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UNHP’s 15th Anniversary Committee Forms and Commences Planning a Spring Full of Activities An anniversary committee still in formation composed of represetnaitves of the private for-profit, non-profit, philanthropic and religious communities began working in earnest on three different functions for the coming spring.
Two housing forums have been scheduled the mornings of Friday, April 3 and Friday May 8th. The April 3rd forum will cover the Selective Vesting; the second will cover Filling the Gaps, the ingredients necessary to preserve and create more affordable houisng.
The last page of this newsletter is the registration form for the April 3rd workshop. The next newsletter will provide additional details on the May 8th forum.
UNHP will be celebrating its 15th Anniversary on Wednesday, May 27th at 5:30 at the McGinley Center Ballroom of the Rose Hill campus of Fordham. The reception will give all the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary while hearing a summary of the results of the forums and citation of the various participants in the nearly completed Community Ownership project on Tremont Avenue. UNHP will also be unveiling its’ Web Site. The site is nearing completion and can be viewed at www.unhp.org; we are hoping that the site will allow NOTES to expand on certain topics that we cannot fully cover due to our obvious space constraints.
UNHP will be selling tickets to the reception and ads in our anniversary journal. The final rates for the journal and tickets are as follows:
Reception Tickets: Reception tickets are $200 per person.
Proposed Journal Prices subsequent to the meeting are the following:
Inside Front Cover $ 2,500 Inside Back Cover $ 2,500 Back Cover $ 2,500 Full Page $ 1,000 Half Page $ 600 Quarter Page $ 350 Contributor Listing $ 150 Corporate Sponsorship:
Full Page Ad/Ten Tickets$ 2,500
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Water and Sewer Rate Increase Coming Soon That painful rite of spring is starting again—the latest water and sewer rate increase hearing process. At a recent meeting and at City Council hearings, DEP staff are projecting a 4.9% proposed increase in rates; DEP has indicated that they are still working to bring the proposal lower before finally submitting it to the Water Board.
There continues to be discussion about reducing the potential cost of water in metered buildings. Through 12/31/97, most metered buildings with high bills have been able to have their bills calculated on an average charge through the retroactive transition program. The transition program continues; it is no longer retroactive to the installation of the meter. However, there clearly is a desire to develop a permanent solution to this problem in high water use buildings. The existing cap that serves as the safety net for high water use, metered buildings is $750 for the first apartment and $500 for each additional building. Most managers and owenrs of affordable housing strongly feel that this cap is too high to offer much assistance to low income buildings with very tight profit margins.
We will circulate word about the hearing process and the DEP proposed rate increases when we hear it.
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Closing the Gap…
by John M. ReillyThe gap between what some families can pay in rent and the actual cost of their housing is becoming more difficult to fill. Increasingly rare Section 8 Subsidies can still be a piece in solving the puzzle of how to close this gap.
The largest source of affordable housing for low and moderate income families is the housing they are already living in. The need for additional housing resources is, of course, obvious, but the need to save this occupied housing is equally clear and a task which is growing more difficult to accomplish.
In the Northwest Bronx saving our existing apartment buildings has been a top priority since massive tenant organizing efforts began in the mid-1970s. While new homes, several new apartment buildings and rehabs in vacant buildings increased the number of affordable units available, it was tenants organizing for stabilization and improvements that led to significant investment of public and private funds into our existing, primarily rental, housing stock. The rehabs were carried out by community based organizations, private landlords and the city government itself. Along with banks, pension funds, NYS grants and the New York City’s own tax funds, a significant amount of the investment came from the federal government in the form of grants, loans and Section 8 rental subsidies.
Section 8 is really a number of programs all operating under the same basic theory: income eligible participants will pay no more than 30% of their income for housing and related expenses with the rent subsidy picking up the rest. Administered by the federal Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, the program was begun under the Nixon Administration in the early 1970’s. It has been used to help keep a variety of housing efforts affordable for low-income tenants including new housing for the elderly and complete renovation of vacant buildings with subsidies tied to the project for the length of its construction financing. The program later provided subsidies to individual applicants in the form of vouchers and certificates which could be used to pay a portion of the rent in privately owned apartment buildings.
Recent reductions in these individual rent subsidies has caused severe problems for those trying to renovate existing housing while keeping it affordable to the low income families already living there. The City of New York joined private lenders to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in hundreds of buildings in the neighborhoods of the Northwest Bronx during the 1980’s and early 90’s. Section 8 subsidies protected many low-income families from the rent increases needed to pay back the loans. Even with these rents increases, the rents fell below the Fair Market Rend (FMR), through a combination of grants, low interest loans, tax exemptions and construction efficiencies. This overall investment had a tremendous stabilizing affect on our neighborhoods.
The budget balancing efforts in Washington in the mid ‘90s hit Section 8 hard and there has been a freeze on new subsidies for several years now. This freeze is having a devastating impact on the programs used to renovate conventional apartment buildings in the Northwest Bronx. Many of those buildings still in need of major improvements, often those with a significant number of low income families, cannot obtain the financing they need without rent increases. Without Section 8, many existing families can’t pay the new, higher rents. Too often the result is now: No Section 8?, no rehab.
Efforts to use other programs such as HOME, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and the state Housing Trust Fund have funneled some funds toward occupied rehabs. These programs were already in great demand when the Section 8 crisis hit, however, and it is now a case of more projects pursuing an ever shrinking subsidy pot.)
Section 8 is criticized as being too expensive, and indeed a lot of the early projects were very costly. HUD is now paying out subsidies to many private owners in excess of $1000 per month for housing that is often poorly maintained. In New York, however, the individuals rent certificates were used to support moderate renovations resulting in much lower rents. This end of the program is being attacked along with the much more costly new construction and gut rehab programs.
Fordham Bedford Housing has joined with UNHP to propose a pilot project that would provide more, but smaller, subsidies for the types of moderate rehabs carried out in communities such as the Northwest Bronx. The Capped Section 8 Program would in effect allow a local Housing Authority to divide-up larger subsidies into smaller ones, reaching more families with the same amount of money. It would reward those communities that encourage renovations in existing housing which keep costs and rents under control.
The concept was presented recently to Senator Alfonse D’Amato on a community tour sponsored by the Northwest Bronx community and Clergy Coalition. Senator D’Amato said he favored efforts to reward communities that use the subsidies wisely, giving them the flexibility to reach more families, as our proposal calls for. While not optimistic about obtaining new subsidies in this year’s budget, he did pledge to fight for preservation of existing subsidies. This is crucial because it protects not only those already receiving subsidies but also the use are what are called recaptures. Recaptures occur when a participant stops using their rent subsidy. The local Housing Authority is then allowed to reissue the certificate. The Capped Section 8 Program could use such recaptures for a pilot program which would provide subsidies more in the range of $200-$300 a month in a renovated apartment. D’Amato pledged to pursue the flexibility needed for such a program with HUD.
Some seem willing to throw in the towel on Rent Subsidies as an idea whose time has passed, the expense of which is no longer politically viable. It’s clear, however, that rent subsidy programs can be made less expensive and more efficient. One needs to take a look at how much it really costs, as well. HUD’s entire budget now hovers in the range of $25 billion a year including many programs other than rent subsidies. The Savings and Loan bailout of just a few year’s ago had passed $500 billion when the media lost interest and stopped counting. That’s enough to fund HUD and all of its efforts for 20 years. Those of us involved in creating and running housing for people of modest means have an obligation to be certain that government resources for housing are used wisely. As a nation the question under discussion is, is providing a basic home for everyone a place the government needs to be? We must all be certain the answer to that question continues to be yes.
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UNHP Fifteenth Anniversary Affordable Housing Forum on the City’s Selective Vesting (Foreclosure) Process: An Opportunity for Affordable Housing Preservation and Development
Friday, April 3rd from 9:30AM-11:30AM
at the Walsh Library at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus*
Registration starts at 9:00AM
A representative of the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development has stated that there are 6,000 distressed housing properties around the City. These properties owe back taxes and have clear indications of housing code violations. The selective vesting legislation passed in l996 allows the City to proceed strategically in small geographic areas to foreclose on these buildings. The first such vesting action is scheduled to happen in the very near future in several Bronx neighborhoods.
There is a challenge and an opportunity to make sure that this program is enacted in such a way as to ensure that good, safe, affordable housing is preserved and developed in these buildings. This forum will explain what the selective vesting is; what’s happening right now; and what can happen and where can it happen next?
As of this printing, the panel will include representatives of the Enterprise Foundation, the non-profit and for-profit management communities and financial community; city representatives will be invited to participate.
*The best entrance to Fordham University’s library is through the Fordham Road Third Avenue entrance. The university can be reached by taking Metro North to the Fordham Road stop & the D or the 4 train to Fordham Road and walking east to Third Avenue.
Since there is limited seating, we are requesting that people register prior to the forum.
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