Our Public Housing Mansion Authority: The Wrapup on Friday’s HHA Board Meeting « South Hsv Civic Association Blog
Our Public Housing Mansion Authority: The Wrapup on Friday’s HHA Board Meeting
By southhsv
Aside from the drama surrounding the postponed Drummond Road decision, Friday’s Huntsville Housing Authority board meeting was chock-full of newsworthy items, most of it sure to raise the blood pressure of anyone who pays taxes or cares about competent, responsive government.
The most provocative issue by far was the proposed redevelopment of the Brookside housing project (see background here and here), located in the Lowe Mill neighborhood (behind Office Depot and The Rock church on Memorial Parkway). The HHA will submit its grant proposal to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Monday.
This project is so outrageous in so many ways, it’s hard to even know where to begin. The architect and developer presented artistic renderings of the proposed development, and it is undeniably beautiful. Designed as a collection of historic-looking cottages with many windows and Victorian details, the plans look like something out of Southern Living. And they should: With a proposed price tag of $17 million for 72 housing units, each unit will cost at least $236,000. But as the developer helpfully noted, HUD guidelines would allow the HHA to actually spend up to $22 million, or $305,000 per unit. As state senator Paul Sanford pointed out during the public comment period, the HHA already owns the land, so the cost per unit is actually worse than it appears.
The HHA staff blamed the high cost on demolition of the current housing project and the need to raise the property elevation to reduce the threat of flooding, but how much does fill dirt cost? Even factoring in a generous allowance for site preparation, the cost of the new Brookside is clearly outrageous.
According to city-data.com, the median home value in Huntsville in 2007 (before the market tanked) was less than $140,000. But now taxpayers are going to spend $236,000 – $305,000 per unit on a high-end public housing development which will replace existing housing that is currently performing its intended function.
Is it really crazy to ask why people who work hard every day to buy modest homes should have their tax money spent to provide public housing residents with much nicer houses than they themselves own?
To make matters even worse, the current residents of Brookside are being spun by the HHA and don’t seem terribly happy about the situation. After telling the residents they would not have to move anytime soon, the HHA announced yesterday that the new plans call for the current residents to move out by April of next year. When one of the residents raised an objection to this, Executive Director Michael Lundy quickly assured her that the HHA’s timeline didn’t really mean anything and that the residents would likely not have to actually move until next summer, still less than a year from now.
Another source of contention for the residents is that many, if not most of them will not qualify to live in the new development. According to Mr. Lundy, the new Brookside will be a “mixed-income” development, but not the kind planned for part of the Councill Courts property (and discussed here previously) where tenants paying market-rate rents are encouraged to live in the same facility with public housing residents. Instead, Brookside will be slated for an income mix whereby the units will be divided roughly equally between residents at 30%, 50%, and 80% of the median income for the area.
So why would the HHA uproot the residents it claims to care so much about and spend public funds so extravagantly on an upscale project that the majority of the current residents will not be able to enjoy and most Huntsville citizens do not seem to support?
There are actually four reasons.
First, the HHA is like so many other government agencies in that it lives to spend our taxes. With a torrent of “free money” flowing from Washington these days, the HHA figures it should get all it can. HHA commissioner Tommy Beason made exactly this point during his public comments, saying: “Somebody’s going to get this money, so why not us?”
Second, the HHA is fully onboard with the city’s agenda of downtown redevelopment. The Lowe Mill area is a priority for cleanup, which is why the Downtown Rescue Mission was moved out two years ago. Now comes the Brookside project, which the HHA sees as a catalyst for revitalization of the larger neighborhood. Mr. Lundy on Friday bragged that the HHA’s actions will help lead to “long-term viability for the city of Huntsville.”
Third, the HHA – like housing authorities across the country – wants to do everything it can to increase the rolls of public housing. Recall that after Stone Manor was purchased, the HHA urged the residents there to apply for public housing assistance so they could stay in their apartments. To normal citizens, it is absolutely insane to encourage self-sufficient people to go on the public dole for no good reason, but that is exactly what the HHA did and continues to do. Keep in mind that one-third of the Brookside units will be set aside for families making up to $53,000 per year.
Fourth – and as has been discussed here before – the HHA truly believes in the unsubstantiated and nonsensical notion that providing the poor with upscale housing will somehow lead them to seek self-sufficiency. Just to be clear: The plan is to give poor folks a low-rent deal on a $300,000 house and expect them to then become self-sufficient and move down-market to a house they can actually afford? Good luck with that.
The HHA talked a lot on Friday about its Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, but it still remains a fact that less than 10% of all HHA residents (192 people) are enrolled in it, and the HHA refuses to divulge the program’s success rate.
There is a term for such a lackluster effort: Window dressing.
Other items of note from the meeting:
- As was suspected, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) purchases of foreclosed homes are, in part, a huge moneymaking scheme for the HHA. It was confirmed at the meeting — although the staff did everything it could to dance around the answer — that once the HHA purchases a home and then resells it, the money is not returned to the federal government, but is kept by the housing authority to use as it pleases.
- During the public comment period, newly-elected state senator Paul Sanford took the HHA to task for the extravagance of the Brookside proposal and for the way the current Brookside residents are being treated. Noting the forced relocations of Councill Courts and Stone Manor residents, Sanford said, “It just seems a little unfair to me that the Huntsville Housing Authority is getting into the business of displacing people.” Haughty as ever, Mr. Lundy told The Huntsville Times that he wanted to have a meeting with Sen. Sanford and that, “His opinion may change as a result of a meaningful conversation.” And if it doesn’t, you can bet Mr. Lundy will blame it on “misinformation.” After all, the HHA is never wrong, just misunderstood.
- Director of Finance Sandra Eddlemon disclosed that the agency spent several hundred dollars advertising in the newspaper for Section 8 housing voucher openings and providing bottled water to people waiting in line to fill out applications.
- The changes to the HHA’s long-term planning that were the purported purpose of the farcical October 29 public hearing were approved with no changes, other than further increasing efforts to make use of “resident-owned and minority-owned businesses.” In other words: Thank you, taxpayers, for your comments… for all the good it did you.
- It is rather amusing, in a maddening sort of way, to hear the HHA staff talk about public housing using HUD-approved catchphrases and euphemisms designed to make a massive public assistance program sound like a private real-estate venture. Mr. Lundy was especially humorous when he referred to the “various housing products” offered by the HHA, as if it were a property development company operating in a market environment.
- One of the most enlightening aspects of the meeting came at the end with the comment period for the commissioners. Tommy Beason led off by throwing a temper tantrum, berating as malicious and uninformed those who dare criticize the HHA. Dr. Phillip Redrick then said that he appreciated the interest (South Huntsville) people are now showing by attending the HHA board meetings, and then added sarcastically that he wished people had showed this much interest during the prior fifteen years he has been on the board. It seemingly does not occur to Dr. Redrick that most people actually have jobs and, unlike college professors, cannot easily leave work for 2-3 hours to attend these sorts of meetings. The only reason people are showing up now is because they are fighting to defend their neighborhoods from a predatory government agency. But it is frankly outrageous that taxpayers should have to go to such extraordinary lengths to protect themselves from their own government.
Next came Dorothy Ford, the resident representative on the board, who summed up nicely the sort of entitlement mentality the HHA fosters. She decried all the calls for openness and transparency, saying that the HHA should not have to announce to the public what it’s doing. Said Ms. Ford, “We should have the privilege of privacy just like every other citizen in the city of Huntsville.” She then said she didn’t understand why anyone would be upset about the high cost of the Brookside project because the residents deserve nice housing and, “I would like a new house, too.” Apparently, the idea that someone has to pay for all of this extravagance and that nice things have to be earned are utterly foreign concepts to her. Sometimes words simply fail.
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