BRIAN A. JOYCE
‘Precious resource’
In an effort to preserve housing for the state’s elderly, disabled and low-income families, officials from local housing authorities pleaded with state lawmakers last week to provide more funding to keep up with rising operating and maintenance expenses.
For about two decades, the state has provided roughly $30 million annually to operate nearly 50,000 units of state public housing, even as costs for insurance, fuel, basic materials and supplies have continued to climb.
“Our budgets, in essence, have been frozen. With the allowable expenditure levels, we’ve had to absorb exploding costs,” said Thomas Wade, executive director of the Watertown Housing Authority and president of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Organizations, or Mass-NAHRO. Wade noted that property insurance alone has risen 80 percent in the last three years.
Gov. Mitt Romney’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year included $31.3 million for public housing. In February, the governor filed a supplemental state budget for fiscal year 2005 that provides another $4.5 million in operating subsidy to rising utility costs.
However, a study commissioned by Mass-NAHRO and the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, which was presented last Monday at a public hearing in Gardner Auditorium at the State House, revealed that state funding hasn’t kept up with increasing operating costs. According to the preliminary study, the state should be spending an average of $341 per public housing unit per month but is only spending $202 per unit per month – a 69 percent gap. The state would need to appropriate $79 million more a year to fill the gap, according to the study.
The study, conducted by Gregory Byrne & Assoc., Harvard University and Abt Assoc., also provides a formula or model that has been used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine operating costs for federal public housing units. Historically, expenditure levels at the federal level have been higher than the state’s, explained Wade.
“The state public housing program has been chronically under-funded for many years,” said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
In addition to lobbying for more state funding to cover operating expenses, local public housing authorities want the Romney administration and state lawmakers to reconsider bonding funds that are used for repairs and renovations at public housing complexes. Two years ago, legislators approved a $508 million bond bill that included $350 million for public housing modernization to be spent over a five-year period.
Thomas Connelly, executive director of Mass-NAHRO, said since the passage of the bond bill the state has been issuing about $52 million annually under the state’s bond cap, but that hasn’t been enough to cover major capital improvements like roof repairs and heating system upgrades.
Connelly argues that the state has “reneged on its obligation to provide capital resources to keep these units viable.”
“This is permanent affordable for families with low incomes,” he said. “It’s a multimillion-dollar resource that should be preserved.”
In fiscal year 2003, Gov. Mitt Romney provided $61.3 million for public housing modernization through the bond program, said Gornstein, but by fiscal year 2005 that figure had been cut to $50.4 million.
While the Romney administration has concentrated on a “fix it first” approach for public transportation, focusing on repairing existing roadways instead of building new highways, he has not applied the same principal to the state’s public housing, said Gornstein.
“We think the administration should apply the concept of fixing it first to our state housing program, as well,” said Gornstein.
Meeting a Mandate
If more bond money isn’t made available, advocates said they fear that needed repairs at many public housing complexes will be neglected and the units will fall into disrepair, spurring local housing authorities and elected officials to demolish them.
That was the case about four years ago when Lowell officials petitioned the state and received approval to tear down the 284-unit Julian Steele housing development and replace it with mixed-income housing. Two years later, Fall River’s mayor and City Council won permission to raze Watuppa Heights, a 100-unit development, and replace it with 26 homes.
Wade, Watertown’s Housing Authority director, said his community has a 168-unit development for low-income families that is surrounded by expensive condos and market-rate single-family and multifamily homes and hasn’t been painted in eight years. “I don’t have the money,” he said.
If the housing complex remains unpainted and there is no increase in the budget, Wade said he will be forced to lay off workers who handle routine maintenance such as clearing trash and mowing lawns. If the public housing deteriorates, Wade said he fears it will have a negative effect on surrounding property values and, ultimately, property taxes.
“As they [surrounding homes] devalue that will impact the town’s resources,” he said.
Last week’s hearing was followed by a luncheon organized by Mass-NAHRO as part of its annual lobbying day. Some public housing authority leaders were encouraged by the day’s events because legislators expressed concern about protecting the state’s public housing projects.
“Public housing is a precious resource, in order to keep it viable we must provide adequate operating funds,” said Senator Brian A. Joyce, D-Milton, Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Housing, in a press release last Monday.
In the same release, State Rep. Kevin G. Honan, D-Allston-Brighton, and House chairman of the committee, noted that the legislature authorized over $220 million that could have gone for public housing modernization during the past three fiscal years, but only $115 million has been budgeted or spent.
“Equity and fairness to public housing tenants must be one our priorities; we cannot afford to neglect the very bricks and mortar of our public housing developments,” Honan said.
For Wade, the issue boils down to making a commitment to provide housing for the working poor. “We … want to be able to meet our mission statement and mandate, and that’s to provide safe, sanitary housing to those in need and to be an asset to our communities,” he said.
Aglaia Pikounis may be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.
