With uncertainty at HUD, local housing agency hopes to preserve $2M in monthly rent assistance

Presenter: Lane County’s public housing agency reports on recent meetings with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). With the Homes for Good board on March 19, Deputy Director Ela Kubok:

Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): Through our connection with the field office director in Portland for HUD, we requested to meet with folks at HUD headquarters. So we had a meeting on Thursday morning with quite a few folks at the headquarters because we’re a ‘Moving To Work’ agency. A lot of them were from that ‘Moving To Work’ office. And we got to really talk to them about the specifics of running a housing authority in Oregon and the nature of our community and the housing needs that we have, which I think are kind of unique and different than some of the other housing authorities.

[00:00:47] And so it was very interesting. Many of them have never been to Oregon. We had some insightful conversations around permanent supportive housing, but also the lack of housing in the continuum of our community as a whole. So they were asking us a lot about, like: ‘How are you incentivizing people to not use assistance anymore?’

[00:01:07] And we were talking to them about how our community is really prioritizing building more affordable housing because where we are at is, we’re behind, three decades, of not having had enough housing in all the different continuum of housing, right? So that was pretty interesting and great that we could meet and chat.

[00:01:26] And as far as HUD priorities continuing, HUD will prioritize RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) conversions, so conversions of public housing, very much something that they really want to highlight. They want to focus on telling more stories about the family self-sufficiency program.

[00:01:42] So they were asking us about that as well, which is a program that we’re very proud of and it’s been around for 30 years, but we definitely advocated also for more funding for our programs like that, because that’s not a program that’s been adequately funded. And it can be very powerful.

[00:01:59] The other big thing for Homes for Good is that we’re continuing our audit. We had our auditor here during the first week of March…so right now we’re scheduled to complete the audit by the end of April.

[00:02:15] Presenter: The first question came from Homes for Good board member, Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch:

[00:02:21] Heather Buch (Homes for Good, board member): There have been hundreds of terminations at HUD and so I’m guessing that at least was part of a topic of conversation at your conference. And that we’re expecting a skeletal group HUD here in Oregon. How is that going to affect the agency and the needs and response to what we’re doing on the ground.

[00:02:49] Presenter: Homes for Good Deputy Director Ela Kubok:

[00:02:52] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): One of our main speaking points that Jasmine (Leary-Mixon) mentioned during the Hill Day was really explaining how the Portland field office is our connection to HUD headquarters. Those are the folks that go through the subsidy layering reviews, they do the environmental reviews, they’re really doing a lot of the specific work, that needs to be done and checked off when you’re providing new real estate development.

[00:03:17] And right now those timelines are already kind of long when you talk to investors because it takes about six months to turn around some of these reviews and so this is a big concern for all housing authorities, and the understanding of like what’s going to happen if we consolidate HUD field offices right because there was some talk of that as well…

[00:03:38] And when we talked to HUD staff, they said that they’re living in uncertainty because they don’t know the status of their employment and that’s very stressful.

[00:03:47] Heather Buch (Homes for Good, board member): We can only imagine. And then if there’s fewer people to review the required elements of projects, that just means the timelines get extended, sometimes to a point where it might dissolve the project.

[00:04:00] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): Right, and that was the plea from housing authorities that are right now even experiencing this, because people have this uncertainty they might have not have yet been let go or they are still at their job. But it’s hard to work in that kind of environment and be effective.

[00:04:15] Presenter: Commissioner Buch:

[00:04:17] Heather Buch (Homes for Good, board member): How much of the income that’s received to support Homes For Good as a housing agency is federally-based, even if it’s a passthrough through the state?

[00:04:30] Presenter: Deputy Director Ela Kubok:

[00:04:32] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): When it comes to our public housing and our rent assistance, those are the two largest federal programs that we administer. That funding comes directly from HUD… 80% of our funding when you look at all of the numbers, so it’s essential.

[00:04:50] It’s also money that we give back to the community, right? Every month we make about $2 million of a transfer to 700 landlords in Lane County who help us house folks who have a Section 8 voucher.

[00:05:03] If the federal funding gets shut off for, for example, for rent assistance program. I mean, it’s one of our largest programs. It’s more than $20 million a year. We do not have another source for that funding, right? It would affect our landlords if it was changed.

[00:05:19] Heather Buch (Homes for Good, board member): My concern is if that gets cut, which programs then get cut, which properties don’t receive funding, which renters don’t receive their voucher funding, and being on top of that and not being reactive, but proactive in determining now even from an emergency response kind of situation, like: ‘What would we do if some of these got cut? Options are A, B, and C.’ And none of those options are probably good options, but we should start really, I think, preparing ourselves.

[00:05:56] Presenter: Deputy director of Homes For Good, Ela Kubok:

[00:05:58] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): The one set of good news is that there is no government shutdown. The continued resolution gives us funding through the end of September at last year’s assumptions. There were some exceptions for the Housing Choice Voucher. It was funded at a higher rate to accommodate for inflation and other costs that affect how much we spend and how much we pay out.

[00:06:22] But if they cut funding specifically for rent assistance programs, the funding isn’t fungible across the board. So that’s sometimes how that could affect our decision-making.

[00:06:32] But I think we need to spend some time really dissecting options and Wakan or Beth if you want to talk any more specifically about the conversations you’ve been having about your funding…?

[00:06:43] Presenter: Beth Ochs is director of the Homes for Good Rent Assistance Division.

[00:06:48] Beth Ochs (Homes for Good, Rent Assistance Division, director): In the rent assistance program, there’s the largest program which is HCV (Housing Choice Voucher) aka Section 8 and then there’s smaller programs like Emergency Housing Vouchers and Mainstream. And there has been discussion about just elimination of programs.

[00:07:04] So, for example, like elimination of Emergency Housing Vouchers, so if something like that was to happen, for our jurisdiction, we have 184 of those vouchers, and I’m not sure what the guidance would be on what it means to simply eliminate a program in totality.

[00:07:21] The reduction in funding, which has been talked about for the HCV program, there is already chapters within the administrative plan that talk about how we would remove funding from in-place families. And there’s a hierarchy of removal and that hierarchy is based on, like, best practice because it’s not common, but it’s not unheard of, other housing agencies having to do this.

[00:07:48] Across the nation, if your funding gets to such a point where your per-unit cost on your vouchers has gotten so high that you just don’t have the money to support it and HUD doesn’t have the money to give you, you can potentially find yourself in a situation where you need to remove vouchers from people that are currently using them. And then HUD does provide a best-practice hierarchy in how you remove those vouchers. There is, like, a plan currently in place if we were to find ourselves in that situation.

[00:08:19] Presenter: Wakan Alferes is the Homes for Good Supportive Housing director.

[00:08:23] Wakan Alferes (Homes for Good, Supportive Housing, director): We have folks living in the buildings that we’re operating. And if we see a reduction in funding, we still have an obligation to operate our buildings. And so that will really be the kind of crux for us. And so part of that financial sustainability roadmap is exploring minimum rents in public housing, as an example, to help offset like reductions at the federal level.

[00:08:44] So there could be policy changes that then require higher rents paid by residents to offset that difference. And then we would need to figure out whether we convert to a different, more stable, funding stream if that’s an option.

[00:08:56] Presenter: With the Trump administration openly ignoring court rulings, one board member asked to accelerate the contingency planning. Deputy Director Ela Kubok:

[00:09:06] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): Our leadership team is just committed to staying on top of all those changes and regulations, talking to the right folks. While we’re going to talk about some of these as part of our financial sustainability work too and that road map because it is interconnected, it is possible there could be an executive order.

[00:09:24] Some of these policy changes that are coming from that executive order level, they’re being rejected by courts. It’s a possibility Congress has the budget authority to appropriate funds and Congress and the Senate have appropriated these funds.

[00:09:40] Presenter: Board member Destinee Thompson:

[00:09:42] Destinee Thompson (Homes for Good, board member): We’re having this conversation, but I think it’s also important that we have these conversations, you know, delicately, with residents as well, that this is going on. So what can we do to make sure that they’re informed that this is a possibility?

[00:09:57] Especially if, you know, a population of elderly might not have direct access to know what’s going on. How can we best help them if it was to shut down and we have to cut funding, what can we do to help transition, if that is something that happens?

[00:10:17] Presenter: Deputy Director Ela Kubok:

[00:10:19] Ela Kubok (Homes for Good, deputy director): Yes, for sure. And on the one hand we never want to make someone even more stressed about just the state of their housing that they might already be, right?

[00:10:27] So the one approach that we have is, when we have factual information to share, we know we need to get that factual information out to residents. And so in preparation when we were thinking there is a potential government shutdown, Jordyn had a banner on the website ready to go if that shut down were to go. And in fact, that explains, like, ‘Your housing is not at risk. We actually already received federal funds.’

[00:10:53] Presenter: Communications administrative specialist at Homes for Good, Jordyn Shaw:

[00:10:58] Jordyn Shaw (Homes for Good, communications administrative specialist): We’ve already been getting a lot of inquiries into the front desk already of like: ‘Is my rent going to be paid? Is my housing stable now?’ And so, we have been making sure to draft and provide talking points for the office assistants specifically, and we have a banner on our website with that information.

[00:11:18] And it’s definitely a balance of this educational piece while, reassuring what we can reassure right now, without adding to that stress.

[00:11:27] Presenter: With the legislative and judicial branches unwilling or unable to stop the executive, Lane County’s local public housing agency is urged to view the situation through an emergency management lens.

[00:11:40] The county will need contingency plans should the federal government stop local payments of $2 million across 700 landlords each month. Should it be necessary to scale back the rent assistance program, HUD currently recommends using a ‘hierarchy of removal.’

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Image of Homes For Good office at 100 West 13th Ave., Eugene, courtesy Rene Kane.