Berkeley Housing Authority Crisis Deepens

Berkeley Housing Authority Crisis Deepens
By Lynda Carson January 18, 2006

Amid increased alarm over the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area, the crisis at the Berkeley Housing Authority deepens with every passing moment.

On March 1, a reduction in federal housing voucher payments goes into effect in Berkeley which places 750 Section 8 families at risk of major rent increases, forced relocation, or the loss of their housing vouchers in a worst case scenario. "During last December, we had a meeting in San Francisco with local Housing and Urban Development (HUD) director Richard Rainey, in an effort to seek a waiver from the decrease in voucher payments scheduled to occur in March, and no one felt positive about the outcome of the meeting," said Ariana Cassanova, Assistant to Berkeley's Mayor.

HUD decided that the Fair Market Rents were too high in the Bay Area, and decreased the value of Section 8 vouchers as a result. Meanwhile Tri Commercial Real Estate Services out of Walnut Creek, reports that during 2005, rents in Alameda County rose by 0.6 percent, and according to the Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County, rents jumped in Oakland by 8.5 percent during the same period.

In an effort to speak out against the life threatening cuts to their housing vouchers, Section 8 tenants had planned to go to the Jan. 30, Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) meeting, until they learned during mid January that the meeting had been canceled.

"We had been placed under great pressure by HUD to cancel the meeting, because we were not sure if it would be legal under current circumstances," said Cassanova. "We are going through a restructuring process and could'nt have a meeting on Jan. 30, because we were not sure if it would have been legal, and are waiting to hear back from HUD for assurances that our new model of governance structure for the BHA has been approved."

While in discussions with HUD during the past year, the need to restructure the governance of the agency became essential for it's future success, and on June 27, the BHA Board authorized Executive Officer, Phil Kamlarz, to negotiate with HUD on an alternative management structure. The governance models being considered for the BHA included other Public Housing Authorities, such as in Sacramento City, Reno, Oakland, Santa Barbara, Portland, San Francisco and Benicia.

As of September, 2006, the BHA was still currently designated as a "troubled" agency, and since then major efforts to improve the Section Eight Management Assessment Program (SEMAP) scores, failed to change that situation.

In a November notice "BHA Hap'nings", sent out to Berkeley's Section 8 tenants, it confirmed that the BHA still remained listed as a “troubled” housing agency by HUD, because it failed to acheive enough points in it's efforts to pass the latest SEMAP scoring process. The new model of governance restructuring taking place in the BHA, is a desperate attempt to satisfy HUD's demands, in an effort to keep the BHA under local control in Berkeley. HUD has threatened to remove the embattled agency from local control if it does not improve in it's day to day operations (SEMAP score), and being listed as a "troubled" agency for the 6th year in a row, only makes matters worse for public housing and Section 8 tenants in Berkeley.

Out of 1,750 families in Berkeley's Section 8 program, 750 families are now at risk of losing their housing when their housing vouchers will be decreased in value, as of March 1, 2007. These particular 750 families face a reduction in voucher payments the next time their Section 8 contract comes up for a renewal after March 1, because their landlords presently are demanding the maximum allowable limit in voucher payments allowed in Berkeley. As a result, when the vouchers become worth less in value during the next contract renewal, the families will have to make up the cost difference in rents, or relocate to cheaper housing, because the landlords are still demanding the same amount in monthly rent payments regardless of what the vouchers are worth.

Families in 3 bdrm units face a rent increase of $187 per month, $97 per month for those in 2 bdrm units, $45 per month in 1 bdrm units, and increases of $35 per month for those in studio apartments.

Berkeley Section 8 tenant Patrick Kehoe says, "I think it's a terrible idea to cut back on voucher payments to existing contracts. I am one of those 750 people facing cuts, and in addition to all the other Section 8 tenants facing cuts, it's the small landlords being hit the hardest because most large landlords refuse to participate in the Section 8 program. It's a tough situation all the way around. I don't know how myself or any other tenants can afford a rent increase at this time, when considering how little money we do have to survive on."

Since 2000, the Bush Regime cut back on HUD funding by 20 percent, and making matters worse during December 2006, HUD announced that Public Housing Authorities across the nation would only receive 76 percent of their needed operating budgets to run public housing programs for the poor, elderly and disabled.

As recent as January 10, in protest over the HUD budget cuts, over 90 Housing Authorities across the nation shut down their operations in what was called a "Day of Silence", to let different regions of the country know what it's like for a day, to be without an agency that assist's the poor in their housing needs.

A Jan. 9, press release from Oakland's Housing Authority states that, "Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) will receive $2.9 million less than it is entitled to and requires to cover basic operating costs for the city’s public housing program, which currently houses 2,717 of Oakland’s lowest-income families. It will be extremely difficult for OHA to fill the gap left by the 24 percent loss of federal funding. Services, particularly property improvements that would have been provided with full funding, will be seriously reduced. The Housing Authority’s ability to respond to community concerns about the quality of public housing properties will also be seriously affected by this ongoing disinvestment by the federal government."

As the affordable housing crisis continues to unfold in Berkeley and elsewhere, activists are urging Berkeley's Section 8 tenants to speak out against the budget cuts at the next BHA Meeting scheduled for 6pm, on February 27, at Berkeley's Old City Hall.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com