New Haven Independent

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) an “outstanding” rating, HANH Executive Director Jimmy Miller reported to commissioners and the public at Tuesday’s board meeting. Without the rating, units would likely have been lost and some of the most vulnerable New Haveners gone homeless.

Even better news: the rating was accompanied by renewal of HANH’s status as a “Moving To Work” agency. Moving to Work (MTW) status, which New Haven shares with only 32 other agencies from coast to coast, enables the authority to continue to count on financial flexibility to, for example, use operational funds for reconstruction of thousands of apartments.

“With MTW,” Miller explained, “we have fungibility … We can take our Section 8 reserve funds[federal subsidies for low-income households] and use them for social services for the clients, for job training, and for capital expenditures.”

Click here on the HANH website for the full MTW report.

MTW was set to expire next year. The Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation, with the critical participation of the mayor, Miller said, lobbied Washington for an extension. Miller was surprised that the extension was for not one year, but ten, until 2018.

With the fungibility of funds, HANH is able to have the resources, he said, to rebuild sizable sections of its housing stock that have deteriorated over the years. These include, among other projects, $6 million for Prescott Bush project, $36 million for West Rock, and most recently 26 million for the Eastview Terrace Project.

All the social services added over the past few years to assist the elderly and those with emotional problems at Ruoppolo Manor in Fair Haven, Robert Wolfe Houses near the train station, and elsewhere are made possible because of the commingling of funds permissible under MTW.

“Lottery” Won

HANH Board Chair Bob Solomon (shown here with fellow commissioner Louise Pearsall) congratulated Miller and the staff for their work in earning HUD’s approval and re-certification. “It’s almost like winning the lottery,” he said, “but surely the difference in our survival, the ability to continue this work.” Without the renewal of MTW, he said, there was a high likelihood of a disappearance of units.

Although MTW status has been in effect since 2001, years before Miller arrived, it was his can-do approach that actually implemented these projects, Solomon said. “We’d been dormant for too long a time.”

Under his tenure, HANH will soon also have completed the purchase of 183 scattered-site houmes to replace that number of units destroyed when the Elm Haven projects were torn down to make way for Monterey Homes. The most recent purchase includes an historic building at 759 Quinnipiac Ave. in Fair Haven Heights, which is shuttered, pending restoration.

Miller (shown here with Commissioner Jason Turner) is also particularly proud of the rent simplification process that he’s instituted under MTW. It eliminates staff and paperwork by reducing the recertification to once in three years (as opposed to annually) for seniors, and once in two years for families.

Bringing people to greater self-sufficiency is also a hallmark of the work that has been done under MTW, he said. A number of people have bought their own homes. Others have received job training. Most recently, HANH has hired 25 residents as full- and part-time groundskeepers throughout the system.

“Augustus” Seeks Successor

If all this sounds as if Miller is thinking of his legacy, that’s true as well. In addition to voting formal approval of the MTW renewal, HANH’s board also was planning in executive session to approve a plan for finding Miller’s successor. He’s part of the search process which begins now and ends with a selection of the new executive director in October 2008.

Miller’s not boastful, but he’s not shy either. He revealed some recent outside reading unrelated to MTW or PHA or any of the vast acronymic tomes he must deal with. “You remember that after Augustus died, there were three or four emperors in quick succession who tried to take his place? That’s not going to happen here. We’ll find someone with the skills and the passion.”

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