Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Funding Model

It's not easy being HCV.

Recently, we've been in the headlines for our Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program being underspent by a projected $2.9 million. Yes, that's a lot of money.

We'll be able to retain about half of that as a reserve ... a "rainy day fund" that could help us to make sure landlords are paid on time in the event of a funding interruption. That money will still be used for the purpose intended, and almost every business on the planet understands the need to have cash on hand for contingencies -- especially in recent times.

A lot of people want to know ... what about the other half? Why hasn't that been spent down? Why are you sitting on that money? These are fair questions that taxpayers are entitled to understand.

Let's start with the money.
DHA will receive about $20 million for its HCV program in 2008. Those are Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) dollars. HAP dollars must pass through the Housing Authority and be paid out to participating landlords as rent subsidy, so DHA's leaving that money unspent doesn't mean that we can spend it on something else - like office furniture or salaries.

Why not just issue more vouchers?
Naturally, our goal is to spend it on providing as much assistance to as many families as the federal regulations will allow, but that's where we hit the second piece of our funding model -- the number of authorized vouchers. This is what we refer to as our "utilization rate."

DHA is authorized to keep 2,684 vouchers in force. We're not supposed to exceed that number. We currently have about 2,650 (give or take on any given day) in force. There are many families out searching for housing right now, vouchers in hand. When they lease-up, we'll be at capacity ... and still have dollars unspent.

So what can we do?
In this case, we have to go back and review our payment standard and see if -- without paying unreasonable (excessive) rent rates -- we can increase the payment standard and provide more subsidy per family. How much subsidy each family gets depends on several factors -- how many people in the family, their income level and other mitigating factors like disabilities and being elderly. Making these payment standard adjustments, based on local market conditions, and keeping up with changes in standards based on HUD regulations takes some artful, attentive management.

We'll certainly confess that we could have done better, but we have to make clear that this model has presented a vexing challenge to many housing authorities and will be the subject of a pretty hefty overhaul when the Federal Government passes the Section Eight Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA) which likely won't take place until next year. Click here for a SEVRA fact sheet.

The reform act is a bipartisan effort to reduce the administrative burden on housing authorities without leaving space for mischief. It will simplify rent rules, inspections rules and is expected to create a funding source for the family self-sufficiency program -- a program that should be the centerpiece for the HCV approach and doesn't get enough attention!

So that's where we are now. We've just secured authorization from our Board of Commissioners to increase the payment standard to more than 100% of market rate and no more than 110% of market rate. This will be implemented with new vouchers and those recertifying. It will be gradual. With only a handful of staff to work on this and over 2,600 families to serve, it's the only way we can do it.

Meanwhile, we continue to work on improving our customer service and we'll have more initiatives on that topic coming up shortly. Stay tuned!

Customer Service Open Thread

What's on your mind? Please observe blogging rules ... no personal attacks, keep your manners. That said, please use this space to tell DHA how we can improve our service.

The floor is yours.

HOPE VI Goes Vertical!

If you haven't yet driven by the former Few Gardens site, please take a cruise over there soon. The foundations are setting up, hammers are banging, and you can feel the anticipation of a beautiful new neighborhood springing forth. The Herald-Sun did a great piece on this on July 25 and more coverage is forthcoming.

What do you think NorthEast Central Neighborhood needs most? Housing? A grocery store? Restaurants? Other retail? Please share your thoughts.

Questions About Property Damage

We've had some questions from an old thread about a new topic ... property damage, so I'm starting this new thread for that purpose. (If you'd like to start a new topic thread, please just send me a quick email with the topic and I'll get that started).

With regard to property damage, tenants are responsible for property damage that is beyond normal wear and tear. Certainly with some of the descriptions we've seen here (infestations and "trashing" the house) there would seem to be cause for deducting repair costs from the security deposit and even recovering dollars beyond that deposit. I'm sure DHA would provide documentation that might be helpful to owner

As to whether or not an individual would be penalized or lose his/her voucher, DHA would handle such complaints on a case-by-case basis. By all means, please report such conditions to Section 8 staff for referral to our investigations unit.

February payments update

As of this writing, DHA has made a cumulative total of $2,424,400 for February and we have $87,674 pending to run in our next check run (Monday). These payments (running tomorrow) will affect 73 tenants and 46 landlords.

Landlord Payment Update

Payments for the month of February (cumulatively) are now over $2.3 million. Be reminded, a typical month's payment cycle is just under $1.5 million, so we're really gaining ground. Thanks to a great team effort, some consulting support and the help of Tenmast, our new software vendor, DHA looks to be back on track, returning to normal operations on Monday, February 12, as planned.

Landlord Payment Update

A check run covering activitiy for last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and part of Monday totalled $85,715, affecting 59 tenants and 48 landlords. Subsequent activity for Monday added $29,022, affecting another 19 tenants and 18 landlords. Total HAP paid thus far in February is $1,360,105.

February Check Run

The initial February check run was $1,253,437. Friday activity was $24,149, affecting 17 landlords and 18 tenants. There was not a check run for this activity ... it will be including in activity from today (Saturday) and Monday's activity. That number will be posted Monday.

January payment totals

In a typical month, DHA's payments to landlords totals just under $1.5 million. In January, we paid out $2,181,908, making some good headway in clearing out our backlog.

Feb. 1, 2007 Update

Yesterday, the Housing Authority processed checks totalling $43,473, affecting 35 landlords and 46 tenants.

Tuesday January 30, 2007

Correction: On Monday, back payments of $23,341 were made, affecting 29 landlords and 48 tenants and 29 re-certifications were completed.

Landlord Payment Update - Monday Jan. 29

Every year, Section 8 Voucher recipients must "recertify" their eligibility to receive housing assistance. These are what we call "re-certs" and normally, we'd have just over 200 each month. As of Friday, January 26, that number had swelled to 618 re-certs that are awaiting action. As you can see, that's quite a bit of catching up to do.

Although the status of how many re-certs may not be a clear indicator, we can report out the dollars we're paying out in check runs that are now daily to meet demand. Normally, the Housing Authority pays out about $1.3 million in landord payments per month (in a single chec run at the first of the month).

Last Thursday, back payments totalling $80,589 were issued to 32 landlords, affecting 55 tenants.
Last Friday & Saturday, $76,652 in back payments was issued to 35 landlords, affecting 49 tenants.

These indicators will be updated daily.

So, What's the Plan?

The following is DHA's action plan to resolve payment backlog for Section 8 landlords:

• From Friday, January 26 through Friday, February 9, all Section 8 personnel will be exclusively working through the payment backlog, focusing completely on reconciling and paying past due accounts, processing and catching up on new move-ins, inputting and paying completed re-certification backlog and adjusting erroneous overpayments.
  In order to allow the staff to work on this exclusively, DHA will be taking these steps:
  
• With few exceptions (emergencies related to safety or eviction), all clients appointments scheduled during this time will be re-scheduled.
  
• Section 8 staff will not be available to the public to answer inquiries by telephone, fax or email.
  
• Management will post regular updates to this blog. This should help the public in monitoring our progress.The Section 8 staff will resume normal business hours on Monday, February 12, at which time the backlog should be cleared.

Landlord Payments

You've probably seen in the news recently that some of our Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) landlords are not getting their checks on time. This is due to a backlog created by our conversion to a new software that manages tenant and financial data.

Without a doubt, the Durham Housing Authority is entering a new era with this software. It will provide us with a level of realtime reporting that we've never seen, evenutally will allow clients to apply for housing online, and perhaps most important of all ... the system will not tolerate entry errors and very customized files.

And there's the hitch. The old (and we do mean OLD) system that we used did allow many non-standard entries into tenant and landlord files. Converting such data brought DHA to the familiar expression in computing circles -- we had what our MIS Director affectionately calls "a GIGO problem" -- Garbage In, Garbage Out. The solution turned out to be - re-enter.

We are committed to cleaning up this situation once and for all, which means we have to take some pains to check, to verify, to reconcile. We also have to account for how all of this is done for the benefit of passing the inspection of auditors and we still have ongoing resertifications and new applications for public housing to process. We're a busy bunch at DHA.

Now, this doesn't mean we've done the best job when it comes to letting our landlords know where we are in the process, so we're going to make a greater effort to be more responsive. Please check back here for more information and drop me a line (jbolduc@dha-nc.org) if you have specific questions.

Thanks for sticking with us, Durham!

Durham - Where Acts of Kindness Happen

Yes, Downtown Durham. East Main Street. That's where an act of kindness happened without fanfare last week.

An employee here at DHA discovered that his wallet was missing. Since he was sure he'd had it in the parking lot, he went to his car and searched it and all around it. No luck.

So off he went to his bank to cancel credit cards, to DMV for a new license and to Social Security to report his missing Social Security card -- all in the midst of the Christmas rush. Finally, he returned to work to find a message on his voice mail. A message from Mr. James Watkins, a nearby resident, telling our staffer that he (Watkins) had his wallet and would bring it by the office.

He did stop by, but was unable to talk with our staffer directly, so he held onto the wallet until the next day. He returned, the two men talked about this being an unusual way to meet a neighbor, and our employee had his wallet back.

No cash in it, but every credit card, his driver's license and, yes, even his social security card were all right where he left them. He paid Watkins a modest reward, but for this simple act of decency, no amount would be enough.

Welcome

Thank you for stopping by our newsroom!

The DHA News of the Day is intended to provide some expanded news coverage of those events and developments that may not capture as much ink in the local press as they deserve. No disrespect to the fourth estate ... but sometimes the pressure of deadline and competition for space brings about some tough choices.

We also want to use this space to engage neighborhood associations and all interested parties in a community-driven conversation and exchange of brilliant ideas about developing Downtown Durham and strengthening neighborhoods. So come on in and have a piece of pie. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly.

Jean Bolduc
Director of Corporate Communications
Durham Housing Authority
jbolduc@dha-nc.org