אפישעל בוש נעמט סעקשאן 8 פין ניו יארק
אפישעל בוש נעמט סעקשאן8 פין ניו יארק פאר אנדערע סטעיטס
כאטש איך בין א רעגיסטרירטער רעפאבליקאנער קוקט נישט אויס אז איך וועל וואטען פאר בוש אין אזוי אויך מיט וועם איך רעד פין די ארטהדאקסישע אידן זענען קיינער נישט אנטציקט פין עם-
August 30, 2004
Northeast Loses in Reshuffling of Housing Aid
By DAVID W. CHEN
he Bush administration is replacing the nation's three-decade-old financing system for public housing with a new formula that will redistribute billions of dollars, chiefly from New York and other big, urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest to small, rural places in the South.
The plans represent one of the most far-reaching changes in housing policy in decades, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is still working out many of the details. But already, housing authorities in the Northeast, including New York City, Baltimore and upstate New York, are talking about the need to lay off security guards, close day care programs or charge tenants for snow removal, air-conditioning and other services. Agencies in the South and the West, meanwhile, say they may finally be able to pay for their public housing maintenance needs.
Set to take effect in 2006, the new formula stems from the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 that was sponsored by former Representative Rick A. Lazio, Republican of Long Island, and signed by President Clinton. It mandated a new way of calculating the federal government's $3.6 billion annual budget for day-to-day housing operations, such as labor, maintenance, insurance and utilities.
The existing formula, which dates to 1975, essentially allows established agencies to receive lump-sum payments to run public housing projects with minimal documentation. The new formula for calculating federal subsidies is based on the actual expenses incurred by a housing agency, and it is twinned with a new carrot-and-stick philosophy requiring all agencies to meet new performance standards.
Smaller housing authorities, especially in the South, have long complained that the old formula favors older housing authorities by paying them more than their actual expenses, while ignoring the growing costs of new agencies. A study by Harvard University last summer echoed those concerns, and recommended that the subsidy be reformulated to reflect housing costs better.
In theory, at least, many agencies and housing groups welcome the overhaul as a fairer formula. But the reality of slicing up the subsidy pie has provoked visceral reactions among winning and losing housing authorities similar to those in voter redistricting: it all depends on whether they get more or less than they did before.
About four-fifths of the nation's 3,100 or so public housing agencies are expected to gain money over the next two years, according to preliminary HUD data analyzed by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. Dallas is scheduled to receive an extra $7.6 million, or a 70 percent increase. Hundreds of small agencies in the South, led by Texas and Florida, are poised to gain at least 50 percent.
"It's unbelievable - I've got a smile on my face," said Kevin Cregan, executive director of the Broward County Housing Authority in Florida, when told by a reporter of a projected increase for his agency of 144 percent from about $700,000 to $1.8 million. He hopes to use the money to hire badly needed maintenance workers.
But anticipated losers say the new formula is flawed and too draconian. The New York City Housing Authority says it could lose at least $35 million from its current subsidy of $759 million, a 5 percent decrease. Meanwhile, a necklace of struggling upstate cities, like Syracuse, Rochester and Niagara Falls, could lose more than a third of theirs.
"When this industry was started in the 30's and 40's, it was never thought to be that you had to make money - it was all about finding people a decent place to live," said Frederick R. Murphy, executive director of the Syracuse Housing Authority. Faced with a cut of 34 percent, he may seek higher insurance contributions from union employees, among other actions.
While the Bush administration did not initiate the push for a new formula, the result does comport with its broader goal of relying more on private-sector practices to revamp traditional housing policies.
The most publicized housing battle this year has involved the administration's proposal this year to loosen the eligibility rules for the $14.4 billion Section 8 voucher program, the government's primary effort to help the poorest Americans find and pay for their own housing. The change could mean that families with higher incomes could receive vouchers, leaving those with lower incomes to fight for a smaller share of the pie.
The debate over operating subsidies, by contrast, has been confined to a small group of public housing officials, beginning when Congress directed HUD in 1998 to determine a new formula for operating subsidies. A year later, after some reluctance on the department's part, Congress directed the department to hire the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to conduct the study, called the Public Housing Operating Cost Study.
Directed by Gregory A. Byrne, former director of the Miami-Dade County Housing Authority, and James G. Stockard Jr., director of the school's Loeb Fellowship Program, the study recommended that HUD stop delivering a lump-sum subsidy to each authority. Instead, it advocated decentralized budgeting and management practices used in the private real estate industry.
The study, commonly referred to as the Harvard cost study, also calculated each agency's projected new subsidy, using as a benchmark the cost of running private properties subsidized by HUD and insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
Despite criticism from some agencies that the F.H.A. data was a poor parallel for public housing, HUD accepted the findings, then invited a couple of dozen housing authorities to massage the specifics. Those negotiations concluded in June, and the final details should be released soon.
"We believe it's a significant improvement over what we have currently," said Michael Liu, the department's assistant secretary for public and Indian housing.
There are some clear winners. All but 12 of Texas' 353 housing authorities are slated for increases, for a statewide increase of $54.1 million, or 47 percent. In Florida, all but three of 81 housing authorities are projected to gain, too, for a statewide jump of $37.6 million, or 38 percent.
Other gainers include Puerto Rico, Georgia and several agencies in Westchester and Long Island.
In Wichita Falls, Tex., a city of 100,000 on the Oklahoma border, an increased subsidy of $1.1 million, or 158 percent, is likely to be used to shore up an aging infrastructure. It is only fair, said Richard E. Schneider, executive director of the Wichita Falls Housing Authority, since smaller authorities have long been accustomed to being overshadowed by heavyweights like New York.
"It's just like a guy who needs to lose five pounds," said Mr. Schneider, adding that he is a proud Brooklyn native. "In all honesty, it would probably be good for them, as opposed to being anemic at the other end."
On the flip side, 608 authorities are projected to lose money, according to the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. Among the hardest-hit states are Nevada, with a 21 percent cut, and Alaska, with 75 percent. But of the individual authorities with annual subsidies of more than $1 million, 11 of the 24 biggest percentage losers are from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
In New York state, 45 of 84 authorities are slated to lose money, for a net loss of $30.7 million. New York City officials say that the formula ignores additional costs such as the 1998 law's requirement, now going into effect, that many tenants perform community service. They say the formula also does not recognize the economies-of-scale benefits that can come with centralized expenses for contract bids, maintenance and heating services for big public housing projects like those that dot New York City.
But officials also see the merits of the new philosophy, and say that the negotiations with HUD were fair.
"Given that it could have been much worse, I think HUD did a decent job in coming up with an outcome we could live with," said Douglas Apple, the New York authority's general manager.
Baltimore faces a shortfall of $6 million - or 11 percent of its subsidy - on top of a deficit of $11 million. So the housing authority may have to fire its entire police force, suspend job-training programs and stop delivering meals to seniors who cannot leave their homes, said Paul T. Graziano, executive director of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, and commissioner of housing for the City of Baltimore.
Even Mr. Byrne, the formula's architect, anticipates growing pains. But he believes that public housing will ultimately benefit.
"People initially said, 'How dare you go outside the public housing world? Public housing is public housing, and you don't understand how life is in there,' " said Mr. Byrne, now a housing consultant in Bethesda, Md. "But we don't do residents any good if we don't manage the properties very well. I think this is true program reform."
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