved. Go ahead, Councilman.
Facts and feelings, also. I know that we are trying to keep our feelings out of this. But I have been asked to represent -- to find out what the people thought. And that is exactly what I brought here. I see the map, sir. I know the numbers. I don't know all of the numbers. I know the numbers from what you just said.
Ma'am, I just spoke to Helen Dixon from PHA. Out of that meeting in Mayfair, there were seven properties that were called into PHA that were rental properties. None of them was on Section 25 8. 79 RESOLUTION 970558 (Applause.)
None of those properties was a Section 8 property. Seven came out of that meeting. Seven addresses came out of that meeting, and none of the addresses were in the Section 8 program. They might have been renters. They might have been renters; they might not have been homeowners. But none of them were in the Section 8 program.
And we also read that in the Inquirer. But I will also tell you that, of the 78 calls that I got, 60 of them were. So, therefore, they didn't need to call her. They knew to call us, or they called Manuel Costa, who also had to check for us. So we were prepared. We are just trying to explain to you that Section 8 --
Manuel Costa was the one who checked the seven properties that were given to him, and none of them were on Section 8.
We hoped that the meeting of 1200 in Mayfair was more of a 80 RESOLUTION 970558 constructive and listening, rather than a destructive and criticizing. We wanted to find out answers, and that is what we had set up on that PHA meeting that night. We tried to maintain the integrity of the program to find out what it was all about.
Ma'am, as I said, unfortunately, I was not at that meeting. If you could provide through the two co-chairs of the committee, if there was anything written out of that meeting, if anyone took any kind of notes, if there were questions that were asked. I read the newspaper story. It seemed to indicate, one of the newspaper stories seemed to indicate, that you, the group, put forward a bunch of questions, and at least one of the community leaders said that answers were received. I don't know what the questions were. But if you could share with the Chairs, and they will share with the members of the Committee and the rest of the Council, just what the meeting was about and what kind of information people wanted and what the statements were that were 81 RESOLUTION 970558 made and what the problems were that people articulated, I would greatly appreciate it. And, again, I want to say to you, I certainly meant no disrespect to you at all in my questioning. My colleagues certainly know the kinds of questions that I ask. And I regret if anyone took the Q and A between us in anything less than a serious manner. It was meant to be serious.
And I will let you know that those answers and questions were all faxed to Councilman Ortiz two days after the meeting.
Thank you, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Councilman Kenney. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was at the meeting. And, for the record, some of the issues that some of the residents raised were issues of the numbers of people that were living in a particular property, as it related to the number of people who were registered on the lease to be living there. That's 82 RESOLUTION 970558 one concern that was raised. The second concern that was raised is that the inspectors who were inspecting these 5 10,000 or 11,000 properties are only permitted to 6 inspect relative to Housing Code, Building Code 7 violations, and not to social interaction and social 8 problems. 9 Some of the other issues that were 10 raised were issues of late-night rowdiness in a 11 weekday situation, where people are trying to sleep to go to work in the morning.
Thank you. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: And, additionally, the way in which people put out trash, on what day the trash goes out. Seemingly, taken individually, simple kinds of things, but cumulatively can create a situation where there is some lack of comfort in the neighborhood as to the property's use and some of the activities that may or may not be going on with the property, and the way in which the property is managed. Both from a landlord perspective, when property requests for repair are made and not 83 RESOLUTION 970558 done appropriately, and that affects the tenant in a very adverse way because they don't want to live in that property with a leaky roof or with bad electrical work or anything like that, so that's part of the problem. And the other problem is kind of making sure that people have the necessary skills and are given the necessary counseling to run a home. I have said this many times before. I have owned a home now for a number of years. Every winter my brother needs to come over to my house to put the water in my system for my radiator because I don't know how to do it. I know you have to put a little bit of water in, and you run up to the further part in the house, and you have to turn the key and let the air out of the thing. I don't know how to do any of that. And those are simple skills that a person has to have in order to run a property effectively. And I think that one of the things we are looking to do, hopefully out of these hearings, 84 RESOLUTION 970558 is to make recommendations so that the people get the counseling and skills necessary to run a house. It is not easy for someone who was formerly homeless to say, "Here are the keys. Good luck," and leave them on their own. I don't think that serves the tenant and I don't think it serves the program very well when that happens. And I know that recently PHA has instituted, to their credit, some life skills and some house management skills for the tenants in this program and in the scattered site PHA program, which I think is very, very important. So those were some of the issues that were raised in a rational way. And we are waiting for, I think, some responses from PHA on this issues. And I just wanted to raise some of the issues that were raised at that meeting that evening. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Miss Rotoli, we thank you very much for being here today and for the group of suggestions you have made. You can be sure the committee will be 85 RESOLUTION 970558 considering them, as well as that list of questions and answers that you sent to Councilman Ortiz. Thank you very much. ) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Congressman Fattah. Congressman, we are very pleased, indeed, that you were able to be here today. And we would very much like to hear your thoughts on the subject matter. CONGRESSMAN CHAKA FATTAH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me, by way of greetings to all the members of Council, say it is a pleasure for me to be here, even though I am sure for all of us we find this to be an issue that is troubling. But, nonetheless, let me say a couple of things. We took note the other week, unfortunately, on the passing of two of the city's finest employees, fire personnel, one black, one white, attempting to carry out their work. And it brings that to mind, as we look at this Section 8 issue. " And I start my comments there because when I am in Washington, for those of us who work away from the city, whether in Harrisburg or Washington, we get to hear things and see things. And what was on the national news a few months ago was the circumstances in which a family had moved into Grays Ferry. And there was an incident, and then a number of other instances, that brought national attention to our city that was not welcomed attention.
And it is very, very important, in a city where we have various racial, ethnic, and religious groupings, that we work together to deal with issues that concern us and we not use, you know, other issues as ways to kind of get around the real problems. I don't think that there is any problem with Section 8 that can't be corrected either by federal legislation or by the 87 RESOLUTION 970558 administration at PHA. The Congress in October passed a restructuring bill for Section 8 to deal with some of what I consider to be the real issues, how we get more of a fair market rate, in terms of some of the project-based Section 8 programs. So that the dollars that are being used are not unfairly going to enrich landlords, but are being actually used to help citizens. 6 million families across this country, to have the ability to have some assistance in terms of their living circumstances. But there is room for improvement. I think that it is clear that the issues that we have known for some time in terms of Section 8, that we have to have more inspectors at the local level; we have to make sure that the properties are well maintained. We also need to know that when people are renting, whether through Section 8 or any other vehicle, that they don't have a right to destroy neighborhoods or to be a discomfort to their 88 RESOLUTION 970558 neighbors. But we should be clear that the vast majority of renters in our city are not being subsidized by Section 8, that the vast majority of people who are renting are not being subsidized by any government program, but are renters. We also live in a city in which we have the highest rate of home ownership of almost any other city in the country. And in terms of African-American home ownership, we have the highest of any city in the country. And so we need to, as the Council has done, continue to work to build home ownership opportunities. We need to continue to try to deal with quality-of-life issues in communities, which I know a number of members are concerned about. But we should not be singling out families based on whether or not they are subsidized in some form under a federal program that makes them eligible. This city, and every neighborhood in it, has to understand that it is the law of this government, at the federal level, that people have the right to live anywhere that they want to live, 89 RESOLUTION 970558 in any neighborhood, on any street. ) CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: And that it is a violation of federal law to impede someone's right to a peaceful existence in those neighborhoods, particularly if that is focused at their race or religious background. And so we should, as we look at how to improve upon Section 8 -- Section 8 is not the only program that I think gives rise in some cases to some of these issues. There are other programs around that do also, I think, invite the Council's attention, in terms of how to improve those programs. But we live in a city in which there are over 30,000 vacant, abandoned, deteriorated row homes. If we have people who are prepared to fix up homes and to rent them out to either renters without Section 8 subsidy or with Section 8 subsidy, in most neighborhoods that should be a welcomed addition, rather than a vacant building that is deteriorating that can be the site of crime or fires or other types of problems. 90 RESOLUTION 970558 So we should be encouraging the appropriate use of these residential structures. And to the degree that we, as a city, can focus, I think, more appropriately on some of the real issues, which is that there are -- there is a need in our city to confront the issue of race more directly, not through the kind of subterfuge of Section 8. We should have a discussion. We should understand that in this city, in every community, there are people who make a very important contribution to making this city what it is.
And that in every community, in every neighborhood, there are people who act in anti-social ways, and that they should appropriately be dealt with. But we should not, because of the color of someone's skin or their religious background, or any other distinction that one might want to draw, inappropriately ascribe to them actions that are, in somebody's mind, a stereotype of behavior that, unfortunately, in their own family upbringing or in some other way they have not been 91 RESOLUTION 970558 able to come to realize that you can't judge people and you should not judge people or groups of people based on the actions of isolated individuals. ) CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: I would hope that as the Council goes forward, that you will look at the restructuring bill that passed the Congress. There have been new appropriations that have been made to deal with some of the other undermining issues, underlying issues in Section 8. We have a number of buildings that are not only in physical distress, but are in fiscal distress. And there has been a multi-billion-dollar appropriation so that these Section 8 renewals can go forward. And it is in none of our interests as a city to have families with small children homeless on our streets. We need to utilize these federal resources in ways in which we can strengthen neighborhoods and which people can understand that there are people of every ethnic and religious background who benefit under Section 8 and who need 92 RESOLUTION 970558 those benefits and need that support so that they can maintain an existence for their families. And so we would hope to live in a world in which people had all of the resources that they would need, but that's not the world that we live in. And that's why the United States Congress has appropriated this money. And I know that Congressman Borski, and those others who serve in Washington, Senator Spector, Senator Santorum, we want this program to be able to work to the benefit of the individual families and to strengthen neighborhoods, so that rather than have buildings that would not be utilized, have them be utilized. But in no way would we condone tenants who don't appropriately respect the values and the culture in a community. But we will not and we cannot allow the laws of our country to be violated. People cannot be run out of neighborhoods because they live -- they happen to live in a neighborhood in which they are in a minority because of their racial or religious grouping. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. ) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much for your very thoughtful comments. I am just pleased that, generally, the discussion in the city has been at almost a surprisingly civil level. Different points of views have been expressed, but they have been expressed in a manner in which most people have concluded what we're seeking is not to kill the program, because it does so much good, but to improve it to get rid of whatever problems may exist. Councilman Kenney. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. ) CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Congressman, I would like to thank you for being here today and taking the time out of your schedule to come here and give your thoughts, which are very, very timely as we discuss this issue. Knowing your long-term involvement, before even going into the Congress, with issues of housing, adequate housing, available housing, and 94 RESOLUTION 970558 fair housing, I am confident that with your and Congressman Borski's work, along with the Senate leadership, that we can make the improvements to this program that are necessary. All of us at the beginning, at the outset of this hearing made statements about our support for the program and our desire to see it improved to serve more people in a better fashion. One of the things that I would like Congress to look at -- and I know that Congress has looked at this, but I would like to do some more work together with Congress on this issue -- is the issue of home ownership.
I think that no one in this room 16 would disagree that the preferable, preferable situation would be for people to own their home, to be working towards paying for their home or to be subsidized towards owning a home, as opposed to landlords and other people who are gaining money from the rentals. I think that every neighborhood in the city, regardless of its ethnicity or race, does move towards home ownership as the paradigm model for what we should be about in the city. 95 RESOLUTION 970558 One of the issues, for example -- and I grew up in Whitman Park, in Whitman, and all the issues that surrounded the issue of the Whitman Park Housing Project, and the ugliness that went on down there. But one of the things that happened as a result of all the issues in Whitman Park was, the project ultimately became a home ownership model, a turnkey program where people paid towards a mortgage and in the end owned their home. And despite the racial conflict and class conflict that went on during the 1970s, that neighborhood, and those homes, are integrated, safe, and comfortable places in which to live. People receive subsidized help towards the ownership of those homes. And I think that, in the end, the program truly worked. There are people from the neighborhood who have access to those homes, people from outside the community, people from different race and ethnic groups who have learned to live together in a home ownership model that I think really, truly does work in our community. And I would just urge you -- and I 96 RESOLUTION 970558 know you work towards it every day -- to try to maybe flush out some more home ownership opportunities, to take some of those dollars that we use towards rental payments, and move them towards mortgages and other types of subsidies to allow people to own their homes, at which point you know people have a better stake and more of a pride and dignity about where it is they live. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Well, Councilman, I think that you are absolutely correct. And we are looking now -- and I have met with Secretary Fumo and other members of Congress who are interested -- at whether or not we could utilize Section 8 certificates, rather than just for rental payments, but whether or not, in conjunction with a local government like here in Philadelphia, we could create programs in which those dollars could go to actually provide economic empowerment for these families and to give them a stake in their own housing circumstances. So I think you are right on point. And there is a lot of work that has been done to deal with one of the issues that I think fairly should be criticized in Section 8; 97 RESOLUTION 970558 whereas, Section 8 is paying a much higher rate for rental of a property than what's being paid in the home next door. I don't think any of us, as taxpayers and as people who are concerned about providing affordable housing for people, want to see a circumstance in which landlords are allowed to get away with charging for a program to help low-income citizens and families more money than they would have otherwise, would have been able to receive through a fair market rental. ) CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much and thank you for your attendance today. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you, Congressman. May we impose just one further request on you? The Philadelphia Office of HUD was scheduled to testify at the hearing today. Late yesterday they informed the committee that they would not be available to testify, and we fear that that's impeding the progress of this committee. We very strongly urge upon you to let the Secretary of HUD be informed of that. 98 RESOLUTION 970558 CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Mr. Chairman, I will do that.
And I have, in conjunction with Senator Specter and Senator Santorum and Congressman Borski, and our late departing, on his way to Italy, Congressman Foglietta, we have formed a Federal Funds Council, that I am Chairing, looking at how federal funds are being utilized in Philadelphia, to make sure that programs like this are working as effectively as they can. We want to work with the Council, as you go forward. These are some very important issues. And we have to separate out the legitimate -- everybody who is complaining about Section 8 is not complaining because they have some racial, or otherwise some untoward motive. There are some legitimate problems that need to be worked through, and we should work through those problems. CHAIRMAN COHEN: But that doesn't help its cause by boycotting this meeting. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: No. What I am saying to you is that I am willing to work with you 99 RESOLUTION 970558 to make sure that HUD fully cooperates with the Council as you seek to find ways to improve the Section 8 program. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Very good. Thank you. Councilwoman Fernandez.
Thank you, Councilman Cohen. It is great to see you here, Congressman Fattah, since you represent me and my family. We are proud to have you in Washington. Three questions. Since I'm not sure, I would love to know what your position is on three specifics. One would be, do you feel there are enough PHA inspectors currently -- CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: No. 19
-- at least authorized? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: From what I --
Is it true that there are 11 authorized? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Yes. From what I understand, there are 11 that are authorized. But 100 RESOLUTION 970558 I don't believe that is enough. PHA, for all of its successes -- and there have been a lot -- you know, has had difficulty focusing in on, number one, its scattered site inventory. And I think akin to that is the whole issue of the Section 8 inventory. I mean, I think the whole effort there has to be improved. We have, I think, seen tremendous improvement. PHA has been moved off the Troubled Federal Housing Authority list under the leadership of the Mayor and the President of the City Council and the Board, and John White, Jr., and his work. PHA has made significant strides. But I don't think that anyone would suggest that there are enough inspectors. And I think we also have to look at the training of inspectors, that there is an appropriate training process, and that they also have a workload that allows them to both handle the inspections, but also be available to hear from community leaders about potential problems that they see, so that their inspections and the concerns of the community are not so isolated from each other.
My second 101 RESOLUTION 970558 question is, if there was a situation where a landlord was not keeping their properties up, yet still taking the federal and public dollars, do you foresee some tougher sanctions so that Section 8 certificates could be lifted? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Well, in part of the restructuring effort that was passed in late October, there is an increased focus at the federal level where we want to encourage a broader participation, I think is what the bill calls for, between state housing agencies and local public housing authorities, nonprofits and for-profits. This is not a problem isolated to Philadelphia. Public housing authorities throughout the country have had similar difficulties. And so the bill really kind of creates more of a shareholder group in which there would be a number of entities that would be involved in verifying and certifying these buildings, and also looking at the fair market rate issue and some of these other issues.
I was also concerned about decertifying or lifting the certificate if there is a landlord -- 102 RESOLUTION 970558 CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: It would deal with a whole gamut of administering Section 8 at the local community level, yes.
My third question would be, where there is a tenant receiving Section 8 dollars who is convicted of either buying or selling drugs, do you feel that would be grounds for having that person suspended from the program? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Well, let me say this: That, number one, tenants -- and I just want the record to be clear -- don't receive Section 8 dollars. What they receive is a certificate that allows them to negotiate a rental agreement, and those Section 8 dollars were to flow to the landlord. But I think in any circumstance where someone has violated the law, and particularly as it relates to the most destructive impact we have in our neighborhoods, which is drugs, that they should not be entitled to any assistance under Section 8. But I would be careful. I would be very careful here. Because I know that there have been other efforts in this regard, both by the local 103 RESOLUTION 970558 housing authority and at the federal level. President Clinton has insisted that in public housing, that the same would be true. And I think you have to separate the person who has the Section 8 certificate from activities that may take place by their children or other people that they may not be aware of. And I think that unless it is clear that they have violated the law, or that they knowingly have participated in some conspiracy to violate the law, we should not be punishing, say, for instance, a grandmother that has a teenager under their care, and the teenager goes out and does something that the grandmother is not aware of, and then somehow we are throwing her out in the street. I think we have to be very careful as we deal with this issue, that we are clear, at least, as to what I am agreeing to. I agree, yes, that if someone has a certificate and they violate the law as it relates to illegal narcotics trafficking, that they definitely should lose that right. But we have to be careful in our rush to deal with this --
I understand 104 RESOLUTION 970558 that. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: -- that we don't have unintended consequences.
And I would agree with you. But I think it also needs to be a little tighter than it is now. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: I agree.
Thank you. (Applause.) CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to leave in about eight minutes. I was here to testify at 10 o'clock, and things were a little backed up. I just want to make everyone aware that I have to depart soon. CHAIRMAN COHEN: I wanted to congratulate you on your Fair Trade vote, or Fast-Track legislation. I thought it was a very courageous action by you and deserving of support. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman Blackwell.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I only wanted to thank the 105 RESOLUTION 970558 Congressman. Certainly also as my Congressman, we worked together on this and many, many issues. And I think he is doing a great job in Washington. And I think his statement on Section 7 was a fair statement and a true statement. And we 8 thank him for his work in this area. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Thank you, Councilwoman. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman Tasco.
Good morning, Congressman. We appreciate your coming here today and your comments about the program. Oftentimes what happens, because the bureaucrats can't get it together, we want to throw the baby out with the bath. And there are problems with Section 20 8. We need to look at that. And hopefully that the people in Washington will utilize the support from the various community organizations and the concerns they have, and take those into account when they are changing and restructuring the law. I just want to say to you that what I 106 RESOLUTION 970558 think ought to happen, if you can possibly do it, is to incorporate some dollars into the federal legislation for supportive services for families who are on Section 8. (Applause.)
We have the Dignity Housing Program in the City of Philadelphia. And when I first came on board, there was some discussion in City Council about how to give houses, donate houses, to that program. And certainly the 9th Councilmanic District has the largest portion in my district of those houses. But I will say that program works. They take people who are or have been homeless, put them to work, and also work with them to deal with the problems they have on a day-to-day basis. Because, you know, they probably need some support. And that program is working. And I think Section 8 can work, if given the supportive services that are needed for this program. And I suggest that we look at that, in addition to restructuring, that some dollars are sent to us to help with the supportive services. 107 RESOLUTION 970558 CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: I know of your concern. And let me say, I would go further than that. I believe that it would be very appropriate for us to strongly consider having these units managed and maintained by community development corporations that are based in these neighborhoods, that exist maybe in cooperation with tenant association partnerships. You are well aware of the work of the Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation in your district, which is one of the finest CDCs in the nation, where you have neighborhood-based people who are concerned about keeping the housing stock up, who understand how vitally important it is to have decent housing stock in the community, and that PHA, as I have said, with other housing authorities, have found it difficult to have the same level of sensitivity to some of these issues. And I think that we could at least look at an experimental program in which we could have qualified CDCs be contracted through PHA, or directly through HUD, to manage some group of these houses. 108 RESOLUTION 970558 So that at least as we are dealing with this issue, we have people who have shown a commitment in their communities to affordable housing, and often empower people at a community basis, since there has been an obvious failure of the government to be able to do it from a long-reach standpoint. So there are ways to go about this. Again, I think if we could get some of the unfortunate issues out of the way, and deal with straightly the issues related to how do we maintain quality, affordable housing in our communities, there are ways for all of us to work together on these issues.
If you will look at the map, you will see that a large number of the Section 8's are in the Northwest section. And we have checked with the community leaders and other elected officials in the district to see what kinds of problems that have existed. They are minor. When we have a complaint, we contact PHA. They have been responsive to us. And in terms of renters, if we know a house is being rented, we contact the landlord. And 109 RESOLUTION 970558 my office calls the landlord and says that your people are not being good neighbors, and what are you going to do about it. And we have had some success in addressing those problems. But the leaders in my district believe that we should keep the Section 8 program, don't throw the baby out with the bath, but there are some supportive services that are needed, and they don't want clustering. Because there has been an issue raised by our Mayor about clustering. And I believe, and I think, that that is against the Federal Housing Law, in terms of impacting a neighborhood with any one group of people. And I would like for you to respond to that. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: A couple of issues. One is that President Clinton had a task force that did a lot of work on this issue. And as part of that, what we now understand -- which I think all of us kind of would understand just through common sense -- is that the aggregation of poverty is more devastating to the families involved 110 RESOLUTION 970558 than the individual, isolated circumstance of someone being empoverished. That is to say that, when you create a situation where you compound the difficulties that come from a life without a great deal of resources in a particular location, you create more synergy to some of the negative outcomes of that. And so it is not useful, nor would it be in keeping with the approach of the federal government. The approach of the federal government is one that I have articulated for a long time, which is that we need to move away from continuing to build, for instance, high-rise public housing for families. That's totally to the side now. We are moving to try to create situations where families, first of all, would not be stigmatized by whoever their landlord may be. You have plenty of families in Philadelphia who meet -- who have the same level of poverty as families who are currently served by Section 8, who live in neighborhoods. And they need services just as much as those who may have a 111 RESOLUTION 970558 Section 8 certificate. We need to focus supportive services on communities in need and on families in need. We have to be very careful not to further exacerbate these problems as we go forward. And that we have plenty of examples of families who, notwithstanding their income, have been leaders in their community. Whether it is in the anti-drug effort or as block captains or in a whole host of things that we have all seen. So there are issues we need to deal with, I think you are right. But I think we need to be careful as we go about it. And I don't think that any effort to aggregate families under Section 8 or any other type of subsidy program is an appropriate way for us to go with families with small children.
I agree with Councilman Kenney. We need the Turnkey III program because it brings about -- CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: I do want to say one thing on that, but I will tag it on to my answer to my Councilman's question. I would not want to delay his opportunity to speak. 112 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, I would just want Councilwoman Verna, who hasn't spoken yet.
Congressman, I want to thank you for coming in and for your testimony. And I was delighted to hear you say that the Section 8 program was not designed for rich landlords. I very quickly went through a list of ownership for some of the Section 8s in my district. There is one owner -- who doesn't live in the city, incidentally -- who owns 29 Section 8 properties and owes approximately $42,341 in city taxes. And looking over the records, I see what his scam is. He buys a property in 1990, pays the taxes in 1990, and hasn't paid taxes since. But, in the meantime, it is a Section 22 8 property, and he is gaining all of the benefits. And if he lives out of the city, all he is doing is collecting the check. I am sure he never goes to the 113 RESOLUTION 970558 property, he doesn't know what condition it is in. And I don't think it is fair to the tenants, it is not fair to the city, and -- (Voice from audience)
-- and I think as you are reviewing some of the issues surrounding Section 8 -- and this, I assume, is more of a city problem -- but at the same time I think that when somebody owns 29 properties under Section 8 and doesn't pay any of the taxes, something is radically wrong. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: I don't think anyone who is not current in the city taxes should be allowed to have rental receipts from the federal government for Section 8. So I agree with you that -- I mean, most of the problems related to Section 8 has to do with, at least from a federal concern, has to do with the landlords and has to do with, you know, the fact that we need to have a tighter program. The problem is that the administration of the program is left in the hands of local housing authorities, many of which in our largest cities have had difficulty dealing with 114 RESOLUTION 970558 their own inventory of housing. So I think that part of what we're searching for, and through this new legislation that was recently signed into law, is a better approach to have the administration of program more strongly adhered to.
Great. And I certainly want to agree with my colleagues about the supportive services and also the Turnkey. I think that would be very, very helpful. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Do we understand they are not even supposed to get a Certificate of Occupancy, the landlord, if he is behind in rent?
That's what I am saying. I think it is more of a city problem than it is the federal government. But I think there has to be some very rigid regulations. I mean, if the man lives out of the city --
What they need 115 RESOLUTION 970558 is enforcement, Councilwoman.
I understand that very readily. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman, just as a followup to Councilwoman Tasco, I had also planned to ask you about the much discussed, somewhat unusual and bizarre idea that we would go into a clustering policy. I recall that you were slightly ahead of your time on the issue of getting rid of the large, high-rise units, at a time when everyone else said that we should either maintain them or keep going in that direction. You took on that particular issue. I would only ask, it is reported, I believe, in today's or yesterday's newspaper that the Mayor is now possibly asking Congressman Borski to propose new regulations that would allow more of this clustering idea. 116 RESOLUTION 970558 I would only ask that you share your particular perspective and views with Congressman Borski. We do not need to go in that area. And, quite honestly, if the Administration thought enough of the issue, they would have people here today so we would have some legitimate discussion. Not force you, although you handle yourself fine, but not force you to try to respond to an issue that was clearly created by them. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Let me say a couple of things. One is that I had a conversation with Congressman Borski who is very, very concerned about this issue. The totality of that conversation was this issue of the fair market rental rate. And I think that is a very legitimate issue, and is one I am willing to work with him on. Because I do think it is inappropriate for landlords to be able to receive, you know, in some cases twice as much as they would ordinarily have been able to receive for the rental of a unit. 117 RESOLUTION 970558
Congressman, I wanted to ask you, do you know, how is that even possible, since there is a regulation and a definition in the Code of Federal Regulations, in 982, on what a fair market value is? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Obviously, with all the attention that's been focused on how to make sure that poor people don't, you know, cheat various systems that are designed to help them, very little has ever been done to figure out what we do about, as Councilwoman Verna has said, those who are very well off, who have figured out how to steal billions of dollars from these same systems. And whether we are talking about Welfare or a Section 8, people have been found to have been ingenious and very creative in figuring out ways to scheme these programs. But, nonetheless, I think that it gets to the issue that I raised in response to Councilwoman Tasco, which is that I think we really need to look for a different tool to administer the program at a community level. And I think that we have, in our city, very capable community development 118 RESOLUTION 970558 corporations that have been set up either as adjuncts to churches or other programs, and which have been very involved in the creation of affordable housing in communities. We worked together on a very important housing matter in our own community. There are a lot of people who at the neighborhood level care about the housing stock, care about making sure that there are good, quality people who are able to rent or own in their communities, and should be involved in that. So let me just say, finally, that I wanted to comment on the home ownership issue. We worked with -- and it has been announced now -- a major program by Fannie Mae to encourage home ownership. What most people pay in rent, they could be paying in a mortgage. And what it means is that they have to have the counseling and the supportive services to make sure that they can improve their credit-worthiness in terms of their credit reports, and that they save up enough money. The Pew Foundation has been working with Kromer's office here in the city. And we have 119 RESOLUTION 970558 a specialized program that allows the Foundation to help put up money for the downpayment on homes for families. We have, and we lead the country now, in families who own their homes. It is the strength of our neighborhoods, and we should encourage that. We also should have a reasonable mix of rental units for young people as they start out and don't have a need to own a home. And at times, in other circumstances, in people's lives, they may find renting more appropriate. So renting is fine. But we do know that the quality of any community is enhanced when people have the opportunity to own. It is something that we are very supportive of, and there are a lot of programs that exist right now to help move people in that direction. I want to thank the Chairman and thank Councilman Ortiz for inviting me. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Can you hold one second for Councilman DiCicco? CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Of course, for Councilman DiCicco. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you, 120 RESOLUTION 970558 Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Congressman, for being here today. I just wanted to follow up on Councilwoman Verna's issue on how an individual could be doing business in Philadelphia and owing 40, 50 thousand dollars on the Section 8 rental properties. Or for any business, for that matter. We do have in the city -- and, again, I think it is probably the city's problem, more so than the federal government, although I think we can work out a system of notification. As you may know, before an individual in the City of Philadelphia is permitted to operate a bar or a restaurant with a liquor license, they must first show the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board that all of their taxes that were due in the City of Philadelphia have in fact been paid. And that's in a written statement.
Any business, for that matter, would need to show the city before a license was issued for a luncheonette, a corner grocery store, that you have not -- you are not in arrears with any taxes due the city before a license is issued. So those kinds of mechanisms are in place. 121 RESOLUTION 970558 I think what we may need to do is talk to the appropriate city agencies or city department, maybe it is L & I, who work out a similar flagging mechanism to let the people at HUD know that, A, Mr. So-And-So owes X amount of taxes, therefore HUD should not issue a license, or whatever it is that is issued, the Section 8 certificate, for the purpose of doing business in the City of Philadelphia. And I think that's very easily done. And that should help us in a way. CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: Let me assure you that my office would be willing to work with the appropriate authorities here in the Council to ensure that HUD would give every consideration to working with the city on such a program. Landlords who are receiving rental payments under Section 8 should be the first to make sure that their taxes are paid. These taxes go to support our school system and to make sure that there is adequate fire and police protection and other city services. They would not be able to rent these buildings out unless these services were available. 122 RESOLUTION 970558 So they should be the first to make sure that they would be appropriately paying what is part of their civic rent here in the City of Philadelphia. So thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Congressman, as you are leaving, I would like to express thanks for your coming in, and urge you to try to convince HUD that there are two bodies, different bodies, in the City of Philadelphia that constitute the government. One is the Mayor, and the other is the City Council. And the City Council believes that it would have the right to expect HUD to cooperate with it, as well as with the Mayor. And we would just urge -- CONGRESSMAN FATTAH: As someone who has been a legislator and who serves in the Congress -- we are a co-equal branch of the federal government -- I understand that the legislative body here is, indeed, very important. And that HUD, I think, at least by the laws that we passed in the Congress, would require in all of our programs -- and we need to continue to do so -- that the Council act on any application for federal funds from HUD, and not just 123 RESOLUTION 970558 that the Mayor would apply for them. So I think that in keeping with the spirit of that, that in Section 8, and in any other federal program, the legislators who represent the people of this city, who have been elected in these districts and citywide, your voice should be heard. And I would just hope that as we go forward, that we can calm some of the unfortunate rhetoric, and focus in on the substance. Because in every community, whether it is an African-American, Hispanic community, or a majority white community, none of us want to have people in communities who are not going to be productive and active citizens. But at the same right, we have to be very, very careful that we do not infringe upon people's Constitutional rights. Because then we will have to, as a federal government, make sure that, as we have had in the past, that people do have a right to live anywhere that they desire to live. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We thank you very, very much. ) CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Ladies and gentlemen, I would please ask that all conversation please cease or be taken into the hallway. Thank you very much. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
I am William Yancey, Professor of Sociology at Temple University. I am here today to talk about three issues. One is the concentration of poverty and its consequences. And from statements that the Councilmen already made, as well as the Congressman, that may not be necessary. Secondly it is to talk about Section 18 8 housing and its distribution across the city. And, finally, to talk about some research we have just done concerning neighborhood change and housing values. There is at least 40 years of social science research that has demonstrated repeatedly that being poor hurts in many different ways. But that same research has already 125 RESOLUTION 970558 shown that when you concentrate groups of people who are poor in single spaces, or small spaces, that pain that's associated with poverty is in fact exacerbated. We have been conducting research over the last five years on education in cities around the United States. And one of the strongest findings that we observe in every city that we have seen is that schools that are characterized by high concentrations of low-income students in fact have difficulty getting those students to achieve academically. We see those same kinds of results over and over, indicating that concentrations of poverty is bad public policy. Section 8 is a program that, in fact, works exactly the opposite way. What's on the screen here -- and some of you may have copies of -- are maps that we have made that describe the distribution of Section 8 housing across the city. These are different from the map that you have already seen in two important ways. 126 RESOLUTION 970558 One is that the areas of this map are by census tracts, rather than zip codes. And, secondly, rather than simply counting the number of Section 8 housing units in each tract, we have calculated the percent of housing in each tract across the city that is Section 8. Looking at this map, you can see fairly clearly two things. One is that Section 8 is everywhere. At the same time, there are some neighborhoods where it is more concentrated than in others. It is, indeed, spread across the city. If you ask the question, what's the characteristic of neighborhoods that appear to have more Section 8, there are really two answers to that. One is that they are neighborhoods that in one form or another exhibited symptoms of decline. And second is that they are neighborhoods where the average family income is lower than the average across the city. A third thing -- and this is really illustrated better in the second and third overheads 127 RESOLUTION 970558 that are there -- what's on the board is a map showing rates of poverty, or poverty across the City of Philadelphia. And I think you can see one is in North and West Philadelphia, there are relatively high concentrations of poor people who are African-American. Immediately to the right of that shading and the green dots are fairly high concentrations of people who are Latino and poor. And spread, really, across this map are people who are white and poor. This distribution of low income across the city turns out to be closely associated with the distribution of Section 8 housing. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Professor, could you please give us an idea as to the income levels of the individuals you are talking about as you regard as poor or none? Is there a certain threshold of income that you are talking about?
Sure. Right. The poverty level is determined by the Department of Agriculture, in fact. I don't 128 RESOLUTION 970558 know exactly what the numbers are. I think for a family of four in 1996 was something like $16,000 a year. I should get those sort of rounded numbers. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: If you know and if you could get them for us, we would appreciate it. If you know, fine. If you could get them for us, we would appreciate it.
I can surely get them for you. But what the Agriculture Department does is say, how much does a family need to house itself, to feed itself, to clothe its children, and so forth. And these are families that don't have sufficient income, in fact, to do those things.
Sure. Absolutely. If you look at this map, which is Section 8 housing, and compare that to the one before -- you can't do that, really, on the screen because they look alike -- but, in fact, that's the 129 RESOLUTION 970558 point. To a large degree, the distribution of Section 8 housing across the street follows the distribution of low-income families by their racial identification. That is, black Section 8 families are heavily concentrated in the black neighborhoods, Latinos, in the Latino neighborhoods. And whites are spread across the white neighborhoods across the city. There is some good news. In terms of racial integration, Section 8 tenants are in fact slightly more integrated by race than is the population as a whole, that everyone knows is a highly segregated city. But that difference is not large, and the general finding is that Section 8 tenants in general follow the race and ethnicity of their population, of the population as a whole. The third thing I want to talk about today is a concern that people have expressed over the last three or four weeks concerning the impact of Section 8 on neighborhoods. Regretfully, the data that we have is 130 RESOLUTION 970558 really from the census. And the last census is 1990. So it is impossible to answer the question that we have been asked to answer. We have data now in 1996 and '97 from the Housing Authority. And to say, okay, what effect has that had on housing values, would require that we get later data on housing values in the city. But what we did do is examine change in housing values across Philadelphia from 1980 to 1990. And to do this, asking the question of, what's the effect of the racial composition and racial change of neighborhoods on change in housing values. It was first necessary to classify neighborhoods in the city. This is somewhat smaller. You don't have a picture of that in your hands. But what it shows is the distribution of Latino and African-American populations across Philadelphia. This is 1990 data. There are large black neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia, highly concentrated Latino neighborhood in North Philadelphia. And, for 131 RESOLUTION 970558 the most part, the rest of the city is white. If you are concerned about race and housing values and so forth, what's necessary is not simply compare these neighborhoods, but, in fact, to classify neighborhoods by race and racial change over time. Nice colors. What the blue represents here are areas of the city that have been white for ten years and remained white over those ten-year periods. The dark reds are neighborhoods that were African-American in 1980 and are African-American -- were in 1990 African-American. What's green are neighborhoods that over that decade became racially integrated, that had moved from being predominantly white to being racially integrated in the sense of having more than 10 percent of the populations who were African-American. Yellow are neighborhoods that were racially integrated over the entire time, having some mixture between 20 and 70 percent African-American. And the orange are neighborhoods that 132 RESOLUTION 970558 were integrated and became predominantly black over the period. There is one neighborhood that we have labeled here "Gentry," just south, in South Philadelphia -- can you point it out down there? -- where, in fact, racial change has been in the opposite direction from the general trend, so that white populations are displacing the black population that was there before.
That's the next question. If we then look at the housing values that are associated with these -- you don't have a slide -- neighborhoods, what happens is you get the following results. One is that housing in the city that is older, somewhat surprisingly, is associated with more stable and positive housing values. Secondly, it turns out that neighborhoods that are predominantly black and have 133 RESOLUTION 970558 remained predominantly black have lost value relative to other parts of the city. The one neighborhood that we have labeled here "Gentry" has in fact gained value, no 6 surprise, by some $40,000 over the average in the city. The news I am really spending all this time to tell you about is, the neighborhoods that are here labeled green and yellow have gained housing values by some $8,000 more than the blue, all-stable white neighborhoods, or other neighborhoods in the city. What this research shows is that racial integration has positive effects on the value of housing. This is not a new finding. It has been found in other cities; it has been found in other times in Philadelphia. It is a finding that nobody ever believes, but continues to be replicated. I raise it here today mostly because people associate Section 8 with racial integration and declining values. The good news is that if you want to 134 RESOLUTION 970558 secure the value of your house and you're white, the best thing to do is to talk your neighbors into selling their house to a member of a minority, and then make sure that your neighborhood remains integrated. All of this reminds me of a novel by Ralph Ellison where he describes life in Mississippi in the 1930's, and how the men would seek entertainment, entertain themselves by throwing dimes in the dirt to the kids. And the kids would fight over the dimes, and that was great sport. What we're seeing in the city is large, large areas of communities who are feeling real pain because of the changing economic structure of the city. What we're seeing in the fight over Section 8 is kids fighting over dimes, when, in fact, the real issue is the change in the economy of the city. And these groups, rather than fighting, should obviously be getting together. And I am pleased that the Council is clearly directing themselves to this broader issue of economic structure and not allowing us to continue to be kids fighting in the dirt. 135 RESOLUTION 970558 Thank you. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much for your testimony. Your data and your discussion relative to census tracts and home ownership -- census tracts and poverty issues, are they generally related to home ownership? Are these properties that you are talking about owned by the resident, or are they rental properties? I am trying to figure out. Or is it a mix?
Well -- CHAIRMAN KENNEY: The conclusion that you made relative to integrated neighborhoods, ensuring a rising property value and a more stable, conducive environment for social interaction -- I think that's what you basically believe --
Yes. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: -- is that based on the issue of home ownership or is it a mix of rental and ownership?
These are owner occupied, the value of owner-occupied housing. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Councilman DiCicco, 136 RESOLUTION 970558 not to be rude, because we were listening, but we were talking about a neighborhood -- and I want to recognize him -- because the neighborhood where he lives, which is a couple of streets over from where I live, has been integrated for 100 years and does experience exactly what you were talking about. And I will turn it over to him in a minute. But the issue is -- and I think this is what is important -- the more we foster the opportunities for home ownership, the more likely we have the opportunity to integrate stably and improve our property values for everyone. So, Councilman DiCicco. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you. And I have said this, or made this argument in my community for years, that my community in South Philadelphia has always been a racially integrated community. Some of the black families that are there are third and fourth generation were actually there before some of the white families. And I have always found that to be a very healthy environment in which to live. Because the world, as we know, is made up of people of all 137 RESOLUTION 970558 colors. And I have encouraged people to make investments in my community. The problem I think that I see, I know we are focusing on Section 8 properties -- and I am not to suggest that everyone will be able to afford a home, or that everyone would like to even own a home. Some people find it more economically convenient to rent, because they don't want to have the responsibility of maintaining a home. But the problems that I experience in my community, which is an integrated community, all kinds of income levels, third, fourth generation of black, white, Hispanic, and now there is an Asian influence, is rental properties in particular who are owned by people who are basically absentee landlords and have no regard for the community in which they own properties of which they make money on. And I think that -- again, I appreciate the concern for Section 8 -- but I think that that is really one of the problems as relates to rental properties in the city and the way in which landlords maintain the property and/or screen 138 RESOLUTION 970558 the tenants who move into those properties. Again, I grew up in this neighborhood. I am a third generation. I went to school with people of color. They are my friends, we hang out together. So we never had that kind of problem. I understand in some neighborhoods, where people are not familiar with people from other ethnic backgrounds, there is always some fear, and that's the reality. I mean, that's the way it is. And hopefully over time we will be able to get past all of that. But I think that we really start to need to be concentrating on, when we issue, as Councilwoman Verna said, licenses to people who are in business -- I mean, landlords are basically in business. And I have no problem with people making money and being in business. But they are in business. And they have a responsibility to that community which affords them the opportunity to probably live in Bala Cynwyd and play golf on some very exclusive golf course. Because in our zip code, or just the 139 RESOLUTION 970558 zip code below Jimmy and I, there is one realtor, speculator, whatever you want to call him, that owns 200 properties. Primarily they are Section 8. He lives in Bala Cynwyd. He is just sucking the system. So what's happening is, the taxpayers, people who go to work, pay taxes, I don't think they are necessarily upset that someone in need is being given a helping hand. I think the problem is when they walk out of their house in the morning and they find that people who are living in a particular home and not paying the rent, but their tax dollars, the guy going to work, his tax dollars or her tax dollars are paying for that person to live in there, that they would like a person to be more responsible about the condition of the property.
Because that does have an impact on property values. And that could have a very negative impact on property values. And it becomes less attractive in a community for people to either want to stay in or move to. So I don't know necessarily that it is the other issues that are kind of underlying 140 RESOLUTION 970558 here, but, like, people are kind of hesitant to talk about. I think it is more the issue of the economics, in my opinion. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much. And just finally, before we let you go, one of the saddest parts about this whole discussion for me -- and this was raised by Congressman Fattah -- is that if we agree or stipulate to an average monthly price for Section 8 housing, say even if we are going to say six or seven hundred dollars a month, just think of the mortgage that that money could pay for, as opposed to going into the pocket of a landlord who lives out of town. Think about the ability for that tenant to be applying those dollars to a mortgage from a building and loan or a savings bank for ultimate potential home ownership. Think about all the other people we would be able to help. I mean, if the average mortgage price, the mortgage cost monthly, is 400, 500 dollars a month, and we are giving landlords six and seven hundred dollars a month for rental, just think 141 RESOLUTION 970558 about how many more people we could serve in a more stable way by applying those payments to a mortgage, as opposed to a rental payment. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: And I think that really needs to be emphasized even more. Not all landlords, be it if they are landlords for Section 8 or just straight-out rental units, are irresponsible. There are many, good responsible landlords. In fact, Felicia from the 300 block of Dickinson testified to that, that her landlord is a good person. But what is happening now is, I remember growing up as a kid, I always heard the expression about block-busting. A lot of these landlords, speculators, are using now government funds. They are taking our taxpayers' dollars and using that for the purpose of block-busting. And there is no penalty for that; there is no control over that. So I think we really need to look at the legislation. And Congressman Fattah I think is right on target with moving towards home ownership 142 RESOLUTION 970558 and applying some of that money, maybe taking some money that is collected by a landlord into an escrow fund, or something of that nature, to eventually allow that person who is renting that property to become a property owner, and to move forward and really become an integral part of that community. But, again, many of these landlords -- and I know because I see it in my community -- are just using what is in existence today as a means of not only making money, because that's okay, but they are using that as a way of block-busting. This one person I speak to has about properties now on one given block, and has 16 literally allowed those properties, the first one or 17 two that he purchased, to deteriorate to create that 18 condition on that block so that people start to feel 19 hopeless and lose pride and hope in their community, 20 put up their signs, and the prices are being driven down. He buys them up, and now he has 20 properties, which he is getting anywhere between 650 and 850 dollars a month for rent. When, prior to that, those properties may have probably qualified 143 RESOLUTION 970558 for maybe $400 a month in rent, because an individual had to pay the rent and was not subsidized. So I think we all lose. I think the tenant probably loses even more than the people in the community. Well, eventually everybody loses. But I think the tenant is being used. And I think we really need to start getting after the landlords. Thank you.
Thank you, Professor. I am very glad that you have been here. I think the issue of clustering and ghettoizing poor people is bad public policy. It has been bad public policy. I am glad you have made that clear, as I have heard it before, with maps and with economic substantiation of that. So I am very glad. These hearings are going very well. Thank you for coming. Terry Gillen. Thank you. (Applause.) COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Just to go off 144 RESOLUTION 970558 on another subject, if I can. The briefing on the telecommunications legislation is still on for today at 3 o'clock. I believe it will be in the Caucus Room. So either a Councilperson or your representative might want to be there at 3 o'clock. Thank you.
Thank you. Terry Gillen, G-I-L-L-E-N. Members of City Council, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I know that time is short, so I will be brief. In many ways I feel as if I started all of this with an Op Ed that I wrote in the Inquirer last August. I wrote that Op Ed because my father grew up in Grays Ferry and I have family there. On my cousin's block, they have 12 Section 8 houses. I tried to get PHA to help the residents of that block with the problems they were facing, such as noise and trash, but could not get a satisfactory response from PHA. So that's why I 145 RESOLUTION 970558 wrote my Op Ed. It obviously struck a chord throughout the city. I want to clarify two points that sometimes have been taken out of context from my Op Ed. First, I did not say, nor would I ever say, that there is no racism in Grays Ferry. It is a historical fact that a faction of white residents in Grays Ferry have been intimidating and harassing blacks there since before the Civil War. It certainly did not start with Section 8 housing. However, we should not allow our focus on Section 8 to prevent us from addressing the very real problems of racism. However, neither should we allow the reality of racism to prevent us from focusing on the Section 8 program. Both areas need work. Rather, my point was that Section 8 issues are often about class conflicts and clashes between cultures, middle class and working class culture versus the culture of poverty and homelessness. If PHA did a better job of addressing these conflicts, it would help to eliminate one 146 RESOLUTION 970558 reason for racial antagonism in Grays Ferry. The racism would still exist, but this could help. The problem in many neighborhoods that have large numbers of Section 8 houses is the lack of what sociologist William Julius Wilson calls social organization. He defines this as the ability of residents to maintain effective social control. When the informal networks that bind people in most neighborhoods do not exist, then the government should help by creating more formal networks; through block meetings, for example. This is what I believe PHA has failed to do in this neighborhood. My second clarification is that I am not suggesting that scattered site housing for the poor has failed. In my opinion, we have not done a very good job in this city of managing the scattered site housing program. But that is a failure of commitment and management. It does not mean that we should abandon scattered site housing or move to a cluster approach. Instead, we should dedicate ourselves to doing a better job of managing Section 8 147 RESOLUTION 970558 housing. We could do this this in a number of neighbors. For example, we could do a better job of preparing tenants to move into middle-class environments, explaining about noise regulations and curfews. Second, we could improve community policing relationships, including sanitation, police involvement, on blocks where people may simply not know when to put out the trash. Third, the city could work with HUD to find ways to limit the concentration of Section 8 houses in blocks that are in danger of losing middle-class residents. And, finally, PHA should hold Section 17 8 landlords strictly accountable for the conditions of their properties. Those are the two points that I wanted to make, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
Miss Gillen, one question. The issue of clustering and of what I call ghettoizing, that, in your opinion, is bad 148 RESOLUTION 970558 public policy?
Yes. Yes, I think it is bad public policy for the reasons that the previous person testified and for reasons that you yourself stated earlier, that it has just historically been proven not to address the problems of poverty.
Right. So the essence of the testimony is that we need to really look at the management of a program, not at the program itself and in terms of its value. But that the problems with Section 8 have come from, in essence, management processes that have not been implemented.
I think there are two problems. One is the management issues that I discussed. And the second are larger issues that I think HUD needs to address. I think the questions of spreading Section 8 evenly throughout all neighborhoods is a national problem. I mean, there is a Congressman in Chicago who looked at the issue last year, proposed legislation. 149 RESOLUTION 970558 I think we ought to be working with HUD and with members of the Congressional delegations in other cities to look at ways that we can get either the HUD regulations or HUD laws changed to address some of these issues. They are larger policy issues that this city will not be able to address by itself.
But the initial philosophy of the program contains that very aspect in it, that we should integrate the Section 8 holders throughout the city.
So that's already within it. Whether it is being applied or not that is something else.
George Gould, Liz Hersh. And next after that will be William 150 RESOLUTION 970558 Seaward and Virginia Chaney. Okay. Thank you, and identify yourself for the record, please.
My name is Liz Hersh. I am the Executive Director of the Tenants' Action Group.
My name is George Gould. I am the managing attorney of the Housing Unit at Community Legal Service, and also the Tenants' Action Group.
Thank you, Councilman. Good afternoon. I think it is afternoon now. I am Liz Hersh, Executive Director of the Tenants Action Group. And I am here today on behalf of TAG to speak in support of the Section 8 program. TAG was founded in 1973 to advocate for safety and affordable rental housing. Last year we served 20,000 people through our tenant hotline, self-help programs, housing counseling, homelessness prevention and rental assistance services. I have 151 RESOLUTION 970558 seven points I want to make. Number one, we all benefit from government subsidies for our housing. I think it has been said before, it should be said again. Homeowners get the largest single housing subsidy in this country, and that's the mortgage tax deduction. Number two, Section 8 exists for a reason. It addresses a very real problem, which is that we don't have enough affordable housing in this city, and many people can't afford to pay the rent. Without Section 8, we would have much more homelessness. Let me give you some facts. 25 an hour, to afford a two-bedroom apartment at what HUD considers to be a fair market rent of 689 a month. 73, or 208 percent of minimum wage, to afford a one bedroom at the fair market rent of 558 a month. 50 percent of all renters pay more than half of their income -- that means one of their 152 RESOLUTION 970558 two paychecks a month -- for housing alone. 70 percent pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Pennsylvanians pay some of the highest utility rates in the country. And low-income families often pay as much as 30 percent of their income on utilities. Recent research shows that utility shutoffs precipitated percent of all shelter 11 admissions. 12 Many low-income renter households are 13 so poor that their entire incomes are insufficient 14 to pay for a decent place to live. 15 And in Pennsylvania, 40 percent of 16 all renter families are unable to afford a 17 one-bedroom apartment, 48 percent are unable to 18 afford a two-bedroom. 19 This means that renter families, 20 without housing assistance such as Section 8, are 21 forced to forego other necessities such as food, 22 clothing, and medical care, just to pay the rent. 23 Since 1983, the private rental market 24 for affordable housing has shrunk by more than 20 25 percent, and landlords very often cannot afford to 153 RESOLUTION 970558 cover their costs at the level of rents needed for low-income families. The result is growth in the substandard housing or slum market. Slums mean that children live without heat, electricity, and running water. They live with high levels of lead. They live with rodents and insects and other dangerous housing conditions. And we pay, as these children are unable to attend school steadily, do homework, are plagued by health problems, or are killed by faulty heaters, wiring, fires, or their homes falling down around them. The Section 8 program, just to make sure everybody is focused on why we are here, effectively and directly addresses this housing affordability problem. And I am glad to hear that a number of you have all repeated that you are not talking about trying to fight or to lose the program. Because loss of this program would immediately cause more people to become homeless. It is a necessary program, which, if anything, let me say it, should be expanded. Number three, my third point, Section 154 RESOLUTION 970558 is a program that benefits the private rental market. It makes it possible for private landlords to stay in business in Philadelphia. Without it, we would have more disinvestment and more housing abandonment. Similarly, increased emphasis on clusters will put mom-and-pop property managers out of business. As a tenants' rights advocate, it is very unusual for me to stand before you and say that landlords need Section 8. And certainly we need good landlords, and we need to hold landlords accountable. I am so glad to hear people besides us talking about slum landlords and opportunistic landlords.
But there are good landlords in this program, and there are landlords who depend on this program. One landlord who I spoke with, who was unable to attend today because of the kind of scheduling conflicts here, said that he, quite simply, would not be in business without Section 8. His observation is that people can't afford the rent, and that he would not be able to command the rents he needs to stay in business. 155 RESOLUTION 970558 Without Section 8, he would be forced to sell his properties and go out of business in Philadelphia. Four, the Section 8 program costs the city very little, while providing housing for a lot of people. And if the Section 8 program were to be reduced in size or eliminated, the city could never, ever pick up the tab for housing even a quarter of the people who would be displaced by it. Fifth point, Section 8 helps people.
Could you make that point again? Because people think that individuals who are in Section 8 are really getting off and living a life of Riley out there, and really benefitting, and that the city, and that the city and the federal government, is giving away this money to these folks. But without the understanding that if this program was not in place, the city, the city's -- not the federal government, but the city -- cost would be incredibly high. Would you just re-emphasize that 156 RESOLUTION 970558 point?
Well, for instance, the cost of shelter for one night for one person is $11. So that means, for a month for a family of three, it is about $1,080, and for a year it would be $13,000 a year. I multiplied that by 11,000. And it seemed to me the tab for sheltering all those people would be half a billion dollars. And if only half of the Section 8 people were to become homeless, the tab for the city to shelter them would still be about $70 million. So that means that even if percent 15 of the people who currently get Section 8 were to 16 become homeless, it would cost about $35 million to 17 shelter them. 18 In other words, we simply could not 19 afford to do it. We would be looking at a situation 20 of tent cities and homeless people in even larger 21 numbers. 22
We could close 23 recreation centers; we could close the libraries, we 24 could close all these other programs and so on -- 25
Well, true. Section 8 is a very effective program in breaking the cycle of homelessness and poverty for people. I could give you 100 stories of people who have come through our transitional housing program and gone into Section 8 whose lives are now dramatically different. One of my favorite stories is Sandy, who was in the shelter for a long time. She is in Section 8 now. Her kids are doing great. She is working two full-time jobs. Still has no benefits because they are both considered to be temporary jobs. But she has managed to get herself off of Welfare. Her kids are doing great, she is doing great but she still can't afford to live without Section 8. Marlena, who is another one who has come out of our program. She used the time that she was into Section 8 to get job training. She now has a good job and is making some money. 158 RESOLUTION 970558 But for people that come out of homelessness, it takes time to rebound, to take care of credit problems, to get your utilities back on track, to get your family stabilized, to get set up in a community. It takes time. And Section 8 really helps to stabilize people. I guess the one thing that I would say is that, if it were possible for people who need services to get services while they are in Section 11 8, I think that that would be a good thing. I don't think that they should be inflicted upon people who are doing well. But if people need help, we ought to provide them the help that they need. Sixth point. Clustering people in Section 8, I think, is just a dumb idea. Clustering, I think, as many people have said, is dumb. It is a failed public policy. I think to replicate a failed public policy is dumb. In addition, I think it is discriminatory. I think it violates Civil Rights law. And I think that we should be moving to integrate our communities and build on the 159 RESOLUTION 970558 wonderful diversity that we have in the city, and not to further segregate people. And my final point is that I do agree that Section 8 needs to be reformed. As a housing provider and advocate, I could probably tell you a lot of stories about some of the problems with Section 8. There clearly needs to be tighter control, tighter administration, better inspection process, case management for people who need it. This program ought to work better than it does. At the Tenants' Action Group we run a rent subsidy and housing counseling program that doesn't have a lot of the problems that this program has, and that's because it is very closely monitored. And I don't think that there is any reason why this program can't be more responsive to people's concerns, and still accomplish its basic goal.
Miss Hersh, to sum it up in a nutshell, this program should work a lot better than it does. Explain that to me. I mean, it obviously doesn't work. Because there are people down here on both sides that are for and some are against. And, by the way, I agree with you, the program should work. But could you explain to everybody here what you meant by that?
Because your group monitors the people you put in it; is that what you are telling me?
No. We run a comparable type of program, only for a much shorter term.
Yes. We have monthly 161 RESOLUTION 970558 contact. We make home visits. People have case management where they have weekly contact, they have a plan for making some progress. This is what we do.
And that's the point I want to make. See this empty chair, this could represent the people from PHA that are not here today. And we could ask this empty chair, why don't they do that. Because if you could do that with your small program, maybe with some more funds or money, maybe we could do that or PHA could do that, and then we wouldn't be having all these problems. I mean, we can sit here all day and listen to the same testimonies over and over again. Terry Gillen struck a point and you struck a point. I am listening to this all. It is a good program if they monitor it. Who are we going to ask those questions? Don't ask Ortiz, DiCicco, or Mariano. Ask PHA, and they are not here. So if you can do it at your level, and I was working for PHA, and I was sitting over 162 RESOLUTION 970558 here in this seat, I would say, "Certainly, Councilman, Miss Hersh, we could do it, if we had enough money and enough people inspecting this program." Right? I mean, if I was the king of the world and I said, "Liz, you are in charge of PHA starting tomorrow" --
Well, besides that. Let's pretend you are a masochist and you want to do this.
Let's pretend you are. You think you could do it, with the right amount of funds, because the program works if it is watched.
I think there are also some regulatory barriers that have to be dealt with.
Then we go to the guys that pass the regulations. There was a Congressman that was sitting right there who is willing to help. There is another Congressman that I talked to two days ago 163 RESOLUTION 970558 that's introducing legislation. I mean, we see a problem, we take time, we attack the problem. Nobody is here.
But the essence, Councilman, is not as the Mayor has asked Congressman Borski to actually begin clustering people. That is not the answer to Section 8. The answer to Section 8 is to continue -- and I think as Terry Gillen said before -- to integrate the people in this city into the neighborhoods, and to make sure that the different governmental agencies do the job that they are supposed to do. I think there are some problems. But overall do you believe the program is working, Liz?
Yes, I do. Our experience is that it works very well. I think there are problems. I think the problems are fixable. I think they are largely administrative. I think they should be fixed. I mean, it can be a very frustrating program to work with. And they ought to work more closely with the city, with the shelter system, with the Office of Housing, which currently is -- there 164 RESOLUTION 970558 really isn't the level of coordination that there needs to be. So I think we do need to make some progress. I just want to make sure the baby doesn't get tossed out with the bath water.
I think we have some bad landlords, but I think we have a great majority of the landlords in the program who are landlords that work very well with the program. Is that your experience? Because you have more experience in this than any of us here at this table.
Our experience is that there are good landlords. And our experience is, also, when you are paying the rent, you can command quality and conformity from landlords. All you have to do is say you are not going to pay the rent or you are not going to send them any more tenants. And you would be amazed at how quickly they can get those repairs and get the trash out on the right day, or whatever it is. This isn't rocket science; this is managing well. 165 RESOLUTION 970558
Yes. George with Community Legal Services. As Liz from the Tenant Action Group, we have also been very involved with the Section 8 program. And I really reiterate much of what she has said, that the program is a very good program, it has some problems, and they need to be corrected. Part of the problem, much of it has already been mentioned. One of them is inspections. They have very few inspections, and often properties go uninspected. And that, combined with problems with our Department of License & Inspections, who also should be inspecting these properties. These properties are not --
These properties are not immune to our local code enforcement system. We have those problems. We also have problems with responsiveness of Administration or the agency who handles Section 8. And sometimes it is difficult just to get through to them to get answers to questions. And, as you mentioned, there are problems with landlords. And I would agree, despite the fact that we represent many of the tenants, that there are problems with tenants. But I think, given that, it is a very important program. It gives people the opportunity to live where they want, assuming they have a landlord willing to participate in the program. People have talked about social services. I think as Liz has said, it is very important that tenants be offered social services, if they need them. There has been a crying lack of real social services for public housing tenants and for tenants living in Section 8. And for those tenants 167 RESOLUTION 970558 who are in great need of those services, they certainly should be made available. But I think overall the program has worked. It has met a tremendous housing need. The problem with Section 8, there are nowhere near enough Section 8 certificates and vouchers to go around. The housing affordability crisis in this city is tremendous. And the number of people who are eligible for the subsidy, because of the limited nature of the subsidy and because Congress has not come up with new subsidies, just prevents many, many people from getting onto this program.
So we should be expanding the program, not shrinking it?
That's absolutely correct. The program needs to be expanded. I think the inspection process needs to be tightened up. We need to make sure that there are not landlords who are participating in the program who are not doing it, in effect, just to get money and not provide services. I do agree with you there are some 168 RESOLUTION 970558 good landlords who participate in the program. But there are certainly landlords who are involved who are just out to get the dollar and do not put anything back into the property.
I think what people don't understand is around 1981, 1980, myself, you, and other attorneys, we managed to put one of those very bad Section 8 landlords in jail because he was hustling monies off Section 8 of tenants at Regent Street, up there.
So, in essence, what we have is some managerial aspects that need to be addressed, that need to be done. And I think we can do it with PHA, once we get them here. And they will be here. Okay?
I am disabled. I got cerebral palsy. I am on a limited income. I am in an apartment that I cannot afford. I pay 495, plus utilities. And I only get 511.40 a month. And I called Mr. Kenney's office. He 170 RESOLUTION 970558 told me to -- whoever works in the office with him told me to apply for a Section 8 in a retirement home and see if I could get Section 8 through there. And I am only 28 years old. And I don't think that's right, for a handicapped person to be on a wait list for three years so far to try and get on Section 8. I haven't gotten on it yet. I don't think it is right that I be on a wait list because I am handicapped. I do have a 13-month-old child at home, and I am on a limited income. I can't afford my apartment. I need outside help from my family, my friends, and so forth. And I think Section 8 should be available to people who really need it at this time.
And I know there are a lot of Russians on it that lives in my community. And, I mean, I live in Little Russia. But that's how I feel. Because I live in Greater Northeast, by George Washington High School. And before that I 171 RESOLUTION 970558 lived in a $300 apartment, one bedroom. And I felt like I was -- my landlord was a slumlord. Because he doesn't even come out to inspect it for the two years I was living there. I told him the roof was leaking and this and that, and he never came out. He sent someone else to fix it, and they never fixed it. So now I am like, I moved out of there, now I moved into something I really can't afford. So I need Section 8.
What you are expressing is what we have in this city. We have an incredible housing need for moderate-income individuals and for individuals such as yourself. And obviously, you know, this program is supposed to be there in order to do that. Any help that we can give, besides Councilman Kenney and myself and so on, will be available to you. All right?
I am President 172 RESOLUTION 970558 of HAPCO. I represent some 3,000 landlords. A dirty word, as I have been hearing this morning. However, we must remember there are good landlords, there are bad landlords. There are good tenants, there are bad tenants. However, the bad in each case is a very, very small percentage. There is a great misunderstanding going on, as I understand it and see it this morning. Lack of knowledge. I would wish that the group this morning, very frankly, was still here. Maybe they would get a better understanding of what this whole program is all about. I heard the Councilman at one point talk about the houses in one block at $600 a 17 month. 18 The question that went through my 19 mind, not that the owner have 20 houses, but are the 20 20 on Section 8? We are dealing with Section 8. And 600 in some cases, a lot of areas, is not nothing like top money. Now, when we talk about clustering, whosever brain storm that was would say, well, we will put it 40 or 50 poor people together. 173 RESOLUTION 970558 I thought you tried to get rid of the projects stacked on top of each other? You blew them up, now you want to build some more mini-projects. (Applause.)
They don't take under consideration -- I think the question was asked the price of units. A three-bedroom unit, fair market value, is $881 per month. Two-bedroom is 704.
That is the market value, not depending on the neighborhood. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Let me interrupt you, in all fairness. The neighborhood that I live in, that has smaller, three-bedroom homes, on smaller streets, do not get anywhere near $800 a month. This is in South Philadelphia. This is South Philadelphia, east of Broad Street, South of Washington Avenue. I think you would average probably between 500 and 550 a month. As a matter of fact, I own a 174 RESOLUTION 970558 two-bedroom house -- which is the biggest mistake I ever made, but that's besides the point. I own a two-bedroom house which I rent to senior citizens for $300 a month. And haven't raised the rent in ten years because I didn't want to lose the tenants, and they are nice people, and I pay my mortgage with that. And I pay the mortgage off on the house with the rental. But two-bedroom houses and three-bedrooms houses in that neighborhood are getting 500. They are not getting anywhere near 600 a month.
You are right, Councilman. I would like for everybody to understand, if these new projects are built, they would probably be rented on a three-bedroom base, somewhere in the 900 value. Because, number one, I believe they would jump up and ask for 110 percent, which means they would get 881 plus 10 percent because of the cost of the building. I have units, and my number is 184 with Section 8. I think now landlords are like 175 RESOLUTION 970558 10,000. So that tells you how far I go back. I have units that are less than $500. Now we can rent three bedrooms, two of them, for the price of one. And somebody said we're getting too much money. My memberships' complaint is they don't want to be in Section 8 now for one reason. And the one reason is the reason you have been kicking Section 8 around this morning, inspections. I disagree with you that they are not inspected. They can write a list of inspections, and put a leaking spigot on there. And if you don't repair the spigot in the time they will be back, you just got abated. They're not blowing money away. That issue never came up this morning. They will take your money away like that. And don't anybody kid yourself. The next thing is, it is very easy to make a man -- I disagree with any landlord, whether he be a member of my organization or not, that doesn't pay his taxes and water. Just as easy as Section 8 asks for a rental license before you get paid, they can just as 176 RESOLUTION 970558 easily ask for the tax receipt and the water bill. It doesn't take an order of Congress for that. Just ask for it. That's the fastest way in the world for a man to pay up to that $5,000 or whatever the issue may be. There are a couple of more. They were saying, I think I heard earlier in the morning, that, you know, you just turn people away. Have any of these people heard of discrimination? I mean, we just can't go turning tenants away that qualify. There's nothing like getting sued for discrimination against tenants. Section 8 also seems, you know -- we are talking Section 8 -- Section 8 is a very small amount or number of units in rental properties in this city. My organization represents, or the members of my organization provide, between 55 and 60 percent of the low- and moderate-income housing in the city. But it is not a great percentage of that that's Section 8. So the program is a good program, as far as I am concerned. It is a needed program. 177 RESOLUTION 970558 It is one of the first times that my organization have just about agreed with the two previous speakers, that would be Liz and George. We are always on a different side of the fence. But today, when it is needed to be together, we are are together. They quoted possibly the very same things that I would like to say. The inspection, as I said, if you don't get it done, you are cut. So that there is a reason for a high rent in Section 8 in any neighborhood. First of all, it is a better property. Nobody can walk down the street and tell me, oh, that's a Section 8 because the paint is coming off. That's the biggest lie in the book. Section 8 make you scrape paint in the middle of the wintertime. And if you don't, as I said, you are abating, you don't get paid. And you are in the business to get paid. You are in the business to make money. The other reason that the rents should be higher -- not could be, should be higher -- because, for your information, Section 8 inspections are worst than L & I's. L & I will let 178 RESOLUTION 970558 you get away with some things Section 8 won't let you get away with. So gentlemen, ladies, that's about it. I guess we better keep the program. Need it, need it bad. You can't pay for homeless people. Thank you. (Applause.)
Any questions? One question. I think Miss Hersh and Mr. Gould said that if Section 8 was not around, that many of these landlords would just go out of business.
And is there a market that will take over those houses in order, and come in? Or what will happen to those homes?
Some of the landlords are getting away, as I said, because of the inspection. However, as I said, that's something I never worried about. I kind of look back at a landlord when he said, well, they are too steep, they are too this. I have always told men when they are 179 RESOLUTION 970558 working, "Act like I'm going to live here," meaning I want it like I will walk in. I carpet my units. I rent other units for families. So when you upgrade a unit higher than the norm, you expect to get paid higher than the norm. So, but to answer your question, yes, some of them would just be out of business.
Rosemary Farnon, Mary Burrell, Judith Gorski, George Reed. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Good afternoon. Thank you for waiting. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed.
Good afternoon, Councilman Kenney. My name is Rosemary Farnon, F-A-R-N-O-N. And I am the President of the Juniata Park Civic Association, and I am a resident of the 3900 block of Glendale Street. I come to you this afternoon as both a resident and President of the Juniata Park Civic Association. 180 RESOLUTION 970558 I live in zip code 19124, where there are approximately 381 occupied Section 8 houses to date. Total number of homes in my community, Juniata, in a three and a half block radius, are 34 homes and several apartment units, with more to come. We have the Carl Mackley Apartments, which is 140 units, which are now under construction to be 50 percent new certificates of Section 8, plus existing Section 8 tenants will be welcomed to our neighborhood. I come to you not against the Section 15 8 program, but to say that the Section 8 program is much needed in the City of Philadelphia. Everyone deserves a place to live. We cannot always live where we would like, but, unfortunately, we do deserve a place to live. I believe that the problem lies within the concept of the unit, the family unit. One who comes into a property, such as a three-bedroom home, that I have had the experience to live when my neighbors moved into a three-bedroom home with a mother and two children 181 RESOLUTION 970558 and another young female. When my neighbor disappeared seven months into the program and we began to question what happened to her and her two children to her sister, we were met with resistance. When we reached out to PHA and asked them to give us an explanation of what might have happened to my neighbor, who was a good neighbor, we were told that under the guidelines of Section 8 housing, through PHA, that the tenant was allowed to leave that site for six months, and leave her sister in the care of that property, because the tenant's sister's children were on-site. That was not true. Numerous calls to PHA met with much resistance. When we located the owner of the property and told him about different quality-of-life issues that affected not only myself, but my neighbors, we once again were met with resistance. The pavements were not shoveled in the winter. The trash was not put out accordingly on our trash day. The porch was not swept. These are all quality-of-life issues. Councilman Kenney and your panel, who 182 RESOLUTION 970558 I am sorry decided to meet other commitments, we have to say that, as going through the records, we have seen numerous properties that are owned by one or two landlords throughout the Juniata Park section. I myself have gone through, I have looked at the properties. They meet the bare-bones guidelines of the federal government -- no lead paint, no broken windows, no exposed wires -- but they do not meet what every neighborhood wants, quality-of-life issues. We are not asking for Anderson windows; we are just asking for nice properties and people who are ready to accept the same responsibility as a homeowner. We welcome anyone into our neighborhood. We believe that clustered housing will not work. The projects didn't work. Scattered housing will work with monitoring. 11 inspectors? That doesn't cut it here. I had the opportunity to stay home while the property next door was inspected by -- recently for a new tenant. Inside of three minutes, 183 RESOLUTION 970558 from the time the door opened until the time the door closed, he was out the door. And the property was, quote, unquote, inspected. Unbenownst to the inspector, the wires, yes, they were all covered with switch plates, but the electric was being ran by a generator in the garage because the electric had not been turned on yet properly by the Philadelphia Electric Company. I have pictures. But like everyone says, a picture is worth a thousand words. We now in our community meeting have realized that, yes, there are a number of houses in Juniata which are for sale, mainly because our neighborhood was an older community.
And if they have died, their houses are left to their children, who choose not to live there as in days gone by. So what we are going to do now, it has been decided, as to come February, we will be distributing a Good Neighbor Handbook. No one will be excluded from the rules and regulations of the Good Neighbor Handbook. In that handbook it will tell you, as a good neighbor, what you should do, when your trash 184 RESOLUTION 970558 is, what your cars should have when you bring your car to our neighborhood, whether you are a homeowner or a renter or a Section 8 or just a squatter, maybe. What you should bring with you. Have your car done within the guidelines of a law. If it is inspected and has a legal tag on it, you are welcome to leave it on our streets. If not, don't bring it with you. If you live there and our trash day is Tuesday, please put your trash out after dusk Monday night. Don't put it out all week long, because it is not going to be accepted. You will find in that Good Neighbor package all the people who represent you on the city, state, and federal level. You will find out where you can get help with your energy assistance, where you can get help from the police, sanitation, where you can get help with child care, where you can get just about everything else, from recreations to medical needs, from our community. We will also list our elected officials and what their responsibilities are. Not only our district Councilperson, but those who are 185 RESOLUTION 970558 elected to represent us, Council-at-large. By that we feel we will bring better neighbors and better responsibility, and everyone will know the guidelines before they choose to live and raise their children in Juniata. Thank you, Mr. Kenney and your panel. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much for your testimony. Could you characterize your opinion of the response of the Philadelphia Housing Authority to specific complaints about either housing code violations or social problems that arise as a result of tenant behavior, or the lack of landlord responsibility in mitigating complaints?
When I contacted -- this is my personal experience. And I can only speak of my personal experience. Out of concern for the safety of the two children who lived next door to me, I found it necessary to find out where the holder of that certificate had gone with her two children. The certificate was issued to a single woman with two children. 186 RESOLUTION 970558 They told me politely, after they contacted the landlord, that she had gone to take care of an ailing mother, and left her two children on-site. They would not -- PHA said to me, well, that is not a PHA problem; that is a Department of Health and Human Services problem. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Was that information referred to DHS?
Well, let me tell you, once the owner of the property was notified and I began to question the owner -- because I or my neighbors cannot understand the concept. If someone is given a certificate to provide a roof over their head and shelter from inclement weather, why, when they leave, that certificate does not go with them. Why someone is allowed to stay in that property, who is an able-bodied person, to take care of that property for six months, with a certificate -- which is very hard to get. We have heard people say that here today -- which that certificate was given to a mother and two small children, should be given to a healthy female to 187 RESOLUTION 970558 party all day, all night, not go to work, come in, and come out at the taxpayers' expense. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Are there --
Fell on deaf ears. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: What is the current condition of the property as we speak?
As we speak now, the property has just been recently rented to another family, a woman and four small children. That's the house to the right of me. I have four Section 8 properties on my street. The house to the rear of me has been rented to a woman, single woman, with three small children. There are other people who stay in the house weeks at a time to the rear of me, and on other sites. But that's permitted under what they call, quote, unquote, the family fiber, which people -- and if you look at the map here, which is blocked now by this screen, which I believe my friends in Mayfair and Lawndale and Northwood and above, have a difficult time understanding the concept because it is new to us. 188 RESOLUTION 970558 I read in an article in the paper where Mr. Kromer said that they are willing to come out to speak to people to explain what the Section 8 program is all about. But I know not of one time that he has come out to speak to anyone. So maybe we are a little bit ignorant. When you look at the zip codes for the upper part of 19124 and 34 up above, it is because this program is new and people are in fear of what might happen. When you look at real estate -- I would have to say that the real estate next door to me, when this property landlord was first questioned by me, he told me I should be lucky. If I keep it up, he will give me a worse tenant. Unfortunately, maybe I worked myself through the system. If PHA ignored the complaints, then I went to the Department of License & Inspections to make the system work for me. That doesn't mean everyone knows how to do that. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Had there ever been contemplation of reporting or filing a Complaint with the United States Justice Department about the attitude and comments of the landlord? 189 RESOLUTION 970558 Because some of those comments, if they are accurate -- and I have no reason to doubt that they are not -- are in fact true, that's the kind of a violation that the federal government would investigate as it relates to potential block-busting and other types of activities to intimidate neighbors into selling their properties, or to intimidate neighbors into not complaining about obvious things that are going on in their street. That is a practice that I have found with a couple landlords in South Philadelphia, who have a similar attitude about this program and about the neighbors and the community. Basically the threat was, if you don't like it, you can sell your house to me and I will convert it to a Section 8 property. Those kinds of comments are violations of federal law under the block-busting issues. And I am wondering whether or not you would look at filing a Complaint or letter to the U.S. Justice Department about that kind of activity, because that is unwarranted. 190 RESOLUTION 970558
Yes, it is. But outside of causing a ruckus, Councilman Kenney -- I will be very honest with you -- we welcome everyone into our community, as well as I welcome anyone to live to the right of me or to the left of me. Neighbors are neighbors, regardless of their color or their ethnic origin. Neighbors are neighbors. And I would like to live together very happily, happily ever after. Because I have reached the end of my purse strings, so I will be in Juniata until the day the Lord decides to take me home. We realize that Section 8 is up and coming, it has been around for a long time, it is not going anywhere. We realize that. We cannot have people on the street. But not only for ourselves as neighbors, people who have made investments in buying a home. We are asking for those people who are the recipients of Section 8 certificates be given exactly what they deserve, a decent home. Everything that I have in my house, they should be allowed to have. 191 RESOLUTION 970558 Because my neighbor could not always meet her commitment of her 30 percent of the rent that she had to pay, she would not call him up and ask him to fix the toilet. She wouldn't call him up and say, "Listen, I know it is not needed that we have screens on the house. But I have two small children; fresh air is important." She would not do that because she knew that he would ask her to leave that property. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much for your testimony.
It is more than a question for Mrs. Farnon. It is more of a statement. Mrs. Farnon, you talked about your Good Neighbor Handbook. And Terry Gillen spoke a few speakers ago, and she talked about a sociologist William Julius Wilson, or what he called social organization. By the way, I am the district Councilman that represents her area. I know the good work she does. But you and Terry are saying the same thing. Terry, she quoted this Julius Wilson and 192 RESOLUTION 970558 social organization. It defines the ability of residents to maintain effective social control, when the informal network that binds people in most neighborhoods does not exist. That's what you do. Now, as you talked about how the neighborhood changed, and it changed quick, and you welcome everybody to that neighborhood, you are absolutely right. If it wasn't for your organization, your civic group, and people like you, that see this, see the big picture at the end here, and see that people have to learn things that they necessarily didn't learn -- and it is probably a pain in the rearend for you to do all these things. But I would just like to commend you and your organization for the help you give me. But for what you saw here -- and maybe you listened to what Terry said. It is all the same thing. But that's what we have to do. PHA has to be responsive. They have to teach people to understand that this social organization is important, then everybody gets along fine. All the other stuff we can work out. 193 RESOLUTION 970558 We can pass laws and we can pass regulations and we can make sure they are enforced. But if we do this social organization thing, it is going to be really important to everybody. So thank you for your time.
You are welcome. And I believe a better education to all people throughout the City of Philadelphia would be an enlightening process to everyone. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much.
Thank you. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Miss Burrell. Please identify yourself.
My name is Mary Burrell. And I am here to represent me. And other neighbors I have, but mainly me. I own my home. And the repairs, most repairs I make myself or I get it repaired. But my income is low, and I am sandwiched between two PHA homes. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Not to interrupt you, but do you know whether the PHA homes are 194 RESOLUTION 970558 Section 8 properties or PHA scattered site or HUD properties?
I am not too sure. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: You can give the addresses to our staff privately, and we can determine exactly what the property is.
But I do know that I have no one to call when I need help, you see. I ask my neighbors not to sit on my steps. And for that, they tore my steps up. I have to repair this. No one is going to repair this for me. Everyone is worrying about them. I didn't bother these people. I also have my bell ring. I mean, this is harassment because I don't want people on my property. When it snows, I shovel theirs. They don't shovel mine. It doesn't matter. But it has to be done, so I shovel theirs. You talk about good neighbor policy. I think they need to learn that. I mean, if your rent is being paid or subsidized for you, that's a privilege. And I can't see where there is a right. 195 RESOLUTION 970558 I have a right to be as happy as anyone else, without harassment. We have -- in the summertime we have to close our door because of dog do piled up three deep. I mean, in the summertime. And that's bad. And there is just no accountability. You understand? No accountability. I can't do things because I own my home. I can't do things to other people that they can do to me. They can walk away from theirs. And I wouldn't do it anyway. But to destroy my property because I asked you not to sit on my steps, that foul language that comes up to my bedroom, the smoking of the reefer, the selling of the beer. If they sell beer and they make a profit, why should my property be destroyed? Are they going to be paying mine? So I am here to ask someone if they can help me. See, I didn't know about all these other problems. I am listing some things I knew about. I am here to represent me. And these things are happening, I 196 RESOLUTION 970558 have no one to call. I call, I get the run-around. And I am just here to represent me. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: What I would suggest for you to do is, before you leave, Mr. O'Connor, John --
I had to take my neighbor to court. I took my neighbor to court. And she didn't even bother to show up. And then they gave her another date, she still didn't show up. And going to court you think it would stop, but it hasn't. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: What I would suggest doing before you leave today is to make sure you give Mr. O'Connor the addresses of the properties you are concerned about. We will determine what the condition of the property is from its status, whether it is a regular renter, Section 8 tenant, or a HUD property, or a scattered site property. And we will try to address those problems in conjunction with PHA and the police department and License & Inspections. And if you can give him that information before you leave today, we will be happy 197 RESOLUTION 970558 to look into that for you. Thank you for coming in and thank you for waiting. Ma'am.
Hi. I am Victoria Westifer. I am the tenant on top of Victoria Chaney. I have been trying to get on Section 10 8 for seven years. I am visually impaired. I have arthritis all through my body. Every time I call, they say it is closed. The last time I called they told me it was all sewed up because in our area we have the Russians, and they are on Section 8 housing. My landlady is already approved to accept Section 8 housing. She has even called on numerous occasions to try and get it through so I would be able to afford my rent. I live on a limited income. I live on SSI. I have been told from agency to agency, "Move if you can't afford it." I can't afford to move. How could I afford to move, to get the money up to move? Where I have been at my place for 198 RESOLUTION 970558 seven years. I am now attached to it. I know everybody in my house. With my condition, I can wake up tomorrow morning and be totally blind. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: What do you pay a month in rent?
I pay 495. In fact, my landlady just sent her papers back in to be reinstated, or whatever they do. And I heard all morning long about these landlords that gouge the system, that want eight and nine hundred dollars. She wrote exactly what she wants, 495. She has never raised it another penny. I have to pay my rent one month, I have to pay my utilities the next month, which makes me constantly a month behind. I have already had my gas turned off. My electric is in the process of being turned off. I have been thrown off of all the low-income plans because you have to pay them every month. I can't do it. They don't want to hear it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: It is sad that PHA 199 RESOLUTION 970558 is not here today to respond to these specific complaints. I don't have an answer for you today as to accessibility to the program and other help that you may need, or you obviously need, to help you survive. What I would suggest you to do, too, again, is talk to Mr. O'Connor before you leave. And we will try to get an answer from PHA for you. I don't know if it is going to be an adequate answer, but we will certainly try to get one.
Some is better than none. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: If they were here today, maybe they could respond. But they are not. So if you could see Mr. O'Connor on the way out, and make sure he gets your name and phone number and address, and we will see what we can do to investigate that situation.
Thank you. I would really appreciate it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Sir.
My name is George 200 RESOLUTION 970558 Reed. I am from the Juniata section, which you just heard from my Committeewoman. Since the neighborhood has changed, I believe people have the right to live where they live, where they want to live, as long as they want to live decently. This is my problem. Next door to me, I have a Latino living next door to me. They say she qualifies. She qualifies to ruin the quality of my life? Is that what she qualifies for? The property is falling apart. I tried to find out who owns the property. The real estate that did have it says they don't handle it no 15 more. I says, "Well, tell me who handles it." They don't know. This is what I get. This tenant has a loud, foul, filthy mouth. She don't work. The property is falling apart. She throws her garbage on the lawn. I told her not to do this. She says nobody is going to tell her what to do. Men and women, men especially, run in and out of this place day and night. Every day you see a different automobile pulling up, different 201 RESOLUTION 970558 license plates. I don't know what the hell is going on with them. But I can't -- I cannot get no 4 satisfaction. But the thing is, the quality of my neighborhood is down. The quality of my life has went down. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Let me ask you a question. Have you been able to determine for sure that this is a Section 8 property?
I don't know. I don't know whether it is Section 8 or an unscrupulous real estate moved her in there, or whatever. It is an apartment. I live in a nice house. I keep my house that way. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: How long have you lived in your home?
38 years. And the value of this property is going to go down the sewer because of what is going on in Juniata Park. Now, tell me what's wrong with this story. My youngest daughter is a nurse. She works hard, very hard. She is divorced. 202 RESOLUTION 970558 She lives in a little apartment up in the Northeast, trying to raise a son, put him through school. She can't afford to rent a house or buy one because she is paying student loans off. I help her out as much as I could. The two properties at the end of her block -- I said properties, not apartments -- guess what they are? Section 8. And that's wrong. That's criminal. That's all I got to say about it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you very much for coming in. Miss Ali, Sabrina Cason Gloria Blackman, Leona Smith, Arthur Green. Good afternoon, ladies. Please identify yourself for the record.
My name is Leona Smith. I am President of the National Union of the Homeless and Executive Director of the Employment Project. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Please proceed.
Thank you. Many of the students that we train 203 RESOLUTION 970558 that is currently living in the shelter system have moved on to be eligible for Section 8 certificates. During the time, on the average, we service about 2,000 different individuals for low income -- eligible for low-income housing, which we also do from my office. Many of the complaints, it is based on the realtors not fixing up the properties and demanding rent in the process. Most are afraid that if they do not pay their rent, that they have no rights, and automatically they will be kicked out. We have had some to even go to court who has held up their rent based on the landlord not fixing their properties. And, as a result, the courts ruled against their favor. And, as a result, that they had to return back to homelessness. This is constant. Because when you are a tenant and you go before the courts, very seldom the courts rule in your favor, which is a very, very serious problem. We have been -- I have seen clusterization, is a form of racism, 204 RESOLUTION 970558 discrimination. To put people into one concentrated area, again, leaves us powerless and hopeless. I think the solution -- and we all heard the problems today -- we wrote the job training program for public housing. Because it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that you could create jobs within public housing and scattered site. Our organization wrote that for public housing. We are willing to sit down to the table -- and I think so often we are left out of the process, where we can sit down to the table -- collectively, in an unified manner, to look at ways that we collectively can figure out the solution to the problems, rather than, say, put that person on an island somewhere, and we can ignore the problem, as opposed to throwing that person out of the unit. And it works both ways. It works both ways. " And that is what's going on. Which is a form of racism and discrimination. Many of the areas -- I have lived 205 RESOLUTION 970558 down -- I am from 4th and Reed, 4th and Washington Avenue. And I heard some of the folks here that came from that community and that neighborhood. And what I am proposing -- there is nothing down there. There is nothing down there to bring that community together whereas culturally that we can understand one another. And it is a cultural process to understand me and for me to understand you outside of our race. And that's what it boils down to to me. And when I look at, even for the children, there is nothing down there to bring the children together, that can then perhaps bring the parents together. Our children have no playgrounds, they have nothing down there in the community. So, as a result of it, what you tend to do is look at faults from each other. So I think more services need to be provided. I have said this to the City of Philadelphia, which we wrote most of the shelter policies for the city. Including the savings policy, where the city -- you know, person could 206 RESOLUTION 970558 then be able to save their money in order to move out of the shelter and to be eligible for home ownership, as well as rental. We wrote that for the City of Philadelphia. The problem that we are faced, as I see it today, is, we cannot no longer look at a piece of the pie. But we have to look at the overall of an individual that makes them whole. You cannot wait until a person goes into public housing or Section 8 or scattered sites, and expect them to do a 360-degree turn-around for all the things that the community expects for them to live by. There is a process. And I think it has to come from the front door, rather than the back door. I think the city should be involved in creating a training process. Whereas, when a person is eligible, that they are clear about what they are supposed to do, rather than wait until they get there and then tell them. It has to be done, straight from OSHA's perspective and PHA.
I have designed a program from John White, when he first took office, about tenants' 207 RESOLUTION 970558 eligibility going into public housing. He took part of it that benefited PHA, but he didn't take all of it. So I think that it needs to be redesigned. And I think clusterization for our people will never, ever be the solution to the problem. Thank you. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Let me ask you a question about the issue of clustering. And I tend to agree that the issue of clustering is antithetical to people integrating into the community and learning to or becoming part of the community, as opposed to isolating people. In some of the areas of formerly homeless individuals who are involved with either -- or have been involved in their life with either drug or alcohol addiction or mental illness, which is a large portion of a lot of the people who find themselves homeless, one of the -- again, we have talked about this in the hallway -- successful projects I find is 1515 Fairmount, is Project Home. And the thing that impresses me the most about Project Home is a couple of things. Primarily, it is a permanent solution 208 RESOLUTION 970558 to those individuals' housing needs. It is not a transitional shelter approach, but it is a permanent, for the rest of their life. 32 people, I believe, are living in decent, clean, safe housing that gives them the support mechanisms that they need to help each other succeed. And the support mechanisms, from my view of being over there, is the ongoing business of the restaurant, the Back Home Cafe, the book store, which also provides people an opportunity to earn a living, and also the clothing operation, that is, takes clothing, repairs or whatever, and then makes -- excuse me. I am going to have to ask the conversation over there to cease. We can't pay attention. And the clothing operation, which provides three ongoing businesses. Plus the ability for people to live together and support each other who have special needs. I am not talking about people overall in the Section 8 program, but special needs, formerly homeless people, who now find an opportunity to lean on each other in a clean, safe, 209 RESOLUTION 970558 permanent environment. In those instances, would some type of clustering, for those individual people, make sense, as opposed to trying to impose this on everyone in the program? Because the thing, again, I find that I think makes Project Home successful is the ability for people who are there to rely on each other for their special needs. And that's the kind of long-term permanent solutions I think there is to our homeless situation, as opposed to some of the warehousing stuff that we have been doing, which really hasn't worked at all.
I agree with you. Having worked with Project Home over the years has adopted the model that our organization had many, many years ago, not to create a dependency. We are -- and I was the director of the only shelter in the country that was run by homeless people. And Project Home took a lot of the model ideas from our shelter and put it into permanent housing, which made it work. And that is -- what you see at 1515 210 RESOLUTION 970558 Fairmount is not only people working together, but also have an input. And I think that is equally as important. 1515 is not run by just Sister Mary. It is run by the residents as a partnership. And I am saying that the same exact thing can be developed. Yes, they have a business. And we need to think business, and I agree with that, and not be solely dependent upon a system that's going to deteriorate anyway. But at the same token, I think with all the abandoned buildings that are standing sound structurally, deteriorating on a daily basis, that apprenticeship, such as the same one with Jimmy Carter, who got in touch with our organization when they were first starting the partnership, Sweat Equity Program, why can't the same thing be developed, even in my community, in my neighborhood? I look at -- homeless people rehabbed my house. They did my house. I didn't know what to do with it when I got my house. It was shell. But homeless people went in and rehabbed that property 211 RESOLUTION 970558 that I live in today. So what I am saying is that we are -- and I am formerly homeless myself. We are the most skillful people on God's face of the earth, if somebody will only listen to us to tell you or anybody else. And I just left Washington, D.C., with Congress. Listen to us, and we can begin to tell you some of the solutions to the problem as we see it. And then together we can look at how can this work. Resources are needed. I think housing is definitely an issue. And if we are going to be talking about people, whether they are Section 16 8 certificates or project-based certificates, or whatever the case may be, the fact of the matter is that if we don't look at job creation, if we don't focus on business, people is not going to be able to afford to pay the one-third of income, anyway. So I think what we have to begin is to look at the overall and combine it both, how do we bring jobs into the City of Philadelphia, how do we create businesses in the City of Philadelphia. But, at the same token, until the 212 RESOLUTION 970558 city and those who are in control of these resources are able to put their act in place, and not blame the victim, then I think that we have a right to live anywhere that we darn near choose to. And I think that, also, that we have a right towards subsidy until we are able to fend for ourselves. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you for your testimony. Ma'am, would you please identify yourself.
My name is Alicia Christian. I am the Executive Director of Dignity Housing, which provides housing for low-income and formerly homeless families and adults. And was, indeed, established through the advocacy of the union of the homeless and allies nearly ten years ago. I appreciate the opportunity to testify. The Dignity experience, I think, flies in the face of those who say scattered site housing doesn't work. 213 RESOLUTION 970558 We have 135 scattered site units on line with very-low-income tenants. If you look at the materials I just gave you, I included a list, which doesn't provide exact addresses or names, but lists every block and every zip code in which we have units. And we are virtually in nearly every councilmanic district. I will not say that Dignity Housing works for everyone. I will say that over the past nine years, we have served nearly a thousand families. And our rate of families or individuals who, after support, after counseling, after interventions, cannot adjust to the program requirements or the expectations in the community, the rate of those individuals not working is less than 11 percent, which people tell me is pretty good. Dignity today has more than 400 men, women, and children residing in units in West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, Mount Airy, up by the Boulevard, near the airport, virtually in every section of the city. 214 RESOLUTION 970558 More than half of our current tenants, formerly homeless, very low income, have completed goals in a life skills plan. That life skills plan is an addendum to their lease. They pay their rent on time. They can keep their apartment nice. They can, as previous testifiers have stated, set the trash out nice and neatly on trash day. But if they fail to move forward in objectives for education, for pursuing employment readiness, for looking at job options, then they are not in compliance with life skills, and that's an evictable offense. And it is after much counseling, and much intervention, that that decision will be made. I am not suggesting that everyone who needs subsidized housing needs a life skills plan. I am not suggesting that everyone who requires subsidized housing needs intense counseling. There are some people for whom the Section 8 program is needed because of a permanent disability. There are some people for whom the Section 8 program is a passageway to another 215 RESOLUTION 970558 option. And there are some, like the Dignity tenants, who for three to six years benefit from the intense supports of our program, which have included scholarships, which have included individual mentoring. We now have tenants who are former tenants of -- we now have a number of former tenants of Dignity Housing who have obtained goals. Two are Philadelphia police officers; five have graduated from four-year colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania; 30 have completed Community College; one is a recent homeowner, though she joins approximately nearly 50 homeowners since the program started. But we are particularly proud of one tenant who bought a home that we acquired and rehabbed for sale to a first-time buyer, who happened to be a Dignity tenant. The essence of the Dignity experience is that there are no simplistic solutions. I am not in subsidized housing. I am a homeowner. But I can identify at least three neighbors on my block who I wish I had recourse for. 216 RESOLUTION 970558 Not quite bad enough for police intervention, but not quite good enough to be good neighbors. They are homeowners. It comes with the territory. Some of the issues raised by the previous testifier, some of the issues raised by the community person about fostering a good neighbor feeling and a good neighbor environment, I think, are part of the answer. The other, for some people who are tossed into subsidized housing, and really need support services, the issue is the resources for those support services should be forthcoming.
And it is more than a call once every six months. It is real, substantive services designed to help you turn your life around. Most people want to do better, and most people want to be better. Dignity Housing works. Take a look at the materials. Take a look at the zip codes. We are everywhere. And we work in every community. And we support the notion that where there is affordable housing as an option, no matter which neighborhood it is in, our people have a right 217 RESOLUTION 970558 to access that option. Following me is -- Gloria Blackman is a tenant at Dignity Housing, a recovering substance abuser, and she has her own statement that she would like to make. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Prior to that, I just have a few comments. First of all, would you be interested in a job running the PHA Section 8 program? I don't have the authority to offer you that. But I think that what you have been saying rings very true, regardless of what neighborhood you live in. And that is that people are in circumstances for various reasons, many of those reasons beyond their control. And I don't think anyone, or at least I am speaking for myself, would deny people the opportunity for the help they need to improve their circumstance and to move forward. One of the things that has been the hallmark of your testimony, as I heard it, was that there are also levels of expectation on the part of what we expect from people who are living together 218 RESOLUTION 970558 with others as a way of issues of behavior and respect. And respect is, again, a two-way street. One of the saddest parts about this whole hearing and about this whole issue is that a program that serves so many people so well, because of a very small group of landlords and tenants, sad to say, give the entire program a bad name because of lots of other issues. Fear of the unknown, fear of differences, fear of what's happening in your neighborhood, or what you think may happen, or predispositions you may have about people and what they are and what they're about, all those things need to be broken down. But they need to be broken down, I think, on the track that you were talking about, by giving people opportunities, while at the same time having high expectations for those people to succeed. And I do appreciate your testimony and feel that there are lots of common ground amongst people who are on various sides of this issue, if they are open-minded and honest about where they want to go. 219 RESOLUTION 970558 So I thank you for your testimony. And please identify yourself for the record and proceed.
My name is Gloria Blackman. I am also a tenant at Dignity House. I moved in Dignity March of this year. Dignity helps me a whole lot. It provides a program for hundreds of people such as myself. I also was on drugs at one time. I also had three years clean off of drugs. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Congratulations.
Thank you. Dignity has provided for me to better my skills as far as coming up there, working for them. I go to school at night, I get my GED. So I will be out from like 8:00 in the morning until like 10:00 at night. When I come home, I be tired, but I have a challenge, myself, to like do some things for myself today. I thank this program for allowing me to -- for a better stepping stone in my life. It gives me opportunity and challenge to challenge the 220 RESOLUTION 970558 world and what the society has to offer. I have no 3 limitations for myself anymore. I didn't want for nothing, but Dignity let me know that there is a lot out there for me to get, and it is a seed. I have dreams and goals to fulfill. I am going after my dreams and my goals. Within two years I expect to be a homeowner. I am an only child. My parents died at the age of 14, five months apart from each other. I have no kids, so I am a single, black woman that is struggling, but succeeding. Thank you. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Congratulations, and best of luck to you. Sir. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. My name is Arthur Green, and I am an advocate for the Pennsylvania Coalition to Save Subsidized Housing. I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States citizen, and a 20-year-plus resident of Philadelphia. 221 RESOLUTION 970558 I have lived a life of the well-to-do and also the life of the homeless and depressed, existing from cardboard pouch to garbage bag dinners. By the way, my discussion is about the clusterization. And my coalition is against it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Yes, sir.
I ask you to hear these words with your heart and not your mind. Again we find ourselves face to face with the discussion of what is right or wrong, evil versus good, hate versus love, freedom to be or not to be. Freedom, the truth. Freedom is free for few, but comes at a costly price of time and loss of lives for others. Surely those of us that know the cause should not forget the price. Hate. Freedom allows hate to demonstrate or voice its opinion. Surely you have seen it. Remember the man with the funny mustache? Have you seen the hate that hides its face behind hoods? 222 RESOLUTION 970558 If hate would have its way, we would be marching, and the South would most definitely rise again. However, freedom can't and will never allow hate to rule the world. Love must and shall rule the world. The American dream, a promise of freedom and equality. The Fair Housing Act, a landmark, can stand America's promise of the Constitution to all citizens. To deny freedom fought and won is denial. To take it away is murderous. You are Philadelphia. You know about freedom and equality. You have a reputation. The mission of your name implies freedom. You began the cry for independence. The Constitution was written here. Aren't you the keeper of the Liberty Bell? The Bill of Rights was signed here. Philadelphia says welcome America. Every summer, Unity Day. Philadelphia is the model city of the next century. What is your message to the rest of the country? Philadelphia can find ways to play 223 RESOLUTION 970558 together, but we can't plan ways to live together? Freedom is a process that love motivates and God sanctions. Freedom is a process we may give out, but we can never give up. Section 8, a process of freedom living of choice, not a process for plantations or concentration camps. And I want to say something about what you said about -- (Applause.)
-- you know, I understand and I am pleased to hear that Council is against this clusterization. But you made a comment about the homes on 15th Street and the people that live -- the comment you just made to Leona. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: There is a 32-unit facility at 1515 Fairmount that includes both a restaurant, a book store, and a clothing store inside the actual facility, where 32 former homeless people, some substance-abuse-recovering people, and some mentally ill people, and other people who don't have mental illness or substance abuse problems, live together in one structure. 224 RESOLUTION 970558 Which I have been through a number of times, and have seen that the apartments are spacious and dignified, clean and decent places for permanent housing, permanent solution, to homeless Philadelphians.
Okay. Well, I agree with that. And the part of the permanent, permanent stumbles me there for a minute. Because I have been homeless. And I wish Miss Blackwell was still here. I wanted to thank her. Because I was one of the men that lived in the subway five years ago. Okay? And I am also a drug abuse/substance abuse recovering person, and alcoholic. All right? But I have five years clean today, thank God. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Congratulations. (Applause.)
But what I need to say is that that permanent, that's good for some. But a person like me, I would like to be able to choose my own. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Sure. The permanency --
Let me get it clear now. 225 RESOLUTION 970558 For people that want to live in communities like that, that's good. But I would like to have, and I did get, life skills coming through the recovery program that I went through. And eventually I will be getting my own and living with my woman in my own home. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Yes, sir.
For people that want to stay with somebody, that's good. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: For me, the permanency is an issue of choice. It would be the choice for those individuals to stay there or not. But my point is, making the choice to stay there gives people a support mechanism that they need at that time in their life to improve their situation.
What I think needs to be done -- and like I said, I went through the shelter system -- is, I think you should start looking at the shelter system. You did say something about the warehousing. They need to cut the warehousing out. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Yes, sir.
All right. It is more 226 RESOLUTION 970558 funds going in to putting in people to give life skills to prevent people that's going into shelters. There should be people looking at them, looking at their medical and mental conditions. All right? Because I can tell you for a fact, and I know, three years living on the streets of Philadelphia, it can make you crazy.
As I heard you mention about the 1515 Fairmount, I can recall, because many of us was there, we had to fight the City of Philadelphia through tooth and nails to get.
For three years. And the bulk of the residents that's at 1515 Fairmount are mental health consumers, the bulk of them are. So we had to fight this city, including the Mayor, to go to court in order to get 1515 in place. And I had to bring that --
-- ordered the city to obey the city laws and so on. Because we were not obeying city ordinances.
By the way, we were listening to some neighborhood individuals that did not want -- because I live in that neighborhood.
Right. Right. And we had to -- and I am bringing that out. It is at the same level of racism against homeless people and people who don't have a place to stay, is the same thing that I heard here today. Is the same exact thing. And here we are many, many years later fighting the same thing. We have a right to choose any place we want to live. We have that right. Whether it is subsidized housing, or not. And that has been part of the problem. Because we have been so divided, 228 RESOLUTION 970558 until we don't understand. I would like to see us, if the city don't want houses, I would like to see the city give them to us. Give them to us. Because there is no reason why over 20,000 homeless people are sleeping on the streets of the City of Philadelphia. There is no reason why -- and that is true. That is true. There is no reason why all of these properties are standing there vacant and deteriorating. And slum landlords -- and I will be done -- the slum landlords have all of the rights. We have none. And we are saying, let us run. (Applause.)
This is what we have been meeting about. How do we run the slum landlords? If the city and the state and the feds are not going to fund these slumlords, we will be the CDCs. We know how to run programs. We are not given the resources and the opportunity, but we know how to run programs. So we want to put together -- we 229 RESOLUTION 970558 already have a coalition together. It is called Save Our Homes, that our brother and a lot of members that are here are part of it. It is fighting to save our homes and Section 8, and et cetera. But if the slum landlords are not doing the job, give us that money, give us that opportunity, and we will show you and tell you how it is supposed to work and how we can succeed.
Thank you. Whittier Dow, and Cheri Honkala after Mr. Dow. Good afternoon, Mr. Dow.
No problem. You give your testimony however you please, and identify yourself for the record.
Thank you. My name is Whittier Dow. I am from the Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals. I am a Fair Housing Specialist. We are a private nonprofit who deals specifically with the housing problems of the 230 RESOLUTION 970558 disabled. And we are here to testify our continued support for the Section 8 program. And one reason our organization has a concern is, I have not heard too much talk about the needs of the disabled housing community as it relates to Section 8 and what goes on in the city. First of all, the disabled community, there is over a half a million people with some type of disabling condition in Philadelphia. And those people that have disabilities, the average income of a person with a disability is $520 a month. And most of this income comes from SSI, SSD, some type of federal income. As I heard the young lady testify earlier about her frustration of being on the Section 8 waiting list, I have been working for the housing consortium for the last seven years now, and that's a thing that I have heard quite readily, about people who have been on the PHA waiting list for years and years and years. And it always seems like, particularly in this city, that the disabled community, when it comes to being on the waiting list for PHA, is always the last one to get -- to 231 RESOLUTION 970558 have their issues addressed. We're saying that the city should reevaluate how they review a waiting list, if there is such a waiting list that still exists. We in the housing community have problems sometimes with trying to find out whether there really is a PHA housing list that exists, whether it gets purged, how it gets purged, who gets on it, who doesn't get on it. We're saying that this should be one consideration in examining Section 8. Also, we are in strong disagreement with clustering of people. Because, first of all, it leads to discrimination, ghettoization, and it also has a disparaging impact on the disabled community. Because the disabled community is always the last one to get serviced when it comes to any type of service. Furthermore, Section 8, if you start to cluster people, it will lead to violations of fair housing. And fair housing is an issue that I always talk to with the city officials, none of which came out today, unfortunately. I wish they 232 RESOLUTION 970558 had. Because the city has not taken an aggressive stand toward enforcing fair housing. And when I talk about fair housing, I talk about not only people having the ability like yourself, Councilman, to move into a neighborhood, or like myself. But I also talk about hate crimes. And when the city aggressively takes a stand and takes fair housing as being a part of the housing policy, and implements training to neighborhoods and residents, some of these issues that we are addressing today may be eliminated toward retraining and education.
You know that clustering violates the Fair Housing Act of the City of Philadelphia.
Yes, sir. But no one in the city Administration seems to take fair housing as being a fair -- as being an honest thing to go after.
I know. I am just 233 RESOLUTION 970558 telling you we do.
I am talking about the people who are part of the policy-making people, not you, and the people that implement the programs that come from the Mayor's Office, down through the Office of Housing, and so forth. Fair housing is a thing that has to be addressed in this city. Because we always claim to be the City of Brotherly Love. But until we start truly addressing fair housing and addressing the issues of hate crimes that take place in our neighborhoods, we won't be able to do this. I myself live in South Philadelphia. I used to live in West Philadelphia, but I have lived in South Philadelphia for several years now. And I live approximately two blocks east of where one of the hate crimes incidents happened, at 4th and Snyder. And it was very upsetting. Because I said, here I am, a man who works for justice every day, and it is happening right down the street from me. And the city has to come in and they have to take a firm stand for fair housing. And also, when we -- when you 234 RESOLUTION 970558 consider your examination of the Section 8 program, you have to look at the policies that are coming down from HUD itself. There is a de-emphasis now, away from rental housing, towards home ownership. And if vouchers and certificates are to be used, there should be some kind of way where people can integrate a certificate and a voucher, along with their income and along with what the landlord or the bank would receive to make it possible to put that person in a home-ownership program. Because that's the aspect that I have not heard addressed too much, the emphasis toward more home ownership.
We have been discussing that. And we discussed that when Congressman Fattah was here.
And so on, Mr. Dow. I will make your whole statement part of the record. Would you like to see the Section 8 expanded? Because right now it is very limited. 235 RESOLUTION 970558 And I should say, people on disability are not being able to break into the waiting list. And what I get from you is that you would like to see the program expanded in order to be able to accommodate folks that are there and in need of Section 8.
Yes, Councilman. Particularly for the people that I see every day. There definitely needs to be an expansion of the program. There needs to be more intense support programs when they go into a unit or when they go into home ownership. Home ownership counseling programs should be designed specifically to suit the needs of the disabled community, you know. Because there are issues that are very unique to the disabled community. You have a lot of people who have not had an opportunity to live either on their own, and even in home ownership. We also suggest, Councilman -- and this is in my statement, but I would like to state this so you can hear it -- that one way to enhance the usability of Section 8 is to form partnerships. 236 RESOLUTION 970558 And these partnerships should come from other nonprofits, Fannie May, the banking industry, the universities, the hospitals in the area, to make a home ownership and then, like, make that a viable possibility. And I urge, before the Council, that the Council looks at the way that the city goes about dealing with fair housing issues, and that they no longer just take fair housing as being something when a neighbor gets harassed, where the best way to solve the problem is by relocation. The best way of solving the problem of discrimination and patterns like that is reeducation and making sure that people are trained and they know what fair housing is. And it is education. And the city should take a proactive stand on fair housing. I thank the Council for their guts for having this hearing. I am sorry that more of the city officials weren't here. But I commend the Council for allowing myself and other people like myself from organizations, and private citizens, the opportunity to speak. 237 RESOLUTION 970558
Good afternoon. My name is Cheri Honkala, and I am from an organization in Philadelphia called the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. I am happy that Council is holding these hearings this afternoon. However, I am not happy that none of the Johns are here, John White, John Street, John Kromer.
Oh, he was busy? Okay. Because I was going to suggest a cluster John program. I am here today to speak in support of Section 8 and, I daresay, the expansion of the Section 8 program in Philadelphia. We have a serious problem with 238 RESOLUTION 970558 increase in homelessness in our area. And I am also here to speak against cluster housing. First of all, in our organization, we start with a different kind of ideology, which is that poor folks are capable of analysis, understanding what's happening in the City of Philadelphia, and trying to read between the lines when it comes to politics. And, so, therefore, even though sometimes my slated role as a poor person in Philadelphia is to give one of testimony, I would also like to attempt to put forward an analysis of what I see happening in regards to the whole discussion around Section 8 in the City of Philadelphia. I am saddened to see that it is being put forward that poor folks somehow are innately incapable of cleaning their houses, attract roaches, and somehow don't know how to take out the garbage. And I say this as a formerly homeless woman who resided in the City of Philadelphia. And me becoming homeless wasn't a result of not having work ethics, wasn't a result of not knowing how to care for my child or how to clean my house; it was a 239 RESOLUTION 970558 direct result of not having access to decent and affordable housing in this city. Many years ago I put my name on the Section 8 waiting list. And I am sure it will be many moons from now until my name in particular ever comes up on this mysterious list. However, I am here today to testify not because I am interested in becoming the new program director of PHA, nor am I interested in ever receiving any money from the city, state, or the federal government. We have enjoyed the freedom of being able to talk truth to what we see happening as a result. I am not only disheartened that many of our elected officials are not here today, because this affects many Philadelphians, it affects all of us, but I am also saddened to not see the large numbers of Community Development Corporations here testifying and speaking, as well. After all, they run programs. And if it wasn't for those Section 8 certificates, they would be in some serious problems. However, there is quite a conflict of 240 RESOLUTION 970558 interest, since almost all of the Community Development Corporations, probably most all of them, receive funding from the actual guy, John Kromer, from the Office of Housing and Community Development, who has proposed the cluster programming in the City of Philadelphia. So if you get funded from the gentleman, it probably is difficult to come forward and talk against such a discriminatory measure. However, we think that since Council is very interested in looking at absentee landlords, that a recommendation would be to begin to check into the absentee landlords in Center City. There are a great deal of them in the Center City area. And perhaps that would be a good place to start. Not to mention the concentration on the amount of abandoned houses in the City of Philadelphia that continue to fall down around us. And we need to begin to concentrate on developing a plan on what we're going to do with the enormous numbers of homeless families who are going to have nowhere to sleep in the City of Philadelphia because our city too participated in -- 241 RESOLUTION 970558 there was some good leadership, but various different folks participated much in the same way that different folks are participating in the dismantling of public housing here in our area. Which brings me to the question of race. Like the whole issue of welfare reform, race was used throughout the entire country to go forward with dismantling of the safety net program that all of us had the luxury of living under for 60 years of our lifetime.
And now we get to see race used, once again, towards the dismantling of a program that has kept many families, particularly children, off the streets of Philadelphia. I mean, when we get into questions of management, we know that there is plenty of blame to go around in this process. And that involves all of the Johns and, like my Councilman said, Rendell in this process, as well. We need to be aware of the fact that this stuff is incredibly dangerous. " 242 RESOLUTION 970558 We know the real deal here. Because we have had the misfortune to actually know several of the residents in the Philadelphia area that a great deal of politicians have done some wonderful lightings of fires under various different folks, ward leaders, you know, the folks that control the neighborhoods, to begin to start some problems in the neighborhood, as if there is a big problem with any given house on a block. And, so, we have seen this process in some very sad situations that have resulted in families becoming homeless again. Not because they were bad tenants, but because some politicians had other agendas and wanted to run low-income families out of different sections of the city. And the sad thing is that this whole debate is beginning to pit neighbor against neighbor. And for low-income families that are on Section 8, that are doing fine, clean their house, are looking for employment, you name it, become victims in this process, as well. Because if they speak out, they are afraid that people are going to come forward, find out their address, write down their license plate, 243 RESOLUTION 970558 and begin to have them live in a fish bowl. And I think that that's really sad, particularly during this upcoming holiday season. And I am sorry that the Councilman isn't here. He referred to 1515 on several occasions. And we have several petitions that we have brought from all the members of 1515 Fairmount, as well as the various different programs in the City of Philadelphia, and residents of Section 8, and non-residents that don't get Section 8 but that are just residents, that are homeowners in the City of Philadelphia, in support of the Section 8 program. And we can provide those for Council. Lastly, we just think that, again, that we have got to do something about feeding the fire, dismantling a program, and creating a larger crisis for all of us here in Philadelphia. As we go into the holiday season, with growing numbers of homeless families, we don't want to participate in having dismantling of a program and the scaring away of landlords, some of the good ones, from providing decent and affordable 244 RESOLUTION 970558 housing in the City of Philadelphia. Thank you.
Cheri, I don't think from this, at least today, that we made very clear that the majority of this Council feels very strongly that this program has to stay and has to be fixed in terms of whatever problems there are. But that the program itself is not the problem, and neither are the tenants.
We know that. We think that this is really about like who is going to be running for Mayor this next election. And there needed to be a juicy issue, and that's what we think.
I think today has gone a long way. And I think the reason for this hearing, in essence, was because of the festering that was going on throughout some neighborhoods in this city. And that a few of us decided that we needed to have an open dialogue where everybody was invited. And that we needed to begin opening up the windows and bringing in some fresh air, and really 245 RESOLUTION 970558 looking at where it is that we need to go. I think that that has happened today, you know. In many ways that has happened today, without all of the Johns that you say and so on. That has happened today. They will have to come before Council, Rendell and Kromer and PHA, and all of these individuals will --
-- will be coming to Council in order to begin. Because we have a record now of a lot of witnesses that have come, and landlords that have come, before us today. And they will have to begin putting answers to all the questions that have arisen. One of the questions, or one of the issues that is not going to be, and at least from my part and I think from what I hear from Jim Kenney and David Cohen, who are the three major sponsors of this resolution, is that we don't want to see the dismantling of Section 8 in any way, shape, or form; that we do want to see the program run efficiently 246 RESOLUTION 970558 and much better than it is. And so that the key situation, I think that what today has done, is that we have put the debate at another level. We have taken it away from the hidden rooms and the festering. And any politicians that wanted to come to Council today, they were invited. Everybody in the city knew these hearings were going to take place. The Congressman came, and he spoke. Other individuals who may have had an opinion, and if they had wanted to come in, this was their opportunity. This Committee will not go out of session today. We will recess, but we will recess to a date certain in order to have all of the Johns and the Eds come before Council and share information and hear our opinion. And before anything is done about clustering and whatever it is, this Council will be heard from. And I believe that we will represent the voice of the people.
Okay. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Mr. Chairman. 247 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: I just want to make one comment. First of all, I apologize for having to use the men's room. I know I had to leave the room. But certain human functions --
I would like to thank you for using it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: -- do take precedent. And I do apologize for not being here when you started your testimony. But I had stopped in my office on the way from the men's room and heard some of the comments you were making relative to, perhaps, people's motives or underlying messages or conspiracies or politics. I don't think I have said anything in this debate from the onset of this debate in this room today or in any other forum, in the Northeast or in any other neighborhood, that has not been consistent in my position that this program needs to be saved, it needs to be improved in many areas when it comes to relationships with landlords, and some 248 RESOLUTION 970558 of the issues relative to the behavior of tenants. I think they are fair issues for discussion. I have never in any circumstance said that it should be dismantled or eliminated. I think it is a very important program. And the one thing I would caution you, with all due respect, is to not do the same thing you accuse us of doing, and that's pre-supposing what's in my mind or in my heart or in my motivations. And I won't pre-suppose what your motivations are, and I don't think you should pre-suppose what mine may be. Because my motivations, so you know for the record, are to make sure that people have access to clean, safe, affordable housing, despite their economic condition, in any neighborhood they would like to live in, while at the same time allowing those properties to be integrated into an existing stable community that is accepting of those individuals. Not repressive, not avoidance, none of those things. But making sure that everyone understands that the program is run in a consistent 249 RESOLUTION 970558 and fair way so that people are accepted into the community. Because let me tell you something. Right now in many neighborhoods that need to be educated, that feeling isn't there. And I think in an effort to overcome some of the prejudice, some of the predispositions, and some of the other issues that come about as it relates to subsidized housing, we need to overcome those issues. We can't overcome those issues by telling them their legitimate concerns and legitimate complaints should not be looked at and at least studied appropriately. So my motivation from day one -- I am not running for Mayor, and my name is not John, and my name is not Ed. What I do is, I live in the city for 39 years. I hear what people are saying. And the people that are complaining to me are not all white. They are African-American, they are Latino, they are Asian, they have concerns. And I will tell you another thing. 250 RESOLUTION 970558 The issue that comes from my own particular neighborhood, where there are Section 8 tenants who are not behaving appropriately, the predominant amount of them are white. So from an issue of race, it is not there for me. It is there for other people in the community at large. And I think that is sad. And those people need to be educated and changed, their mindset needs to be changed. But that's a long-term process. If this program is going to work and serve people the way it should be served, people need to accept the program and embrace the program, and not have Section 8 be the buzzword it has become. And I think by all of our efforts we can change that stigma and change that attitude, and make this thing go forward in a positive way.
Thank you. And I agree with you. Certainly a man should be judged by his deeds and not his words. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Thank you.
As well as who he keeps company with and his relationships, as well. 251 RESOLUTION 970558 CHAIRMAN KENNEY: I don't know about who he keeps company with. That's up for debate. I wouldn't predispose to judge you for who you keep company with, and you shouldn't predispose to judge who I keep company with.
Why not? That's fine with me. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Mariano.
Cheri, two questions. I keep company with Jim, though, just so you know.
My one question is, we have heard a lot about PHA today. And I am one of the people that are mad because John, John, and Ed aren't here. I am mad, I don't like it, because they didn't let us know. But I will deal with that like I deal with everything else here, as it comes. But you see it at a different level because you are involved with the Kensington Welfare Rights. And I know what you do, and I think it is a good thing. Because somebody has to be here. 252 RESOLUTION 970558 But do they make the homeless beg for these secret certificates? I mean, it can't be pleasant at that level. Because I know I represent --
But I need them to know that. I am not trying to trick you.
It is all politics. I mean, you get things in the City of Philadelphia based on who it is that you know. All right? The squeaky wheel gets the grease. That's how things --
See, I must not know the right people. I can get Sixers and Phillies tickets, but I can't get the homeless certificates for the people that need it. I am serious. There are a lot of us here that you might think we know, and we are that politically connected. We are not.
But do you know what? I am not going to attack the Section 8 program because similar to -- 253 RESOLUTION 970558
I don't want to do that. But there must be something at that level where it can't be great. I mean, if you are on a list for four or five years and it is a legitimate need for a certificate, I mean, something is not right.
Correct. I am not going to get into talking about -- sitting here and talking about the various different -- fall into the trap of talking about the various different things that need to be --
It is not a trap. I need to know what goes on at that level.
Okay, statesmen. But the thing is that, in all various different programs and in political offices, you name it, there is always room for improvement. 254 RESOLUTION 970558 But the thing is that I get afraid of a bandwagon approach. Right? Where we are going to throw out a bunch of misinformation to the general public, and -- you know, like if you listen to the Rush Limbaugh station, like this is the number one issue right now. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: I don't listen to him.
Well, that's good. I will let you know what's on it. Like, dismantling Section 8 in this country is the number one thing on Rush Limbaugh right now. It is the next thing. So I just want to make sure that we are careful that we are not participating in that process. And maybe we are not conscious of playing that particular role, but that we make sure that we try and -- unless we got a better plan, unless we got a better program, let's not throw more and more children out onto the streets. That's all I'm saying. 255 RESOLUTION 970558 Thank you.
One last question, sort of tongue in cheek. If you know who is going to be Mayor, let me know. I can make some money on it. Talk to me later. Let me know.
There is a whole list. You would not believe who is running.
I could use that information. CHAIRMAN COHEN: You have not yet been excused by the Chair.
I am sorry. CHAIRMAN COHEN: In I think it is this morning's Inquirer, there is a story about two or three Kensington homes that have been built that are available at, I think, a $29,000 market price. And that they have been available for the last eight months. Could you explain that? Because what we hear is the terrible 256 RESOLUTION 970558 need for homes that exist. And I cannot understand why these homes have not been occupied.
On what block are they? CHAIRMAN COHEN: I don't know the block.
Sometimes that has to do with why. CHAIRMAN COHEN: They are homes that have been rehabilitated.
I mean it is a whole host of things. I mean, one, depending on the block, the question of race -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Are you familiar with the particular homes referred to in the article?
No, I am not. But I just want to reiterate a very sad reality about the State of Pennsylvania right now. I just checked with some friends in the South that have been long-term working on, like, hate groups and that kind of stuff. This last year we just hit the rate 257 RESOLUTION 970558 in which we have the largest number of hate groups in the entire country now. And that's a real sad statement about the state it is that we're living in. And you know that the history of Kensington has some of that bad history that we have been all working to try and change. But I would hope that that's -- I need to familiarize myself with that particular story before I can speak to it. But home ownership sounds like a wonderful idea, but home ownership is great only if you can afford it. (Applause.)
Councilman Cohen, can I go? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Yes. But when you find out about those homes that are reported -- because I think a Kensington CDC was involved. And it is a story, I think, also about another Kensington. People speaking, feeling that Kensington as a neighborhood has been derogated. 258 RESOLUTION 970558 And they talk about the finer parts of the neighborhood which no one refers to. This was part of the complaint in the article. And then they talked about either two or three homes that they have had trouble selling because people, apparently, were concerned about the reputation of Kensington as a neighborhood, as a result of all of the talk recently about problems that exist in that area. I would like, after you read the article, I would like to get an explanation as to why that is happening. Is it because banks are unwilling to give a mortgage? Because the houses are very moderately priced.
Yes. Absolutely. And, again, I will look at the article. But I think that we all need to make sure that we follow the money in this process, you know, in terms of political alignments, who is in charge of what programs, what programs are getting money from who. I think that in all of this stuff, you know, sometimes various different community 259 RESOLUTION 970558 development corporations have been used for different folks as political agendas. And I just think that it is important that we follow the money. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Cheri, coming from 83 years of experience, a large portion of which has been devoted to the political apparatus, there is such a thing as being too cynical, to the point where you don't participate and help formulate programs. Anybody who thought that the turnout of the number of Council members here today was an indication of people running for Mayor, rather than of people looking for some kind of answers to a problem which threatens to divide this city, put more homeless on the street, I think is missing the point. You can be cynical and decide that all politicians are no good --
I don't think that. CHAIRMAN COHEN: -- and decide where that leaves you, or you can become a player. We are looking -- and I thought the number of people who were present here attested to 260 RESOLUTION 970558 the fact that they think this City Council is a body interested in a problem, wanting to solve. And I am just suggesting that it might be helpful if you and the organizations you represent decide to become players in an attempted solution. There may be among us all kinds of people with differing political ambitions. But also there is among us a very strong feeling of, we want to do something positive that will help the situation in Philadelphia. And we invite your participation.
We have a plan for a new Pennsylvania. And we have some very different proposal on what we would like to see and how we would like to see money invested in bringing back Philadelphia to the standard that it should be brought to. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We may not be able to do much about all of Pennsylvania because our authority is limited to the city.
But there are specifics in there to Philadelphia. So I would be more than happy to send 261 RESOLUTION 970558 some of that stuff to your office. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, we would suggest that. Because we all represent different points of view. We are trying to find a common basis that permits Section 8 to be strengthened, to carry out the mission that it originally had, that we think is a very substantial part still being carried out. But because it is the next step on the extreme right-wing addenda for destruction, it is facing very severe attack. Those of us who believed that the program has merit can spend our time just chopping everybody up and saying, nobody is sincere and it is all political, or we can work together and try to develop, save, and expand this program. We think you are a person and your organization as a group is very capable of making a very important contribution. And we just urge that you take, for the moment, our good faith. Later on, if we fail, then you can say you knew it all along, that we were only cynical politicians. 262 RESOLUTION 970558
I know you have one of the best histories. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We want to try to get to an answer. All right?
Yes. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Ed Schwartz. And Ed is a Councilman who is sitting on the other side. Once you hold an office, you are entitled to use that title. And Ed was a very productive member of this body for a good number of years, until the city stole him from us and put him in charge of housing. Ed, we are delighted to have you here with us on this problem.
Thank you, Councilman. My name is Ed Schwartz, and I am here representing the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, and whatever I know about this after about 263 RESOLUTION 970558 years working on these problems. I want to do three things. I want to start with talking very specifically about the Section 8 debate. And then suggest to you that, I mean, there are all sorts of code language used in these debates, and I would just prefer to get down to what's really at stake. And a lot of, some of the things I have sat here today and listened to for four or five years, there is more garbage poured out of this debate than the average Streets Department thing. Let me start by saying that my view as Director of Housing -- without authority over Section 8, but with authority over funding some properties that eventually got Section 8 -- is that, in fact, government had a higher obligation to enforce standards of civility than anybody else. If government could not be expected to enforce civil behavior on the part of people who are involved in its property, then how could government turn around and force its rules on other kinds of property? It is like the old ad for that kosher 264 RESOLUTION 970558 rye bread company that said they had to answer to a higher authority. I felt like that. So that anybody who came to our office with a complaint about a property that we had something to do with, drugs, noise, all the things you heard about this morning, my reaction was, get those people out of there as quickly as possible. I also felt very strongly, and have continued to work since leaving government, that rental properties and PHA properties and all properties had to be connected in some way to the neighborhood, and that we do have a difficulty in frequent situations of being able to involve renters in activities in the community. Now, I haven't just talked about that. The first social contracts I negotiated in the city were deliberately done in Queen Village, between Southwark and that neighborhood, specifically to make the point that we needed to build a community between residents of public housing and residents of -- homeowners in the area. I am currently in Kensington leading, as part of the empowerment zone a project of block organizing, which, again, involves creating 265 RESOLUTION 970558 standards for work on blocks, that in fact starts with who are we the people of this neighborhood. The constitution. And the point I make by asking that is that we the people includes not really the homeowners, but the renters and the people who live in other kinds of situations. So from the standpoint of just Section 8, I mean, I tried to reconstruct the kind of principles that I adopted when I was in the government doing this. And here some of them -- I will leave this with you -- I didn't invite for this hearing. All information on location of Section 8 properties should be made available, as other ownership is, and they are. You can get that information. But let's start with the fact that people should know where they are. Secondly, all Section 8 properties should operate on the basis of a lease that sets forth clear standards of maintenance and behavior on the part of landlords and tenants. I believe that there is such a lease. Third, Section 8 landlords must, just 266 RESOLUTION 970558 as they must meet standards for managing their property, so Section 8 tenants have to be screened to determine their willingness to uphold the provisions of the lease. And if there is not screening going on, there needs to be. PHA has to encourage Section 8 landlords to become involved in neighborhood cleanup, safety, and improvement programs.
And, in fact, Phyllis Ford, who is Director of Section 8 for some years after I left the government, at some point came to the Institute with a proposal of hers that would have had us involved in some of the community-building workshops that we do with Section 8 residents. That was her idea. PHA never endorsed it, but that's the kind of thing that can be done to build a community within neighborhoods that are economically diverse. Finally, PHA has to insist that landlords benefitting from Section 8 uphold proper maintenance of their properties and take responsibility for the behavior of their tenants. Landlords who do not fulfill these 267 RESOLUTION 970558 requirements need to be removed from the Section 8 program. Case closed. And, finally, you know, PHA just needs to withdraw Section 8 authorization from landlords that are out of compliance. Now, I have no idea right now how many properties might be problem properties within Section 8. I have no idea what exactly happens when somebody complains about a Section 8 property. I was interested in the Philadelphia Inquirer -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: We are told nothing.
Well, I was intrigued in the Inquirer story yesterday about this, that it did end with somebody being evicted from a Section 8 property, with the neighborhood surrounding it -- this was in South Philadelphia -- having a little party. So somewhere somebody got an eviction. But, certainly, if I were sitting there, as I was, the questions that I would ask PHA when you meet with them is, you know, what is the procedure for a neighbor who is angry about some particular piece of behavior for, first, finding out 268 RESOLUTION 970558 in Section 8 who they should talk to, what is the procedure that PHA follows, and what is the consequence? And when they give you rules that they say they abide by, the next question is, how many times have you invoked this? How many times have people been evicted as a result of bad behavior? How many times have people been penalized? Has there ever been a Section 8 landlord removed from the program for inadequate management of their properties? Those are the questions that would get at the facts of this. And if you determine that these systems are not working properly -- I say this as someone who has spent my whole life fighting for low-income people -- in my view you have every damn right to stop it and change those systems. And, by the way, the people that are angriest about this are the people themselves who live near and in these properties. The toughest leases in the city that have been proposed are those that have been advanced by residents of PHA, and residents of Section 8 269 RESOLUTION 970558 properties who themselves don't want to be living surrounded by drug dealing and the rest of it. I was happy to have been in Virginia Wilk's apartment when Jack Kemp came to town, back in 1989, to listen to Virginia Wilk tell Jack Kemp that her major problem in Richard Allen was drug dealing. And Jack Kemp went back to Washington as HUD Secretary and sent a memo out to all public housing authorities saying they had to deal with drug dealing. It began here not from a political leader, not from a conservative, not from the rednecks, or whatever, but from Virginia Wilk, a leader in the Richard Allen Housing Project who was sick and tired of living with drug dealing. So being for the poor doesn't mean you have to be for incivility. And the poor will be the first to say that. So let's start on the basis of what we are calling quality of life, I am on the same side as those who feel we have to enforce proper codes. And these are some principles you might bring to bear. 270 RESOLUTION 970558 Now, where I part company is in the application of all of this to whole categories of people. I am responsible, because of the way the financing of housing worked during my tenure, for the construction, probably, of more rental housing units in the city of anybody else. I don't know. It just worked out that tax credits and Section -- PHA financing, and the rest of it, made rental properties a far more economically viable way to proceed than home ownership. But let's look at the two facts involved in that. At the beginning of my term, a woman named Cushing DelBare, who was the National Director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and a first Director of the Housing Association of Delaware Valley back in the 1960s, was commissioned by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia to do a study on affordable housing in Philadelphia. And what she concluded is that there were 100,000 people in Philadelphia who could not afford more than $125 a month rent. And there were only 5,000 housing units available at that rent, and 271 RESOLUTION 970558 they were all public housing units. So that the demand to help people get into housings that they could afford was overwhelming. And that, as I have heard the tail end of the previous testimony, that is rental and public housing.
And when you looked at the situation with 4,000 people in homeless shelters, while there were 1200 to 1300 vacant units in public housing, it also spelled out that we had a terrible need for affordable housing. And every time we looked at home ownership as that option, home ownership always worked out to be too expensive for most people in this circumstance. Now I want to flip it. Does rental housing carry with it this integral stigma, you know, of irresponsibility? Well, between this morning and this afternoon I went back to my computer. And I have given you the breakdown of census tracts that have the most rental housing in the City of Philadelphia from the top to the bottom. I am not going to read them here. 272 RESOLUTION 970558 Because I guess I feel a little offended. Because I grew up near enough to New York to say that I lived there. And the only people who can afford to be homeowners in New York are the Rockefellers. So everybody rents in New York. But the top rental concentration in the City of Philadelphia is that impoverished slum called Rittenhouse Square. The second one is called Wynnefield. The third is Rittenhouse Square. The fourth is Walnut Hill, which is more middle class. And those rental units I know are some of the -- there is an example of a number of rental buildings that were in terrible shape before I became director, and were in much better shape and managed properly afterwards. Because we invested a lot of money in fixing those up. But then we are back to Washington Square, to Bustleton in the Northeast, to Washington Square, to Somerton, to Franklin Town. You really have to get around to the 15th census tract before you come into North Philadelphia at all. Strawberry Mansion. So the issue here is not rental versus home ownership, per se, unless you are going 273 RESOLUTION 970558 to say that all these people who live in Rittenhouse Square and Wynnefield and Walnut Hill are irresponsible. The issue is the income level that people are in fact living on and what they can afford, and some level of irresponsibility that may occur in rental housing. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Can I just ask you one question? On the percentage of rental housing, do your figures include large apartments or small apartment buildings? Because I think here the issue specifically, as I gather being raised, is the rental of houses, generally, in blocks, say, row houses. It is not a concern about the apartment units, you know, where there is a regular apartment building. The concerns seemed to be about the existence of rental housing in row housing.
Well, these statistics merely go through an aggregate of rental buildings. But I am saying the statements I listened to not only this morning, but for 15 years, 274 RESOLUTION 970558 makes rental housing ipso facto in any category. We are going to have everybody be a homeowner. It is a nice thing to be, if you can. But I refute the notion that just because somebody is a renter means they are irresponsible. Now, the census data certainly can be extracted further to see single-family units rental and home ownership. I will say from my own personal experience that it is ironic to me -- and you heard Congressman Fattah here this morning -- that during the ten years that I was there, the entire, you know, Council and housing, the entire momentum was to break up large units and put people in scattered sites. We have imploded Richard Allen and Raymond Rosen for that reason. Now suddenly we are going to cluster them back. Well, you go ask Councilwoman Verna what happened when my office clustered two blocks on Christian Street that were rental properties, were rental properties, and we invested in their improvement. But all of the people living around 275 RESOLUTION 970558 that area were enraged because we were creating too high a concentration of rental property. And we had to go through, for about eight months, with the organization known as SASNA, which was created out of this crisis, trying to find a way to encourage home ownership to balance off the clustering of rental properties. So every time you turn around, somebody has got a nice tap dance on this. I don't think the issue is rental housing. I don't think it is scattered site rental housing, per se. It is low-income people. Folks are very upset that they are living in coexistence with the poor. And if the poor happen to do something wrong, then that further exacerbates the problem. But it is poverty itself that is the problem. And, in a way, the statistics I give you in the last page here, which is developed for something entirely different, having to do with welfare reform, is really what people are concerned about. In 1990 we had 83,000 households on 276 RESOLUTION 970558 welfare. And now we have 67,000, according to the Department of Welfare. But that's still a huge percentage of the population of the city. I have not spent much time on housing since I left the government. Because the problems that you are trying to solve, frankly, can't be solved through housing. I spent more time on it than the two of you, and I speak from personal experience. We are dealing with a city that has 400,000 adults without high school diplomas. We are dealing with a city in which in two years, 14 percent of every person on welfare is supposed to 15 spend 20 hours a week doing something to justify 16 their check. 17 Now, there is a little time bomb 18 ticking. And, in five years, they are going to have 19 no money whatsoever. 20 And you know something? At that point you better pray that we have Section 8 certificates. Because the only thing that will save those people from being thrown out of their homes, if they are not hired by anybody, is the fact that the federal government will guarantee their rent. 277 RESOLUTION 970558 And this is not some kind of theory. In 1991, there were 1,000 foreclosures in West Oak Lane of homeowners. And I got a call in the middle of the year asking about whether or not people were given homes with too lenient standards for mortgages. What happened? They were, in fact, encouraged to move to West Oak Lane with pretty good deals for home ownership. The economic tanked, they got -- some got into other problems, and they left their homes. Now under welfare reform what's going to happen is this: If people lose all their income, the only guarantee right now they would have is if they are in public housing or in Section 8, that will pay their rent.
If they get a home under, for example, this existing City Settlement Program, which is making home ownership more affordable, and they lose their income, nothing will protect them. So there is no solution to this problem within the circle that you are sitting. The solution lies at looking what the hell is helping with jobs, education, welfare, and 278 RESOLUTION 970558 the rest of it. And, finally, it is sheer demagoguery. Everyone's attention has been focused against the poor. That is what's happened. And this hearing was civil. But I read the reports of went on in the Northeast meetings around this. And it wasn't people who, in fact, I thought made a fairly reasonable presentation. And it wasn't you, Councilman Kenney. But there were several state legislators up there that, frankly, made speeches that were the most demagogic that I have ever read in the City of Philadelphia. And if you want to whip up the kind of sentiment, in the climate that we are living, you are playing with fire. So I spent more hours and more time in the last ten years dealing with precisely the problem of building community among rental, homeowner, and PHA residents than almost anyone I know. And I am all for evicting people on bad behavior. But the problem that is ticking in this city is that one in five of us is about to be 279 RESOLUTION 970558 thrown out of their home because they don't have work. And we have a state that is saying that they are not going to allow them to be educated. And if you think we had a problem of homelessness in the 1980s, when I was here, you wait two years, and you dabble around all this nonsense without looking at that, and you see what kind of neighbors you have on your left. I thank you for your time. ) CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Kenney. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: While I understand and appreciate the fervor in which you delivered your statement, I would like to go back to some of the discussion you started earlier. While I recognize that none of us in this room are responsible for state welfare reform that was done by the Ridge Administration and by the legislature, which many Philadelphia legislators opposed, vigorously opposed --
Not the ones who led the meeting that I am talking about. They were very vigorously for it. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: There are 280 RESOLUTION 970558 individuals who I have been, quote, unquote, associated with, who fought valiantly and gave tremendous oration and debate on the issue of welfare reform. And I am not ashamed to say Senator Fumo was probably the staunchest opponent in Harrisburg on Governor Ridge's welfare reform.
I agree with that. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: The issue that you raised initially, however, was one of fostering -- and something you have been in the forefront of -- fostering community participation and involvement --
And civic responsibility. CHAIRMAN KENNEY: -- and civic responsibility amongst all the neighbors. Let me tell you, I will just give you a short vignette of what I have dealt with when it comes to some Section 8 landlords. And this is something that really pits neighbor against neighbor. There is a Section 8 landlord in South Philadelphia who thinks it is appropriate to move tenants into a property at midnight on a 281 RESOLUTION 970558 Tuesday in a van. Now, normally people move, my experience, at least -- not normally, my experience -- has been that people move into a property on a Saturday morning, you know, in the daytime, with a truck, and people come in and move in their property. What I find happens with that kind of circumstance is that the morning after the tenant moves in -- and if it is a family of a different race, the problem is even exacerbated more. There are a few neighbors in the street who, for want of a better term, I will call knuckleheads, racists, people who don't want black people anywhere near them. And that is a small number of people on that street. There is also a larger number of people on that street who, even though they may not be comfortable totally with the situation, because of their age and their life experience and their own ignorance, are willing to try to make things work. But what happens is that the knuckleheads start doing some things and saying some things that are inappropriate. The people who are 282 RESOLUTION 970558 the tenants in the property feel isolated and alone and, of course, will reach out to friends and family to come and support them because they feel under siege. And what I wind up with are two warring camps of people who are doing nothing but screaming epithets at each other and not trying to get along. Now, I don't suggest we should be told in advance who is moving in where. But if I could get some prior notice, in an effort to get together the leadership of the community, the political leadership, and the decent neighbors in the street, to have an opportunity to go to the Oregon Diner, for example, and to sit around a table with coffee, and at least people have an opportunity to feel each other, to touch each other, to talk to each other before the warring camps start. Whenever I have a problem that's relative to Section 8 or to any other type of rental or nonrental ownership, people who own a home, and there is conflict between people, either intersocial conflict or racial conflict, the first person I call is Kevin Vaughan. 283 RESOLUTION 970558 And I say, "Kevin, do me favor. Send one of your people down or go down yourself and try to assess the situation. " That kind of prior involvement, to allow people who live in the neighborhood or who have never experienced this before, to see that this tenant may work as a dietician in a hospital somewhere, or may be a teacher, or may be involved in the community, who may have grown up in South Philadelphia or grown up wherever it is that neighborhood happens to be, to have a chance to at least experience each other a little bit before people are put into this isolated camp, surrounded by people who are different than them. If I could get that kind of opportunity -- and I have talked to Kevin about this a number of times -- that we could do that in advance, maybe we could head off some of the ugly situations that have surrounded Brighet Ward and some of the other people in the city. 284 RESOLUTION 970558 And I guess that's the kind of involvement that I don't think PHA has been about. And that's the kind of detailed attention, paying attention to detail, that PHA has not been about and that the city has not been about. We just so often throw people in the shark tank and say, "Here. " And I think that between life skill issues and counseling issues and neighborhood interaction issues, we can resolve a lot of these problems and take the ugliness away, if we have some opportunities to do it first.
And that, I think, is what I would like to have from you as we move forward in this, is some ideas on how we do that. I can't make people stop hating. There are certain elements of our community, both black and white and otherwise, who will hate to the day they close the lid on their heads and bury them. They will hate. But there is also the vast majority of the people in this city who I have confidence don't feel that way, black and white and other, and 285 RESOLUTION 970558 Hispanic and Asian, who just want to live in peace and get along. And given the opportunity to do that, they will. They do it every day. They come to work, they interact in office buildings, they have lunch together, they use public transportation together, they see each other on the street. We have to be able to do that in our neighborhoods. Because what it does is, it isolates people, it drives people out, it makes people ugly and brings out the worst of human nature. And we can do all this, despite whether it is Section 8 or rental or ownership, if we just have the opportunity to try to do it.
Well, Councilman, first, I agree with you. Let's start there. Secondly, all of the work that I have been doing for the last seven years around these social contracts has been aimed to do exactly what you are talking about. I find it interesting in the American Street Corridor area, where I am doing precisely this now, years ago Peter Benson, who now writes for the paper wrote a book called "White Town about 286 RESOLUTION 970558 Kensington." I am now sitting in a neighborhood which is about 40 percent white, 40 percent Hispanic, and percent black, and around the room 6 are block captains representing all those, and we 7 are talking about how you make a neighborhood clean, 8 safe, economically viable and a decent place to 9 raise our kids. 10 CHAIRMAN KENNEY: Universal goals. 11
Right. Now, that's 12 what I have been doing. And if you want my help in 13 doing it, you have got it. Because I am doing it 14 anyway. 15 I have to say, I agree with you in 16 part. It has been very difficult for me to get the 17 kind of support from the city that would really make 18 this process work. I am giving it another shot this 19 year. 20 There has been some skepticism about it. And perhaps I am not in this political camp. But despite that, I have kept it going. And we, actually, at this point are doing it nationally. I got a national grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I put 287 RESOLUTION 970558 together a book around what we have been doing. And it is happening in other parts of the country. So I feel very strongly. And I specifically felt, having come through four years of developing rental housing in the city, that this was critical to make it work. And, you know, when Southwark was conceived, the guy who did it in HUD, Kirk Gray, local guy, brought me to New York. He insisted that even though I wasn't PHA, that I be involved in the negotiations. His vision was that it not just be a bricks and mortar deal, but a model for community and opportunity for people. And so I saw America Works then, and all these other things. And some of the ideas that Senator Fumo brought to the city are making that a reality. But it had to begin with the willingness on the part of the Queen Village community to work together. And they did have that willingness, most of them. A few didn't, but most of them did. And so when Queen Village came to me in 1993 and said, "Look, this thing is unraveling," 288 RESOLUTION 970558 could I help, and I had these ideas, I deliberately went into that neighborhood, and took some shots for doing it, because of the commitment to the principle that you have advanced. It comes down to something real simple. Two wrongs don't make a right. And it is wrong to be racist. It is wrong to say because somebody doesn't have a lot money, that means they are a bad person. And it is wrong to put up with nonsense in the name of helping the poor. And these are common sense principles that most of us, I agree, share, and some don't. But we if can bring the people in the neighborhoods who are committed to constructive community building together, then that creates the wedge we need. So if you need my help in those things, you have got it. All I am saying, you didn't create welfare reform. I just saw "Volcano" last night; you know, the tape of "Volcano." Well, the people in LA in that movie didn't create the volcano, but at some point they had to respond to it. And these other things that I am describing are, to me, the volcano that in fact is 289 RESOLUTION 970558 already fueling, if you will, some of the things that are going on in these neighborhoods. I have very specific ideas about all that, too. But this is not the forum for it. We need to work on both simultaneously, or the city itself is not going to work.
Mr. Schwartz, let me say that I agree with you about the demagogs and the politicians that have been trying to foster a climate in this city that's really, really very damaging. And, in fact, there was concern about these hearings, that these hearings were going to become chaotic, they were going to become confrontational, that we were going to have a whole series of things. But the fact is that Councilman Kenney and myself and Councilman Cohen, when we proposed this, it was exactly because we needed to take that debate out of the hands of those individuals and put it at another level. I think we have begun that level today.
I was very worried 290 RESOLUTION 970558 about what this hearing might look like. But I have to say, having been here during the period of transition, this Council stands as a great example of what can happen when people of diverse origins and points of view come together and have to make due with one another. Yes, it started with fist fights. But by the end of the decade the people who were fighting each other were campaigning for one other. And that has continued.
But there are folks out there that are not here, that are not present, who are trying to foster something, another type of climate. We needed this hearing in order to take that away from those individuals and start down another road. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. We need a four-minute break because the stenographer needs to rest her fingers just a little bit and change. 291 RESOLUTION 970558
Assuming that you're right with respect to your dire predictions of the results of welfare reform, 'cause most everybody agrees with you, in light of that, wouldn't it be very important to have a strengthened Section 8 in effect if those terrible predictions come true?
You're not advocating that we are wasting our time here in trying to not only preserve Section 8, but strengthen it, but to also deal with the problems that the program -- maybe other -- maybe ordinary rental programs also create that problem. You know, every time there's a landlord-tenant relationship, there is the great possibility of a lot of things happening that are not good: the possibility of the landlord milking the property, the possibility of a tenant not behaving properly. Add that to the neighbors, and you always have a situation which can be difficult. But it seems to me we've got to work to strengthen that program, to deal with the people you said had complaints that they brought to your 292 RESOLUTION 970558 office, where you got to go back to them immediately to evict if they were tenants, or to remove them from the program if they were landlords.
All I'm saying -- I don't argue with that. I spent a good number of years doing it. And the work I'm doing in these block clubs is covering the water front of these issues as well, and I'm here. If I didn't think it was relevant, I wouldn't have come. I don't show up here a lot, right?
All I'm saying is that there is a tendency -- and I was part of it, I did this for four years -- to see a housing solution to poverty. And there isn't.
But there is a solution as to how those agencies charged with the responsibility for housing should be acting.
No question about that. All I'm saying is that the more people that are living in desperate circumstances, the more we're going to have problems in the City, even if the 293 RESOLUTION 970558 programs are well-managed. I mean, we had four thousand people in homeless shelters in 1985; I think it's hundred 5 now. What will it be two years from now? I'm 6 just, again, using the opportunity to sound the 7 alarm about this particular problem. 8
Well, on these 9 (unintelligible), you're right. 10 (Talking over each other.) 11
I mean, this all began 12 with Jay Lamont writing a piece in the paper and 13 then going up to the Northeast and saying, Hey, 14 folks, in the next years, the way housing patterns in the Northeast are going to go, all the middle class are going to leave and the poor people are going to be here. That's -- I mean that summarized really what he said. And he gave economic incentives for it and whatever. And I'm now at the point and have been for some time -- what do we to try to help people not be poor? And there are some things we can do, and there are some things we have to fight the state over. And that's what I'm spending my time on. 294 RESOLUTION 970558 And, yes, housing is an important component of that mix. I wouldn't have spent the number of years I did on it along with Harrisburg and the rest of it --
Do you have any familiarity about the situation I discussed?
I didn't see the story, Councilman; I'll have to look at it. I do know -- in general, since I didn't see this story -- that there are definitely times when you put a house up in a neighborhood that is perceived to be undesirable and you can't get people to come. Now, I'd have to look -- the one situation I remember was not so much -- well, it was West Kensington, it was the poorest neighborhood in Kensington, and one block was overrun by drug dealers. I mean, you --
And this was supposed to be what they referred to in the article as "the other Kensington," the Kensington that's not been identified recently as being beset 295 RESOLUTION 970558 with prostitutes, with all kinds of drug-dealing problems.
Well, okay, but if the press -- there's no question, you know, we all look at the real estate market and houses. If, day after day, there are huge stories about prostitution and drug-dealing and the rest of it, somebody who's looking for housing may not think that neighborhood is exactly the first place they would go. So, you know, you have to try to put out the positive side. The Kensington South neighborhood where I happen to be now, I think, is characterized by an extraordinarily high degree of stability and harmony among the people who live there. And it's really exciting to see since this area is historically supposed to be, you know, "White Town" and all of that. These are people who have lived there for years and worked together. The same thing is happening in Norris Square. So, you know, we have to find ways that the positive values of these neighborhoods get out there. 296 RESOLUTION 970558
Because we are very concerned that the Mayor chose not to be here today, at the time when most people are here; that the Public Housing Authority either decided or was ordered by the Mayor not to appear; that HUD seems to have been influenced by the Mayor not to appear; that the Philadelphia Board of Realtors suddenly announced that, even though they had already committed themselves to coming, that they would not be coming; that many others that were on the list went -- some of them did finally come, but many of them stayed away despite that, as you could see when the hearing started, this room was jam-packed. Now, why -- yeah, there's a realtor here but nobody representing the Philadelphia Board of Realtors. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is someone here from --
Oh, that's good. 297 RESOLUTION 970558 We're very pleased to see that. Now, if there's anybody from any of the other agencies who's prepared to testify, agencies that I listed as having changed their minds after they agreed, we think, because of requests from the Mayor's Office or people associated with the Mayor, please identify yourself. We've got no indication that PHA is prepared to testify. Is there any change in that? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. 13
Well, let me just make a final comment, then, about my view of that. Obviously a private group, the realtors have to figure out what they want to do in life. But my feeling as Housing Director was, from the day I walked in, that we are paid by the taxpayers, and we owed it to the taxpayers to tell them what we're doing. And if we didn't know, we needed to find out. And for the first six months, I had to sort out a lot of information that --
May we suggest to the Mayor that he hire you as a consultant? 298 RESOLUTION 970558
Well, I'm not sure you're going to get too far with that proposal. But the other piece of it is, yeah, I made some very controversial calls on some projects, the Christian Street one, and there were some angry meetings. I never turned down a request to go to them, never turned down a request for a hearing. I went to all of them. And that's the job. And if you're not willing to do that, then that merely conveys to the constituents that you probably are doing something wrong, and it makes matters worse. So I think it's unfortunate that we don't have the same commitment operating now.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. (Unidentified person addresses Councilwoman Miller.)
And I've been out at a district meeting at a protest all afternoon, but I really wanted to be here. I just want to make a statement for the record. You know, I go to community meetings every week where someone gets up to talk about neighborhood decline and points to the lack of individual values as the root cause. The problems in our neighborhood are complex and need to be addressed collectively by us all. We do a disservice when we try to blame the enormous communitykind on one set of people. I support the Section 8 program and I know it is not perfect. The purpose of these hearings, I hope, is to look rationally at this program and try to improve it. It if needs to be 300 RESOLUTION 970558 changed, then let's change it, but I will not support the scapegoating of any class of people. As a society, we need to provide this subsidy to low-income families. The pressures of homelessness have led to some changes in program intake and policy and should not be driven by such unrelenting pressures. The Council's focus on nuisance crimes is an attempt to return to the old values system that everyone talks about, where everyone swept their front sidewalk and spoke to their neighbors when they passed them on the street. Personally, I think these types of community attitudes will not be legislated back into existence but will only come about through organizing and educating a block on a neighborhood level. Individual Section 8 tenants, just like any other tenant or neighbor, need to feel to be a part of the community they live in. We can modify policies within the Section 8 program to address some of the deficiencies. But, as a Council, we need to find a way to legislate that we live together as neighbors. 301 RESOLUTION 970558 And that's my statement.
Thank you very much, Councilwoman Miller. Now, does the panel before me consist of Sabrina Casin -- I may not have the pronunciations right -- Habeebah Ali and April Jackson?
All right, thank you. Just always identify yourself for the record before you start.
I certainly will. Good afternoon, Council Members, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sabrina Casin, and I'm the mother of four and the grandmother of one, and I'm a former resident of a scattered-site housing program named "Dignity Housing," which was founded out of the National Union of the Homeless, and I am now currently the Board Chair of Dignity 302 RESOLUTION 970558 Housing. Based upon the Fair Housing Act of 1968, it prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion and sex. I was told upon entering Dignity Housing that I would have to attend a six-week orientation program to help to do my short-term and long-term goals and my life skills plan, which I completed, and I moved into Dignity Housing. I moved into the Mt. Airy section of the City of Philadelphia which had the highest rate of HUD-foreclosed units in the City of Philadelphia. When I moved in, I watched my neighbors watch me to see if I was going to be a responsible adult and an asset to my community. I became involved with our block club and I helped to plan our block parties. I also found employment, and it was very important, because I was told that I was moving into a working-class community that I could learn from and also teach them some things. I was amazed at how many times people knocked on my doors to ask me what it was like to be homeless 303 RESOLUTION 970558 and do you know how to access certain agencies. So I did have something to bring to my community. I lived in this home for six years and then I moved out. I will continue to fight for others to have the right to live and learn wherever they choose, based upon the law of the land of the home of the free and the brave. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Councilman, my name is April Jackson, a representative of "Rays of Hope." My name is April Jackson, I'm a single parent of five. My life hasn't been an easy one. I'm a recovering person of five years. And by the grace of God in his mercy, I am thankful to have another chance -- I need to say that again -- another chance at my life and my children's life. I came to Philadelphia homeless but hopeful to start again and to make a difference. Doors have been closed in my face and also have been open to myself and my family, and we are 304 RESOLUTION 970558 grateful. There were lessons as well as blessings. The one blessing we will never forget was in the earlier part of June this year when we were told we had to move out of the home -- when we were told we had to move out of our home. When I asked the question, Where will we go? no one could answer that. But we had to leave what we knew as home for the last three years. I'm a recovering person who's just getting my children back into my life for the last three years. How could I tell my children again we had to be separated because of homelessness? I knew of Rays of Hope, the director, Habeebah Ali, and I got in touch with her and told her my story. And in a matter of one week, Miss Ali called me with the good news. She had found a place that would assist myself and my family, the "Track Program." Miss Ali walked me through the whole process. She cared when no one else seemed to care where we would end up being, on the streets or in a home. So we thank God and Rays of Hope for 305 RESOLUTION 970558 the hope that they have given to us, to know that we know that there are people who still do care for one another in times of need. Miss Ali, to me, knows she is her brother's keeper. And the name speaks for itself, "Rays of Hope." I am now employed. I'm in a five-year housing subsidized program, I'm hoping to become a homeowner within that five years. My children are doing very well in school. My oldest daughter is in Upward Bound. She is also in Philadelphia Futures. Doors just continue to be opened to myself and to my family, the ones that were once closed to us. We thank you, Rays of Hope, for keeping hope alive for all the people you assist year- round.
Thank you, Councilman. Good evening to Council. I do understand that there are some Council listening in on this session though they're not able to be actually here in the room, so I would like to say good evening to the Councilmen and -women of the City of Philadelphia. 306 RESOLUTION 970558
One of the problems is that this is a very heavy scheduling time for City Council, and we have any number of matters that we're dealing with simultaneously. Different Council members have different responsibilities, and that's why you see the buzzing around as they're preparing for sessions for tomorrow and Thursday. We apologize, but there's no other way we could manage to --
I understand. I'm just very grateful that you had the courage to hold this hearing. I would like to say good afternoon and good evening to everyone in chambers. My name is Habeebah Ali. And that is spelled, for the record, H-A-B-E-E-B-A-H. Ali, A-L-I, like the boxer Muhammad. My name is Habeebah Ali, and I entered subsidized housing a few years ago as a result of having to flee my home due to domestic violence. My choices were: homelessness, living in the abuse, or living on the streets of Philadelphia with four children. I chose the shelter system. 307 RESOLUTION 970558 Homelessness in the City of Philadelphia is a horrendous experience. At the time of becoming homeless, I worked for the City of Philadelphia in the Revenue Department, handling hundreds of thousands of dollars by day and having only to fall asleep in a shelter with my children by night. Two of my four children failed school that year due to being in transitional living: renting rooms, staying with relatives and in the shelter systems. My children that year went to four separate schools. That is the reason why they failed, because going from pillar to post and being a responsible mother, I had to put them in the schools wherever we were living at that point in time. Section 8 subsidized housing allowed my family stability in our lives. Today we live in Dignity Housing. I have become the advocate for decent housing. Not everyone can afford home ownership. Some people have to be renters. Section 8 is a much needed program in our region. I would like to shed light at this time on the issue of clusterizing people that live in 308 RESOLUTION 970558 subsidized house. Poor people in subsidized housing cannot, should not, and will not be clusterized in the City of Philadelphia; nor the State of Pennsylvania; and, may I add, the nation as a whole. No clusterization for subsidized housing, no concentration camps for poor people. Though I have been able to enhance my life, and, as you heard, Miss Jackson referred to a program called "Rays of Hope," I am the founder and the director of Rays of Hope Transitional Housing Program. And although we have had several success stories, we have put, to date, six families through transitional housing that have all moved on to long-term homes. We've had a property in the Northeast, in the Burholm section; we've had a property at 76th and City Line Avenue. Through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's lease-to-own program that subsidized nonprofit, CDCs can lease properties for a dollar and run families through them in transitional housing and then allow them to come on into the Section 8 subsidized program. Miss Jackson never lived in Rays of 309 RESOLUTION 970558 Hope. Rays of Hope was able to assist her family with the identifying subsidy so that her and her children would not have to revisit homelessness, As she indicated, after being successful in her substance recovery and gaining her children back from the Social Services programs. People need subsidized housing. We're being cut from the government, we're being slashed. We have to hold on to something. I understand what self-sufficiency is. As I said, when I became homeless, I worked for the City of Philadelphia; I wasn't a welfare queen -- not to say that welfare is not needed, as it was for my mother who raised ten responsible children on the Department of Welfare. " Everyone who works cannot afford a mortgage. There's not a bank who's going to give poor and low-income people working two minimum-wage jobs a mortgage. The Councilman wanted to know why these houses in Kensington were not being sold. Well, perhaps the banks are not going to give these poor 310 RESOLUTION 970558 people mortgages. That may be it, okay? So I am pleading with Council today to not allow clusterization of subsidies. That is a failure. People need to be able to live in mixed communities, and I'm not talking racially mixed, I'm not speak of religiously mixed or your sexual-preference-mixed.
People need to live in a mixed community being that it is a composite of whatever consists of a community. Let us have the same opportunities that the people had when the gates of Ellis Island were open, let us continue to make America all that it can be. Our ancestors, yours and mine, worked diligently for this country. Now, of course, subsidies and monies are drying up all over the place. No one wants to live on welfare because you can't make it from day to day on that anyway. It was never enough, but at least your child had medical, at least you did have food stamps. Now you have to work for a check, and the person sitting next to you that's making 8, 9 dollars an hour, he's feeling threatened because this welfare recipient on this workfare may be taking my job any day. 311 RESOLUTION 970558 We don't have anything left but subsidized housing. And we don't want the poor in this city to rise up against the have's and the have-not's. But human beings are survivors, and people will do what they have to do. I'm a mother of four, and you're going to do what you have to do to feed your babies. We're going to do what we have to do. We're not squirrels. We can't live out here in these elements. The shelters are closed in the summer to people, and the doors to the shelters will soon be closed in the winter. 's to know what time it is in the politics of Philadelphia. I am pleading with Council to take another look. I am a participant of the Million Woman March. I know that millions of dollars came into the City during that weekend. Now, the City says they can't seem to find money to open shelter doors and expand shelter beds. Well, I say that there's a large pocket of money that came here that nobody was counting on that is here. We have to do what we have to do. " When are we going to, in this City of brotherly love, begin to show some love and compassion and have some humanability (sic) about us? Where is the humanity for us? So I know that your plates are full and that you have large tasks ahead of you, but you will have even larger issues. You can put all the gates up around City Hall that you want, but the families with the children, if we have nowhere else to go, we will come and reside here. We're going to do what we have to do. We are citizens of this country, we are citizens of this City. We vote, we pay taxes when we're able to. We may not be paying property taxes but we pay taxes on every dollar that we spend. And I think that is paying taxes. So I'm just asking you, everyone is not making 80, 70, 60 thousand dollars a year. Some of us are making 18, 20, and less. The welfare reform is hurting people. And maybe after a few years, things will settle down, but subsidized housing, whether it's PHA or 313 RESOLUTION 970558 Section 8, is something that has to continue. I'm asking City Council that when whomever suggests it and brings it before you that they want to clusterize people, that they don't want people to have a right to live where they choose, which not only is a human right, but I believe it's a right that we have in our Constitution, that you stand up and be the men and women that we thought that you were when we voted and appointed you, and stand up for our rights and make the positive votes. And, remember, the 1999 elections are coming around again, so we're looking at your results. And more people are going to vote now because we're not going to let what happened to us happen again. We're not going to sit in the house because it may be raining or inconvenient. We realize by us not coming out to the polls, that we are suffering. People are going to be voting in numbers that they haven't in a very long time, so I hope that all you ladies and gentlemen are doing the right things. Thank you for your time. ) 314 RESOLUTION 970558
I hope, from your mouth to God's ear, I hope that that happens. And I hope that people do understand that they have to come out when the voting time is here and that they will vote. Because, let me tell you, because of the lack of voting, because we have stayed away, a lot of things are happening to us that would never have happened before. And, let me tell you something, there will be no gates around City Hall. There will be no gates around City Hall, not as long as I'm here and as long as Dave Cohen is here and a lot of us that are here, there will be no gates around City Hall to keep out the poor. But I think what these hearings are accomplishing today is that we have put the debate on another plane. We have taken it away from the demagogues and the individuals who believe that poor people are the cause of every wrong that is out there. And I think we have begun to begin the discourse on the right road. We will have a policy. We will push for a plan that really takes into consideration 315 RESOLUTION 970558 integration and not ghettoization of people. That's what we're looking for. The plan is to integrate into society, into the City, all of us. We're all Philadelphians. We have to become one. We have to make sure that people are not ghettoized once again. So I think your statements are fantastic, very good. Is there anyone else?
I'd like to just add that when you are making decisions around poor people's lives, if there is going to be such a committee that you come to the people that will be affected by the changes that will be made and at least have them sit around the table and help to make the decisions on their lives.
Do you like the first step that occurred today? Do you ever remember a Council hearing before that began with the people testifying and where the people testified all day until the very end? That's today. It's a new first. We hope that by devoting this day to the community 316 RESOLUTION 970558 and enabling it to talk, we're beginning the process of seeing that new faces appear at the bargaining table, and we want the community groups like your own to be there when the bargaining gets done. There are sharp differences already that have emerged. The Mayor stands for putting everybody together, clusterization. You've heard enough comments from the City Council Members to see that a majority of City Council Members at least -- I believe it will be an overwhelming majority -- will be against clusterization. The Mayor did not want the hearing to take place today. He asked that it be postponed for 30 days while he develops his plan for clusterization. Today we read in newspapers that, unbeknownst to any of us in City Council, the Mayor has already corresponded with Congressman Borsky, asking him to introduce legislation to provide for clusters. You heard Congressman Fattah say he's dead set against it and that he's already discussed the matter with Congressman Borsky. We're very hopeful that that legislation will not 317 RESOLUTION 970558 be introduced. But if it is, we're going to need your help. We can talk. But you can help mobilize the community in opposition. I think maybe this might be the beginning of a real moving up the level of fight to see that all people, regardless of their income, get the basic necessities of life: food shelter and what's needed to have a family live not on the streets but in affordable housing. And that's what we're about to do. And Congressman Ortiz --
I'll tell the two current congressman that I wasn't conferring -- of course, there's one vacancy and maybe he'll go for that. But we intend to do a very serious job here, but we're going to need your help. Never, never depend just on politicians holding office to 318 RESOLUTION 970558 do anything. Sure, push us; push us to the wall to make sure we do everything we can. But the ultimate power rests with the people. And follow Councilman Ortiz's suggestion of helping to get people to understand that they empower themselves every time they walk in that voting booth. They're saying, "We count and we've got our eye on you who are holding office because we're going to be ready to take action at the polls the next time you run if you don't do the right thing." In that way, you can really begin to enjoy the fruits of citizenship, which is what we're all working hard to achieve. Thank you. I think your three statements, like Councilman Ortiz's, they were very (unintelligible) statements, and I hope they will act as an example for many others.
And the next hearing, by the way, is December 9th, at 10 o'clock p.m.
And Councilman Ortiz is going on a very long schedule, and at night 4 is just sort of the middle of the day, and he's 5 still got hours to go. 6 But that's the date when the Mayor says 7 he'll be here. And that day, the people ought to 8 be here to hear what the Mayor has to say and then 9 to have the opportunity to have the Mayor hear and 10 listen to what they have to say.
I'd just like to add, Councilman Cohen and Councilwoman Ortiz, I'm sorry, I don't know this other gentleman's name.
Okay. I am here representing as a member of the Save Our Subsidized Housing Coalition. And a month or so ago, we took several buses to Washington, D.C., and we were very instrumental in some bills that were set out to voucherize Section 8. That has come to a halt. I am also a member representing the Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless. And we will do exactly as you are suggesting, we are doing that now. We are mobilizing in the streets 320 RESOLUTION 970558 because we realize you only represent the numbers, but we're the actual people who are relying on these subsidies. And I'd like to say that I'm glad to see you're back amongst us, Councilman.
And I was so, so thrilled at the position that you took on the Ogontz Manor. It gave me a new infusion of home for City Council. Thank you.
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Catherine Chavis. I'm the President of the Catherine Street Tenants Association. I want to first take opportunity to thank you for allowing me to testify on behalf of the residents. Catherine Street Close, a 32-unit 321 RESOLUTION 970558 complex, was built in 1971 to provide decent and affordable housing for the low- to moderate-income residents. It is a diverse complex consisting of many races, elderly, the handicapped, those that are on their S.S.I., S.S.D., they're welfare and they're working. I am one that's on my Social Security disability due to an incurable illness for the last two years. Many other residents of Catherine Street Close have lived in the neighborhood in a peaceful and harmonious environment in conjunction with our affluent neighbors for approximately 14 to 25 years. 15 Since moving to Philadelphia in the early '60s, South Philadelphia has been my home. Over the years, I have witnessed many dramatic changes, especially the special gentrification and red-lining of our community, along with astronomical increases in the real estate property. Because of these changes, it has made it virtually impossible for my family and friends that were forced to move years ago to be able to return back to the neighborhood. We, the residents of Catherine Street 322 RESOLUTION 970558 Close, have had an association with this community for a long period of time and meet on a regular basis in order to come up with new ideas on helping to improve our neighborhood. For example, once a month, we have a meeting where they come out and have cleanups, and we provide refreshments and stuff, and we have the children come out and help too. One of our organizers has been Leona Smith, a very hard and diligent worker. And I want to take this opportunity to thank Leona for being there for us. Approximately five years ago, under the Low-Income Housing Preservation and Resident Home Ownership Act, we were promised a 50-year subsidy. It has now been reduced down to 2 years of subsidy, causing us to live in a constant state of the fear. Without subsidized housing, we will just become another status quo, homeless. In closing, I would like to say that we should have a choice in choosing where we would like to live, with dignity, pride and respect. In fact, we actually have no intentions of going anywhere, and we know that we can count on your 323 RESOLUTION 970558 help. But one another thing I'd like to say is unless you've lived in these types of situations, you really don't really understand what it is to go through it, to lay night after night, not able to sleep, wondering whether you're going to be homeless, wondering whether your parents are going to be on the street. The seniors that you've watched, who looked after you as a child, who can no longer defend themselves, are they going to become homeless? You know, it's a very, very sad situation in this City. And when I moved here over 30-some years ago, I thought that the City of Brotherly was going to be my home. Coming from Ohio via L.A., I said, Oh, I've come to a brand-new spot, but this has been like a nightmare now. And I know that there's a ray of hope somewhere, and I'm depending on Council, along with all the others, to step in and help us, 'cause we are willing to work with you. And I am one with sympathy. When I'm able to get out, I am there. My number is on my 324 RESOLUTION 970558 testimony. You can call me at any time, I don't mind. And I want to thank you for this opportunity. Do you have any questions? (No questions.)
Okay, thank you very much. Ma'am, identify yourself for the record.
My name is Judith Gorsky, and I live in the Oxford Circle of the City. I've lived there for years. 14 I was asked to testify by Council's 15 Kenney's office because of my bad experience with 16 having a Section 8 next door to me. 17
It's just been a 19 nightmare. We have to sleep with our fan on and 20 our air conditioner because of all the noise. We have people partying sometimes for days. We've had fights, we've had all kinds of -- police have been there at all kinds of hours day and night. And I'm sure there are many good people in the Section 8 in the PHA programs, but that has 325 RESOLUTION 970558 not been my experience.
The first tenant, we had to go to our congressman, Borsky, to get them out. If say anything to these people, we are threatened with physical and verbal abuse.
Many times. The first tenant's boyfriend threatened me and two of my neighbors with a 12-gauge shotgun.
The second tenant, we did go through Section 8 and got her evicted.
After two years of being 326 RESOLUTION 970558 up night after night, not being able to go to sleep.
Yes. And the landlord's comments to us were, "Well, if you don't like it, lady, you can move."
Okay. Could you give that address to my assistant, okay? And we will look into that.
She said Section 8 -- I live in what they call "a set-aside section" in the middle of Queen Village. Catherine Street is between Queen and Fitzwater, okay. It's a beautiful block. You can come in and see our apartments look like they're town houses, okay? I could make the complaint about the bar on the corner from me making all the noise and 327 RESOLUTION 970558 stuff but I don't. Okay, I don't. You have to learn how to work with your neighbors, you know. Like I tell to anyone, I have one of the most gorgeous tans around, and I love it, okay? You know, but it doesn't make me any different from anyone else. I worked for Western Union for many years until I get sick two years ago and they said they had no cure for me and I could no longer work, but I deal with that, too. You know, I've dealt with racism too. I've dealt with a whole lot of things since I've been in this city. You know, but you have to learn how to --
Yes, I've had problems with some of the my neighbors too who are not of my color, okay? But, you know, you just have to work with it.
But part of this has been racial, though, part of this has been racial.
You learn how to work with each other. If the City, the state, the government -- 'cause, see, Catherine Street Close is not handled by PHA; it's handled by HUD, okay, the top gun.
So if you learn how to work and everybody come in together where we can really fight these battles instead of fighting against each other and realize that nobody really wants to be out there in the street homeless, you know.
Ms. Chavis, I think that's all we're trying to do. What's the question?
I'd just like to make one 329 RESOLUTION 970558 thing clear: This is not a racial thing. I don't feel it's a racial thing because all three of my neighbors were white and I'm white. It's a behavioral thing.
I think maybe we have seen, you know, that we have some problems, and there are some bad renters and there are some bad home-owners and there are some bad, you know, things.
But when you're living in a row house and someone is keeping you from -- you know we, have to get up and go to work.
I live in a row house, and we've had that same problem. But, like I said, if you can give that address to us. And that sort of problem, that's an individual problem that we might be able to deal with. So my staff is there. Please do that, and we will get back to you on this, okay?
Okay, thank you. In all 330 RESOLUTION 970558 fairness, I have had help from Section 8 in getting a tenant evicted; not just me, but my neighbors.
Okay. Yeah, I promise that we will get back to you on that. Okay?
And I can count on your help to help us save Catherine Street Close so that I will not have to move in with you, okay?
You're welcome. Leona and I go back to the very beginnings. Dennis McCarthy and Lindsey Johnston. (The latter approach the speaker's table.)
Good afternoon. I am 331 RESOLUTION 970558 Lindsey Johnston, broker and owner of Common Ground Realtors and 1988 president-elect of The Greater Philadelphia Association of Realtors. I'm here today to testify on behalf of the association, which represents more than 1500 real estate professionals and related service providers throughout the greater Philadelphia area.
So is David Cohen and everybody else, we're very glad to see you.
We acknowledge the issues that are raised about the Section 8 program as well as the complexity of the factors contributing to those issues. The necessary answers to this puzzle are not easy ones; however, they are possible if all invested parties work together. Therefore, we propose that a panel 332 RESOLUTION 970558 committee consisting of our association, the Philadelphia Housing Authority, other appropriate City agencies and community groups, be established to begin addressing these concerns. By developing this City-wide partnership, we can integrate government, industry and community perspectives and find a viable solution. Your consideration is appreciated.
Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Dennis McCarthy. I'd like to thank you for giving me a few moments to address this issue. I am not here representing any group or any professional organization. I'm here as an individual property owner and a real estate broker who's been involved in the management of real estate in the northwest section of the City.
Landlords have really come under heavy, heavy bombardment today. So it's -- we're very glad to see you.
That's why I thought you should hear from our side of the issue.
We had HAPCO here, and now you, so it's very good. 333 RESOLUTION 970558
Good. I've been in the real estate business for 35 years or more and have been involved with the Section 8 housing program probably since it first started in the City of Philadelphia. There's recently been a lot of discussions and many articles about the pros and cons of the Section 8 housing program, and I feel that there's a lot of misconceptions about it that really should be addressed. Some of the issues that have been raised are that landlords receive exorbitant rent payments, that the properties are of an inferior and rundown condition, that the Section 8 does a poor job of inspecting and monitoring the units, and that the tenants are destructive and disruptive to the community tranquility. And there are a lot of other issues that are --
Yeah, okay. The issues involved that I'd like to address are basically the issue as to the rental. 334 RESOLUTION 970558 When a person buys rental property, it's bought primarily for three reasons: to get a return on their investment, for an appreciation of the asset, and certain tax advantages. Now, to obtain the return on the investment, one of the key factors is the stability of the rental income. And this is one of the main reasons why a landlord would get involved with the Section 8 housing program. The guaranteed payment of the portion of the rent by Section 8, as well as the facts that the Section 8 tenant typically remains longer in the unit, allows the owner to better plan his or her investment strategy. The monthly rental payment is established by three factors: the HUD guidelines based on the number of bedrooms and what utilities are included in the monthly rental; the condition of the property; and the fair-market rent of other housing units in the community that are not leased through the Section 8 housing program. Now, it's been my experience that Section 8 is paying the same rent for a unit that we receive for Section 8 that we do in the private 335 RESOLUTION 970558 sector. There is no bonus being paid or exorbitant amounts of rents being paid; the rents are fair as to what we're getting elsewhere in the community. The reason an owner goes with the Section 8 over a private sector is several reasons, but the primary one is they like the stability that they know that their income is coming in on a regular basis.
You know, I hear both of you. And to address that issue, can your organization, and through you, make available to this committee sort of like a listing of the rents that are -- I don't want addresses too, but, you know, give me by -- we have a map up there -- in terms of census tracts and so on. So that because the perception that landlords and realtors are becoming hugely, extremely rich out of this program, taxpayer dollars going to individuals; first of all to poor people who do not deserve because they don't work for it and get something for nothing; and then to unscrupulous landlords that do not provide the services and do not upkeep the residences and so 336 RESOLUTION 970558 on, and they're getting rich. Can you give us some information along those lines that would sort of like put a kabosh on that?
We do that now. We give that to Section 8, which is part of their assessment of values. They want comparable non-Section 8 rentals. We provide those to them to justify any rents that we try to obtain from them, and that's a big part of how they establish their rental basis that they get from us and ads in newspapers that they follow and other brokers and other landlords to get a feel as to what the going rents are for a three- or four-bedroom house, whatever the case may be. So I would be happy to --
We've had stories here about landlords that own 20, 30, 50 homes and that they just let them go down the drain in order to block-bust a neighborhood.
Well, I'm in the 337 RESOLUTION 970558 northwest section of the City, so it's a well- established, integrated community, so that's not really an issue up there as much as any economics of the issue may be. I can't speak for other areas, but that certainly isn't the case where we are.
In my area, we have tenants by choice and tenants by circumstance. And I think that's an important point because, as Mr. Schwartz pointed out, Rittenhouse Square has the highest tenant occupancy; however, these are tenants by choice. These are empty-nesters or young professionals that say, My stay in Philadelphia is three or four years, and it does not make sense for me to buy a house. Therefore, I am a tenant by choice. Most of the tenants, and all Section 8 tenants, are tenants by circumstance. The circumstances do not allow for them the option of home ownership. It's tragic in that what the Section 8 subsidy would be for that rental property is often double what the mortgage payment would be. 338 RESOLUTION 970558 But in the University City and West Philadelphia sector in which my company does most of its business, the establishment of rents is based on market value. There is a certain premium for a proximity to campus. There are those landlords, as University City has lost a little bit of its luster and as those graduate students that paid those good rents have gone to Center City or the suburbs, the only tenant that might come in and pay an equal rent is a Section 8 tenant. That is affecting the neighborhood in that, although I believe that everyone has a right to fair and affordable and good housing, there is somewhere in the continuum the question of, Where do we now go from the deinstitutionalizing or allowing everyone access and then once access gets to a certain level, is this now still a neighborhood that is still desirable for those very same reasons?
But people are leaving not because Section 8 was there. The graduate students, as you said, were leaving for Center City and other areas, not because Section 339 RESOLUTION 970558 8, you know, was moving into the neighborhood.
Okay, Section 8 actually saved the landlord because Section 8 was there to provide a tenant for a house that otherwise would have been vacant for a certain amount of time.
And this is where we get into legislating human behavior because those prejudices, as we've discussed here, Section 8 is often used as the race card. And so, when you have the four-unit building, is it true that you can put a Section 8 tenant in with a bunch of college kids and they can get along? It should be in a perfect world, but is this the case?
Well, can you put anybody with a bunch of college kids and get along?
I mean, ya know, come on, the beer parties and all the other stuff. You know, as somebody who went to college for a 340 RESOLUTION 970558 long time, I can attest to you, I don't think me personally would like to move into any neighborhood where, you know, my daughter is in college yet at this point.
Well, maybe I'm being misinterpreted here. I have been in many a Section 8 apartment that was far and away cleaner, where I'd rather lay my head than in a hovel where some of these 19-year-old college kids live. So when we talk about issues that are destroying certain neighborhoods, no, please don't misinterpret me by saying that I believe that the Section 8 situation is what is breaking down West Philadelphia.
No, I wasn't interpreting that but I'm just making a point in clarification for the record. Yeah, I would love to see that type of information coming into the committee because I do not believe -- if Section 8 were not around, as Liz Hersh said, we would have an incredible amount of people that would be out in the streets because we do not have the stock of low- and moderate- 341 RESOLUTION 970558 income, affordable housing in this City. So, you know, and I think the landlords, if Section 8 wasn't around, I think we'd have a lot of landlords that would be going out of business. Would that be a correct assertion?
If Section 8 were not around, we would have a lot of that landlords either would be abandoning homes or be going out of business?
I don't personally believe that's the case, no. I mean, of my management, probably 15 percent of it is Section 8 subsidized housing and the rest of it. And most of my landlords have a mix of tenants; some that are Section 8 some that are not. I don't think it's a question that these houses can't be rented to anyone but Section 22 8. They're in good --
No, I'm not saying that because, actually, what we're trying to do is give people in Section 8 houses that are very well 342 RESOLUTION 970558 and very liveable. But I'm not saying that -- that's not the interpretation I want you to take for that question.
I would say that there are landlords who, when they were trying to rent to low- and moderate-income sectors and were having a hard time collecting rents, and these same landlords, just like you and I, on the 15th of the month, that mortgage payment has to be into the bank. If they were having a hard time getting rent in time to make that payment, then yes, that was a great incentive to say, If I go to the Section 8 program, I know that that when I look in my mailbox on the 1st of the month, that check will be there.
And if we didn't have the ability to be able to house families in these houses that are very well and good homes and so on, we would have a lot of folks out on the streets that would be homeless.
Because they could not afford your regular rents; is that correct. 343 RESOLUTION 970558
And I'm sorry Councilman Cohen isn't still here because he kept asking the question as to, Why did these houses in Kensington that were rehabed by CDC sit vacant? There are two approaches that I want to take to that. One, with the current revising of welfare laws, a person used to be able to buy a house regardless of whether they were on public assistance or not. It was an income screen, and the underwriting guidelines say that a permanent income stream qualifies.
With the revised welfare standards and set time limits, underwriting is no 18 longer allowing that income to be included because they say, It is not infinite; it will, indeed, come to a halt. So that kicks out certain home buyers. Number two, there are no city agencies that encourage any CDC's to use realtors to help move their property, and these CDC's are not set up to move property. They do not understand the 344 RESOLUTION 970558 vagaries of the real estate market. And so we have often unlicensed practitioners that do not -- are not well-versed in credit issues and underwriting issues that are trying to sell some of these houses. And I'll give you an example. The West Philadelphia Partnership CDC came to us after not being able to move a house in the 800 block of South Alden Street. It's a situation where those people that can afford to live there might not want to, and those people who would be willing can't afford to. And they need the help of the professionals that do this 8, 12, hours a day, 15 8 days a week. 16
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Certain, Mr. Johnston, I agree with all that you have said. And with respect to your testimony where you mentioned that panel committee, Mr. Chairman, I had other former PHA tenants and other interested people who stopped me even in the 345 RESOLUTION 970558 hallway who talk about the panel committee. So I think that that -- I don't know what the Chair said while I was out of the room 5 about the panel committee, but it seems to me a good way to go because we have a lot of committed people like yourself who would be interested.
And I would also like to say with regard to CDSs and how they relate to the community, I really agree. It is sad that if we're all in the same, even a small geographical area, if we can't all work together to make it happen -- in fact, I think that instance shows that if we don't, things fall apart somewhat to the degree that nothing moves. And if you don't move forward when it comes to vacant housing, you in effect move backward. And we're all in the same geographical area, with the same community to serve, that we have to work together to make it work for all of us. So certainly let me thank you. Thank you. 346 RESOLUTION 970558
I want to also thank you. Now, do you have any other statement that you want to --
And I will be in touch with you, both of you, because this is not the end of this hearing. We'll be in touch with you.
Might I say, Mr. Chairman, as they approach the witness table, it is really a pleasure to see them because I haven't seen them in a long time. And what's ironic was that I had to meet with the building because we had a meeting with John White, Jr. again. He had agreed to come to meet with another tenant leader, Myrtle Carter from Passyunk. He agreed to come with the new director to try to straighten out some problems. So this is a unique day in that I see 347 RESOLUTION 970558 old friends on totally entirely different agendas, but it's nice to see them. And certainly you, as always, Charles.
And I'm very delighted. And the key situation is that most of you -- and I just want to thank you for staying because we've been having a very -- this is, I think -- somebody has said that this is an issue that can really divide the City up and really put it into a very bad situation. And I think we are trying to bring it together, so I'm very happy that you have stayed and that you're here to testify on this issue. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good evening. My name is Corlis Gray. I'm the president of Queen Lane Tenants Council which is under the umbrella of the Residents Advisory Board.
My name is Asia Coney, and I'm also a member of the Residents Advisory Board, president of the Tenants Improvement Council. I'm also a member of the Technical Assistance 348 RESOLUTION 970558 Organization. And, last but not lease, cochairperson of the national organization known as the Million Woman March.
And you're not Tony Lewis 'cause I know Tony Lewis. (Laughter.)
My name is Charles Reeves, Director of Grays Ferry West, in Grays Ferry.
Good afternoon, once again. I'm present today to add my voice in grave concern to many others who have come before you today concerning the changes being proposed to Section 8 Program mainly discussed as it relates to the assignment and on limiting the number of certificates to certain areas and having the certificates become project-based, which, I think, is a very serious program. 349 RESOLUTION 970558 The program, as you know, was designed to have some flexibility and to be mobile and to assist in upgrading one's circumstances as well as provide housing opportunities otherwise not available at the time. The day-to-day threats of the radical conservative Republican and Democratic elected officials who are trying to promote a position steeped in racism, as I see it, where holders of Section 8 certificates will not be given the same rights as everyone else to live in a neighborhood of their choosing. The reduction of the life span of the Section 8 certificate was just the beginning of the demise of this program, with the 15-year certificate which then became the 10-year certificate, then a five-year and now a 2-year, has a 2-year life span, we clearly see that they are chopping away at this program as it goes on. And remember Whitman Park of the 1960's, which became a national disgrace to Philadelphia. We're saying that the racist attitudes of this nation will not be allowed to rear their ugly head again. 350 RESOLUTION 970558 As most of you remember, Whitman Park was a situation that tore the City apart. There were many of us that demonstrated at that time Milton Street, that marched the streets of Philadelphia to Whitman Park. And the outcome was -- and Whitman still is not completely filled in terms of having tenants there based on some other resolutions that came out of that process. To be given a public forum of this magnitude gives credibility to the racism practiced by many and supported by several of our elected officials, and I'm glad to know that you are not some of those that we're talking about. And the individuals that I'm talking about, we vote for, which gives them the opportunity to propose and introduce legislation that is morally wrong and should be out right illegal. Decent housing is a right not a privilege. This nation promised in 1949 to --
I know they do. The nation 351 RESOLUTION 970558 promised in 1949 that it would reach a goal of decent housing and a suitable living environment for every American family. Well, we continue to wait for the nation to make the effort. Grass roots organizations that I belong to and like Leona belongs to and several others of us find ourselves continuously in positions of advocacy where affordable and decent housing becomes less and less of a reality. We equate this not-in-my-backyard syndrome -- and that's basically what this is, not in my backyard syndrome -- to the Jim Crowe legislation of years passed. This hateful, racist behavior by those who insist on ignoring fair housing laws of this United States will not go unchallenged. Anyone who should lead or would an assault on poor, defenseless people who are in search of decent housing should review past history and understand that it was not accepted then, it will not be accepted now, especially as we move towards the year 2,000, into the next millennium. We will not permit racist attitudes in 352 RESOLUTION 970558 individuals to decide where people should or should not live based on standards of race, income ethnic background and/or ignorance. The challenges of Section 8 proposed that are based on racist thinking and ethnic intimidation will be addressed, and we stand and are prepared to meet the challenge. Thank you to the members of City Council. (Applause.)
My name is Corlis Gray president of the Queen Lane Tenants Council, a tenant organization seeking clarity on the Section 15 8 situation. To my knowledge, the message that is being sent by the Housing & Urban Development agreement in Washington is that they don't want to have cities dumping or putting people all on one page. In housing house families of a higher income with families that are very poor, Washington believes that this gives role models for children and adults, which shows them a better way to live and gives them examples to look up 353 RESOLUTION 970558 to. For example, it teaches residents to strive to obtain higher education, to go to work to, to become better citizens, and to put back into the community instead of destroying it. To me, Section 8 is the perfect vehicle to do this. Instead of mixing working people into the sites, you take lower-income people and mixing them in with the working families in the residential areas. I believe they will also need support and services to help build themselves up to be equal to their neighbors. Finally, I would like to refer you to the Gottrick (ph.) Experiment done in Chicago in the 1970's, where the children of lower-income people did better in school, obtaining employment, and behavior than when they lived clustered in segregated inner-city neighborhoods. We should have learned by now that segregating people together in poverty does not help anyone. It doesn't help those families, and it doesn't help the City. Thank you. (Applause.)
That's the lesson 354 RESOLUTION 970558 that this country still has not learned.
Excuse me, Charles, but, you know, we had a professor from Temple who said, by the way, because people say that if you integrate a neighborhood, they think that property values are going down, right? He said it's the opposite. Actually, those neighborhoods in which -- and he said the best way to increase the value of your property is to have a minority buying the house next to you because the house will go up in value. That's very, very -- and the point is when a professor says it with statistics, you know then that it has to be right. Go ahead, Charles.
First of all, I would like to thank you for being here and having these hearings. And I thank the Lord for allowing me to sit here and say the things I'm going to be saying tonight. In reference to Section 8, and we go 355 RESOLUTION 970558 back to the march in Grays Ferry. As you know, I was one of the major pushers of that march in Grays Ferry, and I thank God I was able to do that 'cause I thought it was necessary, absolutely necessary, and I hope it don't become necessary again in any other parts of the City. But, unfortunately, from what I'm hearing that's coming out of the Northeast, on the TV, they're showing a letter that's being passed out to people about how they're going to be burned out if they don't move out of Section 8 houses. I say to these people who are thinking like this, Beware, 'cause you live in a house too. And, so help me God, if any part of this City where we find the black people have been attacked there, we're going to take black men in that area. We're not going to no longer all sit back and call the police department because we're finding out that the police department, with their racist attitudes, is part of the major problem of the problems we're having in this City and especially Grays Ferry where we got people who are filing complaints about being harassed, their 356 RESOLUTION 970558 houses being attacked, their children being attacked, their places being wrote on and being called "black nigger this" and "black nigger that" every time they come out their door. And the police department comes and it winds up with a reverse charge on them. It's happening in Grays Ferry right today. And the potential for explosion in this city is great and it may start there in Grays Ferry 'cause people there have been living with this stuff a long time and trying to do the right thing, trying to work around these problems. But there's a group of people, like Kenney said earlier, knuckle heads, who insist upon this racial stuff. And one of the reasons is for the first time in the history of Grays Ferry, you got ten white males on trial for assaulting a black family, and not only just one black family, there's black families being messed with every night in that neighborhood right today. I know because I go into these blocks and go into these people's houses with my people, to make sure that from now on, that they have support, because the police department will not give them the type of 357 RESOLUTION 970558 response they need tog get. Section 8 goes back years ago. I was in the demonstration in Whitman Park. C. with Frank Rizzo when they brought him there twice because he didn't utilize the Section 8 program correctly in the City of Philadelphia. I don't know if any of you all remember that. And here we go, here we are now. And now my concern is where you gonna cluster these people at? What are you talking about, in the suburbs? I know nobody's stated where they going at. C. C. about this very same thing. In 1982, they were talking about relocating Hispanics and blacks in suburban areas, they were talking about cutting this and cutting that and the Section 8 program. Back in May of last year, I (unintelligible) in Grays Ferry in the little (unintelligible) in a church somewhere. There was so much racism in the room, you could cut through 358 RESOLUTION 970558 with a butter knife. And these people are talking about vigilantes marching on people's houses and getting rid of 'em, and the guy next door got a Cadillac and I don't have none, I've been working 30 years, and all this stupid stuff like I heard some of the stuff here tonight. It has nothing to do with the person's (unintelligible) or what right they have to be there. If they're doing something illegal, have the police deal with it, but you don't have a right to march to on their house and threaten the people, okay?
The people in Grays Ferry who are now supporting these criminals who attacked this lady over there and that (unintelligible) family, and they're upset about it and they think they're going to use this Section 8 thing as an excuse to keep attacking people, I warn them, be very careful about what they're doing 'cause we are fed up with their foolishness, we're fed up with the police department. And, I'm telling you, this City's getting ready to rock and roll of they don't watch themselves. 359 RESOLUTION 970558 And not only them in South Philly, the ones out in the Northeast and in any other part of the City where they think they can just attack black families and get away with it. Now, I had a lady that just called me this morning from the Northeast. They were running up to her house and they told her they'd burn them out, and all this kind of foolishness going on. And still the police department winds up locking her son up for defending his mother. I want to say this, and I'm going to say this with all my heart, I've been in this City, have doing community work for 37 years. I'm not a racist. I don't care what color people they were. But if they're violating the law -- we're supposed to be law-abiding citizens. If these people are violating the law, why aren't they being arrested? Why is all this dumb stuff going on? And this is what's making people mad because the police department will not arrest these people. Because most of the police out in my area live out there; we got three captains who 360 RESOLUTION 970558 live right around me. ), who lives at 1524 Washington Street. They was doing everything to this woman. Here's a woman that's in her late 30s, she's never been arrested in her life. And in the last month and a half, she's been arrested three times on her block when she called the cops to complain about what they was doing to her. And when the cops come, the white folks come out in the street and scream and holler, and the police, the same racist police, wind up charging her. Now, she's got three different cases to go to court with. She's moving. And I see now we're starting to get our churches burned down right here in the City of Philadelphia. Where do these people think they are? Somebody better listen up, somebody better talk up to them because, I'm telling you --
Mr. Reeves, I think today, in essence, I'm a believer that you got to discuss problems, and you got to be able to put everything on the table. 361 RESOLUTION 970558 They asked us to postpone this hearing, I mean, because they were afraid of something happening, and that it was too volatile. I've never been afraid to face the tough, hot, whatever issues there are. And I said no because we cannot let something just fester, fester and fester outside. And we have to begin taking positions of leadership. And we have to begin saying that certain things are wrong and that certain attitudes are wrong. And that if there is, what we cannot do is to allow a program to become a code word for something else. And we have to begin, those of us who are in political leadership and who have been put into leadership, we have to begin saying, This is not going to happen while we sit here. We will not allow it. I will not want for you to do what you say, you know, that, because we should not allow anybody, the citizens of this City, no matter who they are and where they come from or how poor or how rich, we're supposed to be a City and a nation of laws, and those laws have to be respected, and 362 RESOLUTION 970558 everybody has to be protected at the same level. And I would hate us to ever be put into a position in which we have to start taking the law into our own hands to try and defend our own self, because then we have ceased being a society. And we cannot afford that. And I know that we are at this point -- I got two -- I got three kids. I got two at home; one is seven and one is three. And I want them to be able to live and be able to go out. And I teach them that they are individuals that are free, and they are able to do that and go wherever it is in this country as long as they obey the laws. So we have a situation here, and I think we needed this hearing in order to start putting this issue on the right track, and I think we've accomplished that today. I think we accomplished that today. We need to begin taking the code word out of Section 8. We need to begin taking out the code word when they say, These people get something for nothing and I'm a taxpayer and I am subsidizing someone. 363 RESOLUTION 970558 And, like I said very early on in this hearing today in the morning, I pay a mortgage so I am subsidized by the federal government. I receive a federal subsidy. Everyone who is a homeowner in this City receives a federal subsidy. If you don't like federal subsidies, then let us go out and give back the mortgage subsidy that we get. I don't think anyone, any homeowner in this City would do that. When the Republicans in Congress said that they wanted to get rid of the home mortgage subsidy, they almost got thrown out of office, almost got thrown out, and they backed out because they would not be allowed to do that. And the same thing here. Section 8 is not a program that began yesterday. The problems of poverty and neighborhoods that we have were not begun by Section 8 individuals. Racism was not started by Section 8. Section 8 is a program that began in the '30s and helped a lot of white folks, it helped a lot of individuals who today have sent kids to college and so on down the line. 364 RESOLUTION 970558 So what we are trying to do is make it clear to the administration that the ghettoizing, if it was wrong to put into ghettos, 20-story ghettos in Richard Rosen, and everybody found out that that was a bad experiment. Well, it is wrong to put them in small little clusters the same way, and I think the message that is being sent to the Mayor and to the PHA people and to the OHCD is, in essence, that we don't like clustering, we do not like people being set apart from one another, to being labeled. We are not that type of society. That type of society is not what American society is to be about. We do not label people and put a star on an individual and say, There goes a poor person. That is not the type of City that we want.
That is the type of City that creates problems and creates division and creates hostility and hatred, and I don't think we want to go down that road.
One more point I wanted to add to that. In the process of having HUD enforce some of the regulations that they have for the 365 RESOLUTION 970558 Section 8 program, which I think is a good program if they'll do that, the police department in this City needs to be checked. Because, see, the police department is causing a lot of problems in the City because they're not doing their job properly, you know, and this is where this racism is coming out of, this Philadelphia Police Department. And I'm talking seriously about Grays Ferry, okay? And I suspect that it's going on all over the City, because the same things are happening where people are being attacked and nothing's being done about it. So we need to make sure that these laws are going to be enforced for everybody. Thank you very much.
Yes. I would just like to clarify a point. Charles talked about a meeting earlier at a church. This meeting was called by the Grays Ferry Community Council in which John White, Jr., who, at that time, was elected director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority attended. 366 RESOLUTION 970558 The specific purpose of that meeting was them demanding that no more Section 8 certificates will be placed in the Grays Ferry community, and it was a very volatile meeting. Also, the other individuals that Charles talked about, the women and the families that have been addressed in homes that we've gone to, they are also recipients or holders of Section 10 8 certificates. So to be real clear, this situations is one in which individuals are moving into communities with Section 8 certificates, which is their right, but they are being met with racism. And I honestly see this whole plan of clustering individuals as a plan of getting individuals out of the community and it is disguised and steeped deep in racism. And, for the record, I want to be clear that everybody understands that.
And, clearly stated, it's clustering black people. And everybody else waltzes in and takes the regular Section 8 367 RESOLUTION 970558 certificates and go into the neighborhoods and cluster our people. And that's what I resent.
Well, I don't think it functioned, I don't think it worked. And, as David Cohen said here before he left, I don't think the majority of this Council, the overwhelming majority of this Council, would go along with a plan like that, and we would make it very clear that we need to discuss whatever plan PHA or OHCD is trying to put across, they're going to have to come here before they implement it.
My name is Leo Bazzoli, mostly known as "Buzz." I'm on the Board of Directors of the Kensington Independent Civic Association. I've been a community activist for around 40 years. I 368 RESOLUTION 970558 believe I'll go first in testimony.
I want to thank you, by the way. You know, you understand that we had a very long hearing, and I want to thank you for staying and bearing with us throughout the day. So I apologize for the length but thank you very much for staying.
Being as I'm testifying so late, I've cut everything to the bare bones. Tonight I'll attempt to put forth a few observations that I've gotten for more years than I care to remember as being a community activist. And I hope to shed light on the situation for both sides. Section 8, when it was originally set up, it set the rents for an entire zip code. It purposely set them high to entice landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers because everybody -- well, no one knew what it was, and was a little leery about it. And this caused rents in the area to rise accordingly. And a landlord that doesn't have Section 8 says, Hey, those guys are getting X-amount of dollars, so I'm going to raise my rent 369 RESOLUTION 970558 and they did. But the scattered site Section 8 hasn't worked too well till this time, and two of the reasons follow. I'm sure you've heard all kinds of horror stories today about landlords not taking care of properties and stuff like that. That's another issue that should be addressed. Many of the people chosen for this program lacked the social skill to interact in a positive way in new surroundings. Secondly, many of them lacked basic housekeeping skills. As strange as it seems, we had a situation on our street where a family moved into an apartment, their washer sat on the porch for a week or two. We figured, They're going to put it in eventually. One day the washer's out there happily pumping wash water over the banister and onto the pavement. So we immediately told the people. They said, Well, that's where we're going to put our washer, and you're going to take it and like it. And so we had to contact the landlord and L&I to get the situation settled. Well, these people 370 RESOLUTION 970558 just didn't know any better. Perhaps -- now, this is the nasty word, and I don't think to use it, but perhaps some sort of a clustered or living in an area to enhance these skills before these people move into the community, it might help. In other words, I'm sure the councilwomen and the councilmen, they've watched their parents clean and this and that, and they know how to do it. Now, I know people that can't scrub a floor. They have no idea what to do. They know to slosh some water and push a mop around but that's it, let alone cleaning a house or taking care of the outside. In many cases, people like that are the very reason for flight by established residents of a neighborhood, regardless of race, color, or whatever. The flight begins and then it becomes a target for real estate speculators who move in, using scare tactics to induce more flight. Believe me, we've lived through this. Did you see what moved in down the street? , etc. A community rapidly disintegrates from that point, from a taxpaying community to a tax-dependent community and with the result of cutting back in public services. I'm sure the streets in Chestnut Hill are cleaned a lot more often than the streets are in Kensington. The only time they get cleaned is when we do it ourselves. As the properties deteriorate, other speculators move in, they buy these properties for a pittance, and they resell them on either a shady lease-purchase deal where the poor person's bought the house and will never have a chance as a snowball in Hades to own that house. It's just a way to renting a house, without taking responsibilities. They either do that or put it under Section 8 for as long as they can or put it on an open rental market. And they file an untraceable lease or an untraceable deed by using the property they purchased as their mailing address. This way, they become invisible, the visible landlords. I can point out properties in 372 RESOLUTION 970558 Kensington that -- five different properties that the same man owns. He's got five different addresses, and we can't locate him. As a rule, these people pay no taxes or water or sewer bills.
They do minimal repairs, and when they milk the property for all it's worth, they walk away from it and they leave the community with another problem to deal with. And I'm referring you to the accompaniment in my testimony there. That's 244 abandoned houses in a 20-block area of Kensington.
And all of these 244 houses were Section 8 houses? And you have proof of that?
No, no. Let me go on. All of these houses were once owner-occupied, and they went through that scenario in one way or another, whether they went through Section 8 or whether they went through private rentals.
But do you have proof that these houses were abandoned because Section 8 moved into the neighborhood?
No. Well, I've known people -- not an abandoned house, Councilman, 373 RESOLUTION 970558 Don't get me wrong there. I'm not saying this. We have Section 8 on our street, and they're --
But you're making a statement about 244 houses that are abandoned, and the interpretation is that these houses were the result, the end-result of the same program.
They were owned the by speculators at one time or another. They went through the above scenario, whether they were rented through Section 8 or whether they were rented on the open market is irrelevant.
But you cannot prevent speculators. We're talking here about Section 8 housing, okay? And we need to be able to have that very clear. You cannot say that 244 houses, and you make a list here, and that also these houses give the impression -- and I don't want to leave it for the record -- that these houses were abandoned because of Section 8 problems.
I'm not saying they were abandoned because of Section 8; they were abandoned because of condition that they were let 374 RESOLUTION 970558 get into by the landlords who filed an untraceable deed. You can't find these people, they're gone, but we're stuck with the houses. Whether those houses were Section 8 or whether they were straight rentals or whether they were owned, it doesn't matter. They were gone.
They were once owner-occupied, you have said that. Perhaps the time has come to limit the number of Section 8 rentals.
Now, these properties were once owner-owner homes which had been through the scenario above. I don't care whether it's -- look, I have nothing against Section 8, nothing at all. We're going to have the poor people that are going to be living with us forever; they must be helped. But I do have a problem with the way Section 8 operates. It's a cash cow for landlords. Maybe the time has come to limit the number of Section 8 rentals in a block or in a 375 RESOLUTION 970558 community because Section 8 rentals, as they work now, are usually the predecessor to the community's decline.
I just want to put for the record that nothing you have said in this testimony goes to substantiate that.
But what substantiates that is the information I gave you. Being it's so late, I wouldn't go through all that. As it stands now, it's too generous, and it just became a racket. People move in, they don't take care of the properties, the landlord doesn't take care of the property, he just wants his money. The Section 8 Program has to change from both sides. Landlords have to be more closely supervised, and even landlords that don't do Section 8. We have buildings in our neighborhood that rented Section 8 until they became ineligible for Section 8 because they were so bad. And the landlords proceeded to rent them to other people 376 RESOLUTION 970558 until they abandoned the building. And I'm referring you right now to the New York Times article. You take that and you read it at your leisure because it's long, but it's interesting.
We will do that, and we will include everything in the record.
And I'm asking you -- to answer the Councilman's question, show me a neighborhood that's been improved or stabilized by excessive Section 8 housing, and I'll humbly apologize for everything in here.
Thank you. I represent West and Southwest Philadelphia. We have opened hundreds of brand-new housing developments. Developers came in, some co- ventured with the community, some were totally private, and they have the Section 8 subsidies, brand-new, beautiful housing throughout West and Southwest Philadelphia. So I differ with your statement when you say, Has our community been enhanced or 377 RESOLUTION 970558 stabilized? The answer is yes. We have hundreds of houses in West Philadelphia to substantiate that fact.
Well, it must be brand-new housing. I mean, to stabilize an established neighborhood, it hasn't been done. Kensington is your prime example, Councilwoman.
Well, I can't comment on Kensington; I don't know it, but I do know that in West Philadelphia, it works for us.
It seems that once a neighborhood gets so bad, it seems that the process in the City is, you run a neighborhood into the ground until it gets so bad that it becomes a wasteland, and then you build it up. We want to preserve our neighborhood as it is but integrated as it is also, but we don't people moving in like the people I mentioned, without any education that put the washer on their front porch, and that's how they do the washing. This is ridiculous.
We hear your comments and thank you for them, but that does not mean that that's the Section 8 program. 378 RESOLUTION 970558
People who don't know how to live can get in that condition for many reasons, but that does not necessarily mean they are Section 8 people.
Well, this hearing is about Section 8. This hearing is about Section 8, so --
Also, Section 8 affects everybody, Section 8 and non-Section 8. You see the predecessor to a house going to hell in a hand basket, so to speak, when some speculator buys it, he rents it Section 8, he scares people around on both sides, they move away, then he buys their houses --
Well, I have the proof in our files at home. If I had realized you had wanted them it, I would have brought the boxes with me. 379 RESOLUTION 970558
We thank you for your testimony, sir, but we can respectfully disagree.
Councilmen Ortiz, Blackwell and Kenney, my name is Don DeMarco, and I'm here on behalf of Open Fund for the Future of Philadelphia, which is a program of funds for an open society. You may know us in part for our intentional integrationist newsletter that you may have received from time to time. The Philadelphia City Administration's call for moving Section 8 tenants, mostly non-white out of scattered-site housing of their own locational choice and into large-scale developments designated by the City will be opposed by Open Fund for the Future of Philadelphia. Mayor Rendell's administration, and specifically, John Kromer, Philadelphia's Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development, were put on notice November 14, 1997, to publicly and without reservation permanently abandon all clustering plans or risk enforcement 380 RESOLUTION 970558 action. "Open," cofounded in 1975 by civil rights legend, James Farmer, and recently-deceased pioneer pro-integrative developer, Morris Milgram, is based in the City. Its longtime methods of operation have included pro-integrative service and mortgage incentives. Its history has not been one of confrontation or enforcement actions. Open's local project, Fund for the Future of Philadelphia, has engaged the support of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, which had issued a legal opinion detailing applicable fair-housing law, and I have a copy of that opinion to distribute to you. The opinion concludes, for the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Philadelphia's proposal to cluster Section 8 certificate holders in designated housing projects would be illegal under the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights statutes. One, if the designated multi-unit buildings selected are large complexes inhabited 381 RESOLUTION 970558 cheaply by Section 8 residents and other poor families; or Two, if the buildings are chiefly located in minority neighborhoods of Philadelphia. And what will be your bet that it would be other than that? Mayor Rendell and Council President Street and other members of the Public Housing Authority operate Section 8, including its scattered-site variety. PHA has displaced well-qualified Section 8 applicants in order to give priority to the homeless, many of whom do have some problems. And some of those problems, in fact, make them questionable neighbors. Displacing qualified people is a perversion of the program's intent, which was to give locational choice to persons qualifying for public housing assistance, who are prepared to be proper neighbors. Neighbors of Section 8 tenants and neighbors of African Americans misidentified as Section 8 tenants simply because they've rented outside the ghetto are now up in arms. The City's 382 RESOLUTION 970558 neighborhoods are re-earning their reputations for racism; and the City government, for ineptitude. Parachuting ill-prepared people into neighborhoods is bad policy, but to make another egregious error by clustering -- that is, segregating Section 8 tenements controlled by favored developers -- is not the answer. Using Section 8 for proper purpose is the answer. Pressure from neighborhood activists crying, "NIMBY" (not in my backyard) does not justify segregated practices. Fix scattered-site Section 8; don't use it to fuel Philly apartheid. Here are copies of my statements, copies of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund legal opinion, as well as copies of "The Intentional Integrationist," which includes some reference to this segregative planning by the City agency.
Thank you very much for your testimony. Just two questions. It's my understanding that your position is that you are staunchly opposed to the clustering aspect of what's been -- I guess it's not even formally announced yet, but it's being reported in the paper as being the 383 RESOLUTION 970558 Administration's preference. But you are also opposed to, or at least find fault with the non-prepared formerly homeless person getting preference over those who have qualified and are waiting on the waiting list today. Is that correct?
That's not only correct, but I would suggest to you that putting ill-prepared people in scattered-site Section 8 units is perhaps a device in order to cluster Section 8, to whip up antagonism in the City's neighborhoods so that the Section 8 certificates can be put into the hands of the larger landlords who, indeed, are the ones, in a number of instances, getting rents that are above the market rate. It's not the scattered-site people who are reaping those benefits in the main. So that what's proposed here actually aggravates what the City has created for itself. There are better jobs that can be done, and I have talked to people who have an investment in the homeless programs and the use of the Section 8 program. They have acknowledged to me that there are more than a few people who are parachuted out 384 RESOLUTION 970558 into Section 8 housing without the necessary preparation. So I'm not denying that, and I don't think you have to deny that in order to take the position that clustering is segregative, and segregative action by government is unlawful. And CDBG funds and other dollars that come to the City may have a cloud put over them if the City goes ahead with this program.
I'm just gathering this from your testimony, but do you believe that that process of parachuting quote/unquote people into communities isolated is done intentionally?
I think that it's done neglectfully. I think it's done knowingly. I think it's done recognizing that there will be unhappy consequences. I think it's done without taking the effort that's necessary in order to rectify the problem. And now, instead of rectifying the problem, we're going to compound it by segregating people in large complexes. So we have one mistake which is going to be aggravated by another mistake. And this second make will not be 385 RESOLUTION 970558 tolerated by Future or Open.
I ask this following question because I was curious as to what you're experience has been, good and bad, with respect to the Section 8 program one way or the other. What section of the City do you live in?
I happen to live in the northwest. And to the extent that I have experience --
Yeah. It's not that much in the neighborhood where I live. For the most part, I hear --
That you know of, in all fairness. Not to interrupt you but --
The vast majority of tenants are decent people and you don't even know they're there.
And you wouldn't even know the difference between them and -- 386 RESOLUTION 970558
Exactly. And there are people of all hues, even though overall most of the Section 8 tenants are people of color. And in most instances, I think there's not necessarily a problem. In some instances, there are. Those problems are being used in order to contort a whole program into a segregationist scheme.
Okay, thank you. Council Members, do you have any questions for these witnesses? (No questions from the Council Members.)
Are there representatives of the Housing Association? I'm sorry, sir, we have one more witness before you. Mr. Lockey, please come forward. (Mr. Lockey comes forward.)
Good afternoon. Thank you for waiting. Please identify yourself 387 RESOLUTION 970558 for the record.
Thank you very much. My name is Wade H. Lockey. I live at 4808 Disston Street, in Philadelphia. What happened in me is, I moved into this apartment complex of, oh, six apartments. And when I moved in, I had a different landlord, and he made me show him my latest bank statement, and I had to give him the name -- or the phone number where I lived -- I mean, where I worked, for a confirmation of my income. In the meantime, he eventually sold the apartment building to a very big real estate company in Philadelphia. And I didn't think anything of it. I met my new landlord and, you know, I didn't think anything of it. But over a period of time, what had happened was, I noticed there was a difference in tenants. " In other words, they had problems when they came. And I said, Geez, it looks like they just liberated themselves from their parents, and this is their first apartment. And there was all 388 RESOLUTION 970558 kinds of stuff like a guy coming in in the 3 morning to see his girlfriend, they had their kids, and so on. And there was a lot of violence and threats and noise. Well, I was hoping to not have to get involved in that. One time I did refer a young lady to a place to get her food for her children, and so on. And so what happened is, eventually there was a guy that became -- and I have to emphasize this, everybody in this case was white. Let me tell you. It has nothing to do with religion -- or race. And so this guy moved in next door to me, and I had two other tenants before that and I never had a problem. I was engaged in my work, which is computer technology, and I was hardly ever home, because I was always busy. Well, anyhow, this guy comes in next door, and he suddenly -- I noticed that he had a lot of visitors. Well, we had a lot of visitors. We had a coffee house open on Torresdale Avenue. I live up on Tacony, and he had about 17 different guys in 17 different nights. 389 RESOLUTION 970558 And I said, Well, so that's his life style. Don't worry about him, just say hello, you know, and all that. Well, he did a lot of other things that made me very suspicious of the fact that he was not a compatible neighbor. Well, I tried not to pay attention to him, just wave to him, how ya doing and all that. Well, it didn't work out well, I eventually had to retire from my job. I had to be home every day, and this guy started to torture me, and I thought, Why would he torture me? I never bothered him. Every day there was something new. There was a lot of problems when I was walking my dog and, you know, all kinds of nonsense like that. Then he eventually -- well, I had to say I felt that he was a homosexual. Okay, that's his life style. Then moved in a lesbian, and they started to take the property over. And he started to be like, I'm in charge. He rubbed it into me. I said, have a one-year extension on my lease. Well, in the meantime, in November of 390 RESOLUTION 970558 1996, I was coming out of my apartment. Our apartments are like four feet apart on the side of the building, and he punched me in the face five times. Well, I did go to the 15th District and I made a record of it. Well, I never had a -- I never bothered with the guy because I didn't care. Well, anyhow, what happened was, the landlord eventually moved all these other people in, with all their problems. And one night -- I mean, I did meet some of the young people that he moved in. And one night I came home, and this is like -- well, you figure the hearing is going to be December the 17th, so it couldn't be too far away. And these two young men who -- they moved in with their girlfriends. I checked with the landlord, and he said, Oh, I only have girls registered. They moved in with their girlfriends, and they had given me like, you know, like sad stories like, Geez, I'm in between my job and all that, you know. So, I was like, Oh, okay here's a twenty-dollar bill for rent, you know, and never got my money back never expecting to get it back.
391 RESOLUTION 970558 So one night, they met me at the curb when I was coming home, and it was o'clock at 4 night. It's a matter of record, by the way, 5 police record. 6 And they said, We want you to take us 7 somewhere. I said I'm not taking anybody 8 anywhere. I gave you guys 20 bucks apiece and I 9 told you, on the basis of that, don't bother me anymore because I know people, you know, bother you if you're easy, they'll bother you more. Well, anyhow, as I got out of my truck with my dog, which I had a German Sheppard which I've always had 'em, and they started to beat me to the ground and threatened my life. And as I tried to make it to my apartment to call 9-1-1, which Frank Rizzo says it's more like Dial-A-Prayer, and he's right, 'cause it was, and it took me a week to get detectives out. And I was beaten three or four times to the ground. A young man did come to my rescue and so on. And they tried to grab my wallet, and they lived in the apartment building. That's what got me. And, eventually, after five or six days, the 392 RESOLUTION 970558 police did arrest them, and they are being held for trial today. But here's a case where people who moved in, and they were Section 8, and I'll tell you how I know they were Section 8. What happened was, the landlord must have learned his lesson, because two days after this happened and the detectives called him and everything, there was nobody in the apartment house. And to this day nobody, there's nobody there but me. He cleaned everybody out, the landlord did, even the guy who just tortured the hell out of me next door to me, he didn't have anything to do with it as far as I know other than the fact that he would like carry tales, you know, which I had no time for because I was engaged in my own profession. And everybody is cleaned out of the place. I don't know what the landlord is going to do about it. I have no heat to this day, even though I pay my rent and --
My point? Well, you heard 393 RESOLUTION 970558 my point. It's a bunch of people imported in there under Section 8. And I happened to see a lot of the mail that was in the vestibule there from Section 8 government asking to inspect the property and so on. But all this -- what happened was, my landlord would just sit there and he would call Section 8 anytime he wanted a tenant, and I'm the only legitimate person there that ever pays regular rent and was there even before the landlord. So, in other words, I have been assaulted three times by the tenants, including an attempted robbery. That's my point.
Okay, well, I saw you at the law enforcement meeting we had up at Illona Keller's restaurant.
And you know what happened since then? I asked, in front of the microphone, which you might remember, I asked Richard Zappelli to break up a crack house one block from where I lived. And guess what? The guy was evicted. I have to give Richard Zappelli credit. And guess where the crack guy ended up? In my basement, in my basement. If he knew that I was testifying here tonight, my life would be on the line. Do you understand?
What happened? That's what happens with Section 8. It's a lot of crap. And I want it the hell out and I mean it.
Thank you, sir, appreciate it. Tony Lewis. 395 RESOLUTION 970558
Good evening. My name is Anthony Lewis, and I'm Managing Director of the Housing Association of Philadelphia.
And I want to thank you for the opportunity to do this. I've submitted the full testimony for submission included in the report, and I won't spend a lot of time repeating it 'cause it's all been said today, but I just wanted it to be clear that the Association is opposed to any plan that explicitly talks about designating zones for people. The only other point that I wanted to say is that whatever happens with this, we need to put it to bed quickly. And, as I pointed out in my testimony, I've talked to people in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and this is becoming an issue. And regardless of how we want it to look, it's being translated as a race issue across the country, and it's not the kind of national 396 RESOLUTION 970558 publicity that we need in the City of Philadelphia, that government officials in Philadelphia are trying to develop a designated area for the minorities in the City of Philadelphia. I talked to John White before he left, and suggested to him that we were prepared at the Housing Association to provide some housing counseling to the public housing tenants who are under the Section 8 program, that clearly -- no 12 one will question the merits of the program, but clearly, no one can question that there are some problems in the administration of the program. But we think this is the wrong solution, that we think the solution is obviously some education, we think it's some counseling. We think it's conflict resolution, and we think that it's diversity training for the existing residents. But I believe that the problem can be resolved, and the Housing Association wants to go on record as being available to assist in any way we can to bring a conclusion -- an amicable solution to this for all the people involved. 397 RESOLUTION 970558
Thank you very much. Your testimony will be totally incorporated into the record.
I think we have some other testimony that will be incorporated into the record. Thank you, Tony.
Don't worry about it. We've been here since very early on, and we waited for you, I want you to know. And Jim Kenney and Jannie Blackwell and I said we're not leaving until Tony Lewis comes here to testify, okay?
Okay. Those papers are supposed to be included into the record, okay? , right here, where we expect to see at that point the representatives of the Administration, PHA and OHCD. ) - - - WRITTEN TESTIMONY ADDED TO RECORD, PER C. ORTIZ: 1. From Phila. Health Managment Corp. (PHMC) Testimony to Joint Committee on Law and Government and Licenses and Inspections, November 18, 1997, Elaine R. Fox, Vice President, Specialized Health Services, Philadelphia Health Management Corporation. Recent articles and editorials in Philadelphia newspapers have described a host of community problems associated with Section 8 families, the solution of which appears to be to limit availability of certificates -- and, in particular -- to homeless families. Section 8 housing, however, allows disadvantaged Philadelphia residents to live in affordable housing throughout our community. The crisis in affordability of housing has left many Philadelphians with few options for housing. PHMC, a nonprofit public health 399 RESOLUTION 970558 corporation established in 1973, has worked on addressing issues of homelessness for nearly 4 years. PHMC's research first identified the scope 5 of the problem in Philadelphia and led to the 6 development of a number of programs which provide 7 health care and social work services to homeless 8 people on the street, in day programs, and in 9 shelters. 10 Of particular note is PHMC's homeless families initiative, developed in the mid-80's, which demonstrated the effectiveness of intensive case management provided post-shelter, which helped homeless families maintain their homes, and families and become self-sufficient. By proving that these services were essential and effective, this program, funded by the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, served as a model for many programs for the homeless. Over the last ten years, we have provided intensive case management services to formerly homeless families moving into transitional housing throughout the City. Research has shown that because of subsistence living and family disruption, formerly homeless 400 RESOLUTION 970558 families often need help in learning skills necessary for independence. In fact, few of the families had ever lived independently or were responsible for rent; therefore, learning "life skills" is essential to their stability. Parents often lack skills necessary for effective child-rearing. For families leaving the condition of homelessness and attempting to live in the community, case management services are essential in assisting families to break the cycle of homelessness and become self-sufficient. Through regular home visits -- usually over the course of a year -- and frequent telephone contact, our case managers help families maintain their homes, develop parenting skills and acquire skills necessary for self-sufficiency. Without these services, families are inadequately prepared for caring for their homes and families and are in danger of becoming homeless again. Because of a recent increase in the number of Section 8 certificates, hundreds of families are bypassing transitional housing as a temporary housing option and moving directly from 401 RESOLUTION 970558 shelter into Section 8 housing. In fact, for the City's fiscal year July - June 30, 1997, over 850 homeless families moved into Section 8 directly from shelter or after spending a very short time in transitional housing. These families often spent a short time in shelter and face the same serious issues as described above. Yet, there are very limited social services available to them. Our work has shown clear lasting effects as a result of the provision of aftercare services to families, which continue after families move from shelter into housing. The answer to Section 8 problems is not to limit families' movement into communities, but to assure sufficient access to services which can help them move to greater independence.
In addition to counseling and case management, our staff provide in-deputy education on budgeting and life skills. Topics have included keeping your home organized, getting along with your neighbors, appropriate discipline of children, interpersonal skills, knowing the community. We also take steps to assure that families are connected to health 402 RESOLUTION 970558 care and that children are enrolled in schools. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to provide additional information on the clients with whom we work and the services we provide. - - - 2. Letter from Milton Karabell: I own a property in which I have one Section 8 tenant, and I wish to object to the comments made by the Mayor and other parties of self-interest who claim the program is a failure. The Mayor is quoted as saying that since there are no Section 8 tenants in Chestnut Hill, the program failed. I didn't know that was an aim of the program. I thought it was to get housing for people who needed it. The Mayor's as "Czar" wants to put Section 8 tenants in 50-unit buildings. We are in the process of tearing down buildings which were built on this theory. A small warehouse is still a warehouse, but it would be interesting to see the Mayor and Czar Kromer put up such a building in a Chestnut Hill; or better yet, in East Falls, where the Mayor lives. 403 RESOLUTION 970558 The pressure to do away with scattered housing seems to come primarily from politicians and groups representative of neighborhoods where racial tension is and has been a problem. These opponents should examine their personal values, seek ways to improve the social services which are available to the tenants, and organize programs to help reduce tensions rather than propose seclusionary, racially-motivated policies which are little more than a new, veiled version of segregation. There have also been questions raised about the rent levels. My property is inspected every year, and I am held to the strictest interpretation of the housing code. Moreover, a change of tenants almost always entails at least a three-month vacancy because of the re-inspection and approval process. It is an attractive rent, yes, it is, but it is probably less than a third of what it costs the Housing Authority to provide a three-bedroom apartment in a "project" of theirs. My tenants have a secure private entrance and exclusive use of a very large 404 RESOLUTION 970558 fenced-in backyard. The property is a half block from an elementary school and two blocks from a high school. The neighborhood is integrated and problem-free. Does this sounds like a failure to you? Sincerely, I. Milton Karabell. - - - 3. Testimony prepared by Anthony Lewis, Managing Director, Housing Association of Delaware Valley. To the Honorable City Council of Philadelphia: My name is Anthony Lewis. I am the Managing Director of the Housing Association of Delaware Valley. The Association, a United Way agency, is the nation's oldest housing advocacy organization, founded here in Philadelphia in 1909. The mission at this time, as it is today, is to secure decent housing for all, in a suitable environment and the elimination of racism and discrimination in housing. To reach this goal, the Association acts as a watchdog of government programs and policies, advocates of housing alternatives for low- and moderate-income families, conducts 405 RESOLUTION 970558 research, engages in educational activities, provides technical assistance to organizations and groups, and operates program to assist low-income families to gain, maintain or retain decent, affordable housing. Throughout its long history, the Association has worked to improve opportunities for all citizens, with certain attention directed to the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, those who do not speak English, and the disabled, children, and the aged. The Section 8 program is a federally-funded rent subsidy program for low-income families.
The concept for the program actually grew out of the 1967 National Advisory commission on Civil Rights (Kerner Commission), which was formed after the nation was torn apart by riots in Cities. The proposal was to 20 specifically expand the rent supplement program to 21 permit use of subsidies for existing housing, thus 22 increasing the reach of the program to all 23 segments. I do not believe that anyone here can question the merits or the success of the program. 406 RESOLUTION 970558 In Philadelphia, tens of thousands of low-income struggling families have benefited, and many have moved on to private ownership and independence as a result of the Section 8 program. In Philadelphia, there is low-income housing crisis. As bad as it is, the Section 8 program has meant a great deal in keeping that crisis from being even greater. That program has brought millions of federal dollars to a sagging real estate market and provided jobs and other extended economics benefit for the local economy. The Association is here today to explicitly oppose any legislation or plan which attempts to cluster Section 8 certificate holders in "designated zones" or deny low-income citizens the freedom of choice in neighborhoods and housing. While the much talked about proposed cluster plan lacked any specific detail, as reported in the media thus far, we believe that it would violate Title VIII of the Federal Fair Housing Act, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, and the Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance. We believe that the proposal violates the Federal 407 RESOLUTION 970558 Department of Housing and Urban Development's own statutes with regards to fair housing and discrimination. At a minimum, it is clearly in conflict with current programs and policies with regards to increasing the housing opportunities of low-income families and the deconcentration of the poor in ghetto-type living arrangements. We believe as well that this proposal to cluster Section 8 certificate holders raises other Constitutional questions. While I am not here today to label anyone, and I do believe that this proposal has grown out of an attempt to respond to some few documentable constituent complains, the appearance has unquestionably become one of race and class. The fact that the complaints have come from whites in largely white neighborhoods about people of color moving into those traditionally white neighborhoods lends itself to that argument. However, to label thousands of law-abiding, decent citizens as "bad" neighbors and attempt to abridge their rights because of problems caused by few is wrong. 408 RESOLUTION 970558 From our perspective, there is no 3 question that problems do exist with the operation of the Section 8 program, but it is equally unquestionable that the recommended solution is wrong. Last month, in a letter to then Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) Director, John White, the Association indicated that there are some problems in the administration of that program and offered, with the approval of the Office of Housing and Community Development, to provide housing counseling assistance and conflict resolution and design a component for Section 8 families moving into traditionally white neighborhoods or neighborhoods going through racial and ethnic transition, at no cost to PHA. Mr. White embraced the idea, but did not have the time to implement such a project before his leaving the agency. I have spoken with Fred Purnell, the acting director, and he too has indicated his interest in resolving any disorders in the program and indicated his intent to include the Association and others in further dialogue after he has had time for internal review. Whatever we do, may I suggest that it 409 RESOLUTION 970558 be done expeditiously. , and Chicago. All have couched the proposed plan in racial terms. " This is not the national image that we need.
The longer this conflict is allowed to go unresolved, the more of this kind of negative publicity that we can expect. One suggestion would be the development of a joint community-government task force which includes representatives of Section 8 certificate holders as well as residents of areas where conflicts exist. The Association stands willing to assist in any way we can to bring a fair, legal and equitable resolution to this issue. I want to thank this honorable body for this opportunity to briefly express our views. - - - 410 C E R T I F I C A T E WE HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Tuesday, November 1997 were 8 reported and accurately by me, and that this is a 9 correct transcript of same. 10 11 12 RE: PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE COMMITTEES ON 13 LAW ENFORCEMENT AND GOVERNMENT, and 14 LICENSING & INSPECTIONS 15 16 17 18 ----------------------------------, DEBRA A. WHITEHEAD, RPR and __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, RPR