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.