Housing Cuts: Where do we Go from Here?
In June, HUD announced to housing authorities that due to an unanticipated rise in utility costs, it would be unable to fund them at the amount previously committed. Cities across the nation that relied on Federal money to house their poorest residents were already bracing for a shortfall of 8% before the announcement. Now, they were told there would be a further cut of 7%, for a total of a 14% ($600 million) shortfall for 2006. HUD’s June announcement that it would be funding public housing operating budgets at only 85.5% of the need was painful for many reasons: To many, it seemed cavalier considering the impact. It was as if HUD simply said, “Oops, we never anticipated that utility rates would rise like that. We never bothered to plan for such a scenario. And now that it’s happened, we’re not going to try to fix it by asking Congress for more money. Instead, you’ll just have to make your budgets leaner and meaner. Tighten up your belts.”
But “tightening belts” when it comes to public housing can translate into serious impacts with life or death consequences for residents. One of the simplest and quickest ways for housing authorities to cut costs when under the gun is to cut staff. This is why after years of continuous funding cuts, the San Francisco Housing Authority has gone from a staff of 535 to fewer than 400 in the last five years. This year alone, 24 employees have been laid off to compensate for loss of Federal funds.
Aside from the loss of good union jobs and the toll this takes on employees and their families (many of whom are current or former public housing residents themselves), these cost-cutting measures are disastrous for tenants. Fewer staff means longer turnaround on repairs. Residents with “non-emergency” repair needs such as broken windows, clogged sinks, or non-working light fixtures may have to wait six weeks or more before their units are repaired. “Emergency” repairs—which in the private market would be enforceable code violations—also take longer to address. The current SFHA policy for emergency repairs is a 24-hour turnaround time, but most tenants would balk at this figure: Residents say that they wait and wait for serious problems such as broken locks, asthma-causing mold, and backed up toilets to be fixed, as it is. The nature of an emergency does not change with available funding: a hazardous situation still needs to be addressed within 24 hours. Yet, with insufficient staff, how can the Housing Authority do it? Either emergencies will remain unabated for longer, with major health and safety repercussions, or other repairs will become further backlogged.
One already problematic area that will certainly worsen is vacancies. Uninhabitable units will remain boarded up and vacant for longer and longer. This affects not only those families who have been languishing on the waiting list (of which there are 30,000) hoping for an affordable home to become available, but it decreases quality of life for existing residents as well. Empty units become a blight on the community and quickly provide refuge for criminal activity. The isolation created by empty units also makes residents easier targets for crime.
Fewer staff also means less management oversight and decreased ability to perform more than the most basic management tasks. What falls through the cracks when staffing is limited are the other important roles played by management. When a manager’s focus becomes simply collecting rent and moving residents in and out because she or he is juggling multiple properties, tenants suffer. Good managers know their residents. They know who belongs at a property and who doesn’t. They have the time to pay attention and to take action when problems arise. They notice if an elderly resident’s health is failing or if a basketball hoop needs replacement. In San Francisco, where violent crime is a fact of life at the larger, family developments, these things matter. But managers will be incapable of guaranteeing security when they have too many properties to care for and are beholden to the bottom line above all else.
When budgets are cut, anything that remotely resembles “frill” goes away. In the case of senior/disabled buildings, one such program is a resident custodian program in which residents are paid to keep an eye on each other and to ensure that the property is cleaned and cared for on a daily basis. Frail, elderly residents put cards on the door saying they are okay. When a card is not visible, the custodian knows to check up on the resident. The SFHA terminated the resident custodian program in response to last year’s budget cuts, and it is only to due to a labor union challenge that the program still exists.
Security services are also considered an “extra” by the Federal government. Funds are given to perform major capital improvements (the capital fund), for day-to-day operations (operating funds), and a very limited grant is available for revitalizing distressed properties (HOPE VI). But there is no longer a funding stream to pay for security-related items. The Federal Drug Elimination Grant, which provided the SFHA with $1.4 million, was terminated in 2002. Now, when cuts to operating budgets are made, security services will also suffer since it is one of the only funding sources to pay for it. There seems to be general consensus that one major way to reduce the plague of violent crime in San Francisco’s public housing developments is to hire police officers during the evening hours, instead of having them go home between five and nine. With resources squeezed so tightly and a mandate to keep rents low and meet basic housing standards, how can the Housing Authority pay for such other crucial costs as security? Yet murders keep happening.
The sudden, mid-year ‘06 cuts are also extremely hard to stomach because of the context in which they are happening: From the looks of it, Congress will only fund next year’s budget at around 78% of the need—a 22% cut. The President’s proposal shorted public housing operating budgets by $1 billion. While the Senate bill raises that amount by $100 million, it still falls far short. And this is nothing new: Operating budgets have been cut by $1.5 billion since ‘01. Other funding sources have been under If the staff decides that maybe you were using drugs in the bathroom because they don’t like how you looked at them, you’re out. No proof. No witnesses.
- • Allowing staff to deny a person shelter services for threatening behavior outside the shelter.
If someone is having a mental health crisis in another neighborhood and staff see him or her and decide they feel threatened, they can write it up prevent the individual from receiving a shelter bed.
- • Allowing a shelter to prohibit residents who have won their arbitration from entering back into the shelter due to “labor concerns” and the mere feeling that staff might be unsafe if the resident returns.
If an arbitrator rules in your favor and allows you to return to the shelter, the administrative staff can decide to disregard current City policy and refuse you reentry-with no consequences. They still get City money.
These recommendations will be discussed in front of the Shelter Grievance Advisory Committee on December 13th at 2 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the Human Services Agency at 1440 Harrison.
If these changes pass, the policy will be weakened and the shelters—already unpredictable—will become increasingly chaotic and unsafe for the residents.
These changes represent another step in a pattern of dismantling homeless people’s civil rights. Homeless people are increasingly perceived and treated as thought they existed outside the protections of the law and policy… Almost as if they were “enemy combatants.”
Don’t like it? Fight back! Come to a Shelter Workgroup meeting: Wednesdays, 3 p.m., or attend the Shelter Grievance Advisory Committee meeting at 2 p.m. on December 13 at 1440 Harrison and give them your opinion during public comment.
Sara
