Article Reposted from: Huffington Post
By: Maria Foscarinis
Founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness
Housing is a human right.
The declaration is simple. It seems intuitive, even.
It is recognized in a number of international agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States has signed treaties recognizing the right to non-discrimination in housing.
But still, despite the nearly universal recognition that decent, affordable housing is a basic human need, it is not officially recognized as a human right by the United States government.
Last week, the United Nations released the final report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing on her U.S. mission, presenting her findings and recommendations about housing violations in the United States. The report is based on her six-city tour of the U.S. last fall, a visit co-coordinated by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative. The report also reflects testimonies provided by representatives from homeless and low-income communities at the Law Center's National Forum on the Human Right to Housing.
The Rapporteur's report recommends, among other things:
* Increasing resources for public and affordable housing;
* Extending the Protecting Tenants At Foreclosure Act beyond its 2012 sunset;
* Making vacant properties available to housing organizations for the provision of affordable housing;
* Developing constructive alternatives to the criminalization of homelessness, and where adequate shelter is not available, homeless persons should be allowed to shelter themselves in public areas;
*Expanding the HUD definition of homelessness to include those living doubled up with others due to economic hardship.
* Passing H.Res. 582 in the U.S. Congress and devoting increased resources to the Family Unification Voucher Program.
The Rapporteur will present her report to the UN Human Rights Council on March 5th in Geneva, Switzerland.
This report comes at a critical time for advocates. The current U.S. foreclosure and economic crises are fueling dramatic surges in homelessness. Before the crises, up to 3.5 million Americans experienced homelessness each year. Now, that number is projected to rise by another 2 million. And these figures include only those who are literally homeless--not those doubled up or on the brink of literal homelessness.
The expanding numbers of those affected are focusing increased attention on the need for housing policy reform. At the same time, advocacy efforts are gaining traction. Right to housing campaigns are underway in a number of communities, and a bill calling for recognition of the right to housing for children and their families (H.Res. 582) has been introduced in Congress. New federal protections for tenants in foreclosed properties have been enacted. National housing trust fund legislation has been enacted. A new federal law requires the federal government to develop a national plan to end homelessness by this May, spurring advocacy for new resources and policy reform.
I believe there is now a window of opportunity to begin to shift policy debate to a results-focused, rights-based approach. Later this year, the U.S. will be reviewed as part of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. This will provide another opportunity to examine the U.S.'s obligations under human rights laws and principles, and to bring again an international focus to need for a significant shift in housing policy.
Simply put, it's time to recognize that everyone needs a decent place to live, and that the clearest way to achieve this result is to recognize housing as a right for all.
It's time to recognize that housing is a human right--right here in the United States.
Follow Maria Foscarinis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NLCHPhomeless
Showing posts with label HUD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HUD. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, December 7, 2009
RTD: Problems persist in RRHA voucher program as agency’s role is debated.
By Michael Martz
Published in Richmond Times Dispatch November 16, 2009
When Anthony Scott took interim control of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority in 2006, departing Executive Director Sheila Hill-Christian had a word of warning about its housing-voucher program for needy families.
"She said, 'You've got to get in there and figure out what's going on with it,'" Scott recalled. Focused on the authority's strategic plan, Hill-Christian hadn't been able to address increasing concerns about management of the program.
More than three years and three federal audits later, the housing-voucher program remains the greatest vulnerability in an authority that is otherwise poised to play a pivotal role as partner to Mayor Dwight C. Jones as he enters his second year at City Hall.
RRHA has revamped the voucher program to serve more families, only to face a projected shortfall of $600,000 on Dec. 1 and an additional $600,000 in the coming year to pay rents for low-income families under increasing financial pressure. The program is still on the "troubled" list of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which will reconsider the designation next month.
At the same time, the Jones administration is looking at new ways of using the housing authority -- or not -- in economicand community-development projects in Richmond, including the sale of the GRTC Transit System headquarters on prime property near the Fan District.
"No housing authority can be all things to all community development needs," said Peter H. Chapman, deputy chief administrative officer for economic and community development.
Chapman said in a recent interview that the Jones administration is still mulling its proposal to use RRHA to buy, hold and seek a developer for the GRTC property, valued at about $5.4 million, on West Cary Street.
"No decision has been made," Chapman said. "It is not a foregone conclusion that we are going to use the housing authority as the vehicle for acquiring and holding that property."
City and RRHA officials said they never considered developing low-income housing on the property, but could use the authority to shape the project for interested developers.
"Tell us what you want to see happen," said Scott, who became executive director on a permanent basis in early 2007. "We can turn that into a viable plan that can get built."
The authority will have a key role in the new Development Council that Jones plans to establish to guide economic and community development priorities. That role will include redeveloping the Dove Court public housing project and adjacent Carrington Gardens Section 8 apartments, which RRHA already has demolished, as well as the much bigger task of redeveloping Gilpin Court, the city's oldest public housing project.
"The housing authority is perfectly positioned and capable of doing what it's charged with doing," said Hill-Christian, who also served on the RRHA board after leaving as executive director.
. . .
RRHA, founded in 1940, is used to wearing many hats -- managing more than 4,000 public housing units around the city, issuing portable housing vouchers to an additional 2,900 families, and acting as the redevelopment arm of the city in blighted neighborhoods.
It is a tool for acquiring land in high-profile projects, such as the transformation of the Miller & Rhoads department store into a Hilton Gardens Hotel and the creation of Richmond CenterStage on the opposite side of Sixth Street. It runs downtown parking garages and owns, among other things, the Richmond Coliseum.
"Heck, we own the state library," said Elliott Harrigan, chairman of the RRHA Board of Commissioners, referring to the Library of Virginia at 800 E. Broad St.
Harrigan, a businessman and real estate developer who joined the board in 2004, said, "I didn't realize, prior to going on the board, the scope of RRHA's responsibilities."
The question has been whether RRHA is capable of carrying out such a wide range of duties. The authority has been criticized by HUD for its financial management of programs, particularly for vouchers, and by private developers who say the RRHA can be an unwieldy partner in real estate projects.
Toni D. Schmiegelow, a spokeswoman for HUD's Richmond office, said the government has "seen significant improvement" in financial reporting by RRHA, which recently hired its first chief financial officer, a former official at Genworth Financial.
However, HUD put the Section 8 voucher program on its troubled list three years ago, initially because of record-keeping problems. The Office of the Inspector General launched a series of three audits. One, released last year, found that 674 families weren't getting help they deserved and thousands more were stuck on waiting lists, while RRHA had more than $7 million in the bank for the program.
Scott said the voucher program had been managed poorly. It didn't even have a position for program director, which he re-established and filled by mid-2007. The authority spent money on a new software system and other ways to improve management of the program.
"We weren't just sitting there with our hands tied, pretending as if everything was OK," he said.
This year, the RRHA stepped up efforts to reduce the waiting list for vouchers and increase its utilization rate to more than 90 percent. In late spring, Scott said he learned that HUD was requiring the authority to spend $2.7 million more of its reserves on vouchers, with a corresponding reduction in federal aid.
Instead of a $1.6 million surplus at the end of the year, the authority now expects a deficit of more than $600,000 and twice that by the end of next year. It has pulled back vouchers from 163 families that need them. The total $1.2 million shortfall is double what Scott estimated late last month to the City Council, before RRHA tallied the costs from October.
RRHA is hoping for federal relief from emergency appropriations aimed at fixing what has become a problem with housing authorities around the country, but it also is asking for a backup loan from the city.
Chapman is working with RRHA to get a firm figure on how much money it would need and how the authority would pay it back. "We are expecting repayment of the loan, whatever the amount is," he said.
At the same time, he expects the authority to make major changes in how it administers the voucher program. "What is clear is that long-term reform of the Section 8 program are in order," he said.
Chapman also wants the RRHA to focus on its role in helping low-income families find housing and, ultimately, learning to be self-sufficient.
That's a job that RRHA says it already has set as a priority as it attempts to transform public housing and the communities around it.
'We're not interested in the same 4,000 families living here 10 years from now," Scott said.
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.
Published in Richmond Times Dispatch November 16, 2009
When Anthony Scott took interim control of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority in 2006, departing Executive Director Sheila Hill-Christian had a word of warning about its housing-voucher program for needy families.
"She said, 'You've got to get in there and figure out what's going on with it,'" Scott recalled. Focused on the authority's strategic plan, Hill-Christian hadn't been able to address increasing concerns about management of the program.
More than three years and three federal audits later, the housing-voucher program remains the greatest vulnerability in an authority that is otherwise poised to play a pivotal role as partner to Mayor Dwight C. Jones as he enters his second year at City Hall.
RRHA has revamped the voucher program to serve more families, only to face a projected shortfall of $600,000 on Dec. 1 and an additional $600,000 in the coming year to pay rents for low-income families under increasing financial pressure. The program is still on the "troubled" list of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which will reconsider the designation next month.
At the same time, the Jones administration is looking at new ways of using the housing authority -- or not -- in economicand community-development projects in Richmond, including the sale of the GRTC Transit System headquarters on prime property near the Fan District.
"No housing authority can be all things to all community development needs," said Peter H. Chapman, deputy chief administrative officer for economic and community development.
Chapman said in a recent interview that the Jones administration is still mulling its proposal to use RRHA to buy, hold and seek a developer for the GRTC property, valued at about $5.4 million, on West Cary Street.
"No decision has been made," Chapman said. "It is not a foregone conclusion that we are going to use the housing authority as the vehicle for acquiring and holding that property."
City and RRHA officials said they never considered developing low-income housing on the property, but could use the authority to shape the project for interested developers.
"Tell us what you want to see happen," said Scott, who became executive director on a permanent basis in early 2007. "We can turn that into a viable plan that can get built."
The authority will have a key role in the new Development Council that Jones plans to establish to guide economic and community development priorities. That role will include redeveloping the Dove Court public housing project and adjacent Carrington Gardens Section 8 apartments, which RRHA already has demolished, as well as the much bigger task of redeveloping Gilpin Court, the city's oldest public housing project.
"The housing authority is perfectly positioned and capable of doing what it's charged with doing," said Hill-Christian, who also served on the RRHA board after leaving as executive director.
. . .
RRHA, founded in 1940, is used to wearing many hats -- managing more than 4,000 public housing units around the city, issuing portable housing vouchers to an additional 2,900 families, and acting as the redevelopment arm of the city in blighted neighborhoods.
It is a tool for acquiring land in high-profile projects, such as the transformation of the Miller & Rhoads department store into a Hilton Gardens Hotel and the creation of Richmond CenterStage on the opposite side of Sixth Street. It runs downtown parking garages and owns, among other things, the Richmond Coliseum.
"Heck, we own the state library," said Elliott Harrigan, chairman of the RRHA Board of Commissioners, referring to the Library of Virginia at 800 E. Broad St.
Harrigan, a businessman and real estate developer who joined the board in 2004, said, "I didn't realize, prior to going on the board, the scope of RRHA's responsibilities."
The question has been whether RRHA is capable of carrying out such a wide range of duties. The authority has been criticized by HUD for its financial management of programs, particularly for vouchers, and by private developers who say the RRHA can be an unwieldy partner in real estate projects.
Toni D. Schmiegelow, a spokeswoman for HUD's Richmond office, said the government has "seen significant improvement" in financial reporting by RRHA, which recently hired its first chief financial officer, a former official at Genworth Financial.
However, HUD put the Section 8 voucher program on its troubled list three years ago, initially because of record-keeping problems. The Office of the Inspector General launched a series of three audits. One, released last year, found that 674 families weren't getting help they deserved and thousands more were stuck on waiting lists, while RRHA had more than $7 million in the bank for the program.
Scott said the voucher program had been managed poorly. It didn't even have a position for program director, which he re-established and filled by mid-2007. The authority spent money on a new software system and other ways to improve management of the program.
"We weren't just sitting there with our hands tied, pretending as if everything was OK," he said.
This year, the RRHA stepped up efforts to reduce the waiting list for vouchers and increase its utilization rate to more than 90 percent. In late spring, Scott said he learned that HUD was requiring the authority to spend $2.7 million more of its reserves on vouchers, with a corresponding reduction in federal aid.
Instead of a $1.6 million surplus at the end of the year, the authority now expects a deficit of more than $600,000 and twice that by the end of next year. It has pulled back vouchers from 163 families that need them. The total $1.2 million shortfall is double what Scott estimated late last month to the City Council, before RRHA tallied the costs from October.
RRHA is hoping for federal relief from emergency appropriations aimed at fixing what has become a problem with housing authorities around the country, but it also is asking for a backup loan from the city.
Chapman is working with RRHA to get a firm figure on how much money it would need and how the authority would pay it back. "We are expecting repayment of the loan, whatever the amount is," he said.
At the same time, he expects the authority to make major changes in how it administers the voucher program. "What is clear is that long-term reform of the Section 8 program are in order," he said.
Chapman also wants the RRHA to focus on its role in helping low-income families find housing and, ultimately, learning to be self-sufficient.
That's a job that RRHA says it already has set as a priority as it attempts to transform public housing and the communities around it.
'We're not interested in the same 4,000 families living here 10 years from now," Scott said.
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.
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