July 18, 2009
New Orleans residents are waiting for Section 8 answers
The Times-Picayune
The Housing Authority of New Orleans faces a looming Aug. 31 deadline for moving thousands of households that have been receiving disaster housing assistance to long-term Section 8 rental assistance.
But the rush to meet that deadline doesn’t excuse HANO’s refusal to say how many housing vouchers are available – or its failure to start a new waiting list for the rental help.
The federal government increased the number of Section 8 vouchers after Hurricane Katrina to help people who had lived in now-demolished public housing developments and those who would be needing help after temporary disaster housing assistance ended.
But it’s unclear how many vouchers the agency has available — or even how many have been allocated to New Orleans. While some HANO employees who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Times-Picayune that the agency has received 15,000 Section 8 vouchers — up from 9,000 before Katrina — HANO won’t say how many it has or how many are being used.
The agency purged its waiting list for vouchers more than a year ago, after running newspaper ads asking for residents who had been on it to contact the agency and update their information. It then offered vouchers to 2,000 households that remained on the list.
The waiting list had 10,000 names on it when Hurricane Katrina hit, and clearly not all of those people have returned. But it’s also clear that some people have fallen through the cracks and are struggling to pay rent.
Ayesha Lewis is an example. She was on the waiting list but didn’t see notifications about the purge and didn’t meet the deadline to change her information. Her rent takes up 80 percent of her income.
With the cost of rental housing climbing, she’s not alone in facing difficulties paying rent. But no one can apply for unused vouchers if there’s not a new waiting list.
HANO shouldn’t keep the number of unused vouchers secret. Officials should disclose that information immediately and start a new waiting list.
The task of moving people from the federal Disaster Housing Assistance Program is critical, given the time crunch. But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is overseeing HANO, has sent 10 employees to lend a hand. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan should send more people if that’s what it takes to address other Section 8 issues.
After all, there’s another deadline to be considered — the end of the fiscal year. HUD normally will not renew payments for vouchers if they’re not in use by the end of a housing authority’s fiscal year, which is Sept. 30 for HUD.
HANO’s preoccupation with the end of disaster housing should not result in New Orleans losing vouchers that could help struggling residents pay the rent.
http://blog.nola.com/editorials/2009/07/new_orleans_residents_are_wait.html
