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Tired of watching their federal funding quickly dry up, the Housing Authority of Utah County is taking matters into its own hands.
The organization is selling more than two-dozen properties worth about $5 million for seed money to build its own network of housing. It's also creating a limited-liability company to handle the remaining 79 units. The plan is a year and a half in the making and comes after a 15-percent cut in federal funding in 2007 and another 18 percent this year.
"You don't have to be totally bright to figure out you're just not making it after a while," said the authority's executive director Gene Carly.
The moves also mean that 20 families currently using the program will have to be relocated because their homes are being sold.
The housing authority has 106 units for those in need, and there are waiting lists both for the housing and the number of Section 8 vouchers, funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, available for other housing.
"They only have so much space. They can only help so many people," says Renee Thurman, a housing authority customer and resident board member.
Thurman, her husband and five children are also one of the families that have moved because of the restructuring. They, like the others, will be paying their rent with the help of federal vouchers.
"It was really easy to grumble and be upset initially. Initially you want to be selfish," she said from her tidy, unassuming home in Springville.
But the demand for publicly funded housing for large families just isn't that high. The result is that the authority is going for smaller units that are practical for the elderly and single homeless.
That doesn't mean the families losing their homes will be left in the cold. "We will work to great length to make this the least disruptive to them," Carly said.
For the Thurmans at least, that has held true. The family recently moved and was able to stay within the boundaries of their same LDS Church ward and school.
The good fight
"Sometimes I wonder, 'How'd we get here? How'd we get to this point?' " Thurman says.
Like many families struggling financially, theirs has been hit with a slew of medical bills. They heard about the housing authority from neighbors and eventually checked it out. Thurman is going to school, and the family doesn't expect to be in public housing for the long-term.
The system isn't designed to give people freebies. With the vouchers, for example, users are expected to give 30 percent of their income to their housing costs. That could mean $50 or $500. The amount they get also depends on the number of rooms and the type of program they use.
The 20 families being displaced will be going from housing authority buildings to rentals they find themselves. The federal aid will come in the form of a voucher. All the families were notified last week and have 90 days to find another place to live.
Changing the business
The other aspect of the authority's plan -- creating a company to manage the bulk of their housing -- is being done to have more freedom to administer public housing.
"It doesn't mean that we've severed our relationship with HUD," Carly said. "We just don't have the connection of administering a public housing program with them any longer."
County Commissioner and board member Steve White said the company hasn't been formed yet. It could only be the housing authority, but he'd like to see some private investment.
"It's kind of using the private marketplace to provide the units and help with the projects," he said.
The county authority is the second such body to make such a move in the state. The Salt Lake County housing authority is doing the same thing. |
