Burden shifts to CAT for housing fix

Quest to remedy housing authority error shifts to Community Action Team

By David Holley

The South County Spotlight, Jul 8, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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The burden of administering housing assistance to more than 200 residents facing the loss of their Section 8 funding will primarily rest on local Community Action Teams’ programs — that is, if enough money can be found to cover those residents’ rent costs.

Because the Northwest Oregon Housing Authority has been overleasing the federally-specified number of housing assistance vouchers and dollars they are allowed to use each year, 207 residents who received assistance in July will be cut from the program Aug 1.

The housing authority will likely add back some residents because of a recently approved federal housing department waiver, but not until October. The waiver allows NOHA to pay less of each voucher’s rent — $809 for a two-bedroom apartment instead of $830, for example — saving the authority money that will go toward paying housing assistance for some residents. But those residents still would not be funded for August or September.

And, at most, the housing authority could cover rent for 133 residents. Beyond that number, they would be overleasing again.

In order for those 207 residents to keep their homes, Community Action Team programs in Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook counties — the three counties NOHA serves — will have to take on most of their housing assistance administration starting Aug. 1. But for now, there isn’t money available to pay for it.

Rocky Johnson, executive director of St. Helens’ CAT program, and NOHA’s executive director are directing a fast-paced effort to find money wherever they can. Funds could, and have, come from anywhere: federal and state grants, churches and donations, to name a few.

About $50,000 from the state of Oregon, along with donations from St. Helens-area churches, will cover rent through December for more than 20 residents, Johnson said. As more money comes in, the CAT programs will be able to provide housing assistance to some of the remaining residents currently without aid.

“That’s what everybody is trying to do, trying to urge people to contribute,” Johnson said. “We’ll continue to whittle this number down.”

In early June, NOHA infomed more than 280 residents in the three counties they would lose their housing assistance.

NOHA Executive Director Carol Snell is now taking responsibility for having doled out funding for more than 1,100 vouchers each month since January. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates funding for NOHA to lease 1,077 per month.

On average, NOHA pays $454.97 per voucher.

Meeting minutes from NOHA’s governing board of directors show that the housing authority was aware it was heading into dangerous water. NOHA’s accountant, Walter Beck, warned the board in March that almost 100 vouchers would have to be dropped to break even by the end of 2009. But any action to staunch the bleeding didn’t happen until late June, when the NOHA board approved using reserve funds to pay the resident’s July rent.

Snell said it’s not the board’s fault for not reducing the number of vouchers earlier. She said she and the housing authority staff should have stopped the overleasing when they first noticed it.

“We should have said, ‘Look, we’ve done this, and we need to stop,’” Snell said. “I already look foolish and I thought I was doing my job well. I take responsibility for the whole thing. I should have been paying more attention and I wasn’t.”

It’s a different tone from Snell, who in early June primarily placed blame on the federal housing authority for reducing NOHA’s funding, as well as difficult-to-navigate regulations.

NOHA has inconsistently reported the number of vouchers that were funded during last seven months. In June, NOHA officials told The Spotlight that they leased 1,165 vouchers in February, while their most recent data shows that they leased 1,132 that month.

To help prevent this from happening again, NOHA officials have garnered help from the Portland Housing Authority and other agencies, and have reworked some of their internal recordkeeping.

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