New Haven Independent

Posted by: robn | August 15, 2008 1:38 PM

Bob Solomon has been an avid proponent of scattered site housing. Being that a recently published shocking argument against this has been linked from this site...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/08/a_potentially_h.php

...Bob owes New Haven citizens a public statement about HAHNs reaction to this article and plans for change.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 18, 2008 4:02 PM

Well, actually, I do not know why Robn, whoever that may be, is so sure that I have been an avid fan of scattered site housing as we are practicing it in New Haven. The Housing Authority is subject to a court order to develop 183 units of housing in non-impacted neighborhoods. That court order was in effect when I became the executive director in 1999, and I have done my best to comply with the order and move on. However, as anyone who as attended any of a dozen public hearings or board of commissioners meeting knows, I am in favor of:

1. Deconcentration of poverty, which can only be accomplished through opening the exclusionary suburbs;
2. Neighborhood process;
3. High quality housing management, which is particularly difficult in scattered site housing;
4. A regional housing policy enforced by meaningful state and federal oversight, instead of the current morally corrupt policies that place all of the burden on urban neighborhoods.

I am opposed to:

1. The Housing Authority buying one unit at a time, in single family housed, because the purchase costs and the management costs are high per unit;
2. Federal subsidies that are so low that management is near impossible, which is part of the Bush starving of public housing, to assure failure;
3. The notion that New Haven has to bear more than its share of subsifdized housing, simply because it has always been that way, while the suburbs remain racially and economically segregated.

Some of these things may happen; others will not. I'll continue to work toward all of them. As far as my role at the Housing Authority, I can try to work within the current structure or resign, but I believe in the rule of law, so ignoring a court order is not on my personal list.

So, Robn, there you are. You have the luxury of making "demands" behind your anonymity, and you may have a good reason for doing so. It's a little harder, however, when you actually feel a responsibility to put your name on what you write.

Posted by: robn | August 18, 2008 6:53 PM

Bob,

Don't attempt to shame me or ask me to argue with you about the strengths and weaknesses of an anonymous political news forum...its enough to say that New Haven is a city of grusome political reprisal and anonymity is the NHI readers prerogative.

Also its my prerogative as a taxpayer to demand your response to an article which paints a very grim picture of a very controversial program run by your organization. Court order or not, this article presents a compelling argument against scattered site housing. It seems that AT THE VERY LEAST, HAHN should try to determine if its factual and if so, how to dissemble this program before it destroys any good taxpaying neighborhoods.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 19, 2008 8:35 AM

I guess Robn does not understand the meaning of "court order." The Housing Authority can not legally dismantle the program, turn it into an ownership program, or sell the units. I could go into the long history of the case, but there's no real purpose (unless, Robn, you would like to base your opinion on the facts, which seems unlikely.) As for the article, it describes one town in a situation that may or may not be similar to New Haven. It is overly simplistic to assume that good or bad programs have the same consequences from location to location, even within a community. I agree these are serious questions, but reading an article and thinking that makes you an expert is not a serious response. Robn, here's an offer - if you want to sit down, one-to-one, over coffee, we can discuss these problems. I'll pay for the coffee.

Posted by: FacChek | August 19, 2008 10:42 AM

Solomon:

I would take you up on the coffee offer, but, only if you include the "And".

More importantly though, I would like to hear more on your list of favors, particularly the following:

2. Neighborhood process;
(What pray tell is Neighborhood process?)

3. High quality housing management, which is particularly difficult in scattered site housing;

True, but it is also difficult at your non- scattered projects for which you can barely, at best, maintain.
You have laid- off many of your experienced maintenance people and you now bid out almost everything including emergencies. This bid out process allows the low bid from even the least qualified. HANH has not maintained quality control, efficiency, cost effectiveness or documentation of materials and replacement follow-up schedules. You operate a decrepit work order system which cannot be verified. HANH maintenance allows personnel to spend hours away from the job searching for replacement parts, the workers buy from Lowe's and or Home depot and you do not verify the purchase to the installation.

Your lack of high quality housing management as you described above is the crux of the complaints from taxpayers and tenants alike.

What say you now Solomon?

Posted by: robn | August 19, 2008 11:06 AM

Bob,

I'm not claiming to be an expert; I'm claiming to be a taxpayer worried about crime being spread into good neighborhooods by your scatterred site program. What I'm asking is for HAHN to investigate the correlation between crime and (an apparently well capitalized program of) scatterred site housing. Is HAHN so myopic that its unwilling to contact national peers to try to determine if this correllation occurs elsewhere? Is it not in your mission to question how you operate? As a man of the law do you see this court order as insurmountable by further legal challenge?

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 19, 2008 1:34 PM

Robn -

The biggest problem I have with your posts is that you make these factually incorrect assumptions, then go off from there. In fact, HANH has done everything you suggest and more. We have plotted crime statistics, we paid large sums on a security analysis,we paid to implement that analysis, we paid and continued to pay for extra police service, we increased screening for scattered site and Section 8 housing. (By the way, the Atlantic article has to do with Section 8 housing, which is not owned or managed by the Housing Authority.) If you want, you can get documents that show all of this, but I agree that it's easier to read an article and type out a quick complaint. The problem is that you ignore virtually all of the facts. So, here's some important ones:

Approximately 33% of New Haven's rental housing is subsidized. That's extraordinarily high and, as I have written more than once, is a preoblem for a lot of reasons. Approximately 2% of Guilford's housing is subsidized. New Haven has over 2000 public housing units. Hamden has zero. Before Elm Haven was demolished, New Haven had 3500 public housing units, so the number has decreased dramatically over the last 10 years. (You may or may not be surprised, Robn, to hear that I often get criticized for the decrease, but that's a whole different discussion.) However, New Haven has around 4000 Section 8 unts. For the last 35 years, there has ben a Congressional fight between public housing and Section 8 for limited funds. Section 8 is winning, which means that public housing is guaranteed to deteriorate, unless it is subsidized by something other than HUD public housing funds. In New Haven, we have been fortunate to be a Moving to Work agency, which, along with HOPE VI funds, has allowed the redevelopment of Elm Haven, Quinnipiac Terrace and Eastview Terrace, at an enormous cost. West Rock is next. These are 50 year decisions and I do not pretend that I am any better than others at predicting what will happen in 50 years, but we do spend a lot of time trying to make a rational decision. When you talk about scattered site housing, there are currently around 170 units owned and managed by the Housing Authority, while there are 3500 Section 8 vouchers in New Haven, in units that are privately owned and managed. In other words, while you blame the Housing Authority for mismanagement of scattered site units, the basic math is that the Housing Authority owns and manages less than 5% of the units in question. The Housing Authority has no control over where people use their Section 8's. We have in the past given people incentives to use the vouchers in the suburbs. It worked to a limited extent, but after one year, many of the voucher holders returned to New Haven. So, those are a few of the facts you might want to consider. As for the court order, no, I do not believe there is any chance of success in going back to court. We have not yet even fully complied, since we do not have 183 units on line. Ultimately, as I mentioned, even if I believed that Memphis and New Haven were analogous (I don't), the number of units owned and managed by the Housing Authority is quite small, and many of those barely qualify as scattered site, since they are bunched together. By the way, the Housing Authority also tried two different private managers for the scattered site sites, but the result (objective scoring by HUD) was not pretty. So, there you go.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 19, 2008 2:30 PM

1. "I would take you up on the coffee offer..."

Dear Faccheck, I didn't offer you coffee.

2. "Neighborhood process;
(What pray tell is Neighborhood process?)"
When the Housing Authority redeveloped Quinnipiac Terrace, we held a series of meetings, wih a good deal of discussion and planning. The meetings had a positive affect on the design. The Oak Street connector is a great example of the opposite - top-down executive decision-making. To me, neighborhood process includes information-sharing, which means a cooperative efffort, not simply a neighborhood right to veto or an executive right to impose. While it did not come up in my replies to Robn, that's one of the problems I have with the court-ordered scattered site development. The process did not allow for a dialogue with neighborhoods. On the other hand, most dialogue around this issue tends to be NIMBY, with a desire for veto power. Some people may remember that the first scatter site unit was fire-bombed.

3. "High quality housing management, which is particularly difficult in scattered site housing'

I wish I had a good answer, but I don't. By HUD's own calculation of need, it is paying Housing Authorities 87% of maintenance needs, and HUD starts from a low number. Imagine your own home, if you are told that you have to reduce already-tight expenses by another 13%. At some point, you are telling appliances not to age. Some residents, particularly in family developments, are hard on the units, a few are destructive. sometimes there's a kitchen fire with $10,000 in damages or worse. Don't even ask about insurance costs. You mention privatization, and we could talk about that for hours. Under the current HUD budget, the Housing Authority can not possibly meet expenses, so we "borrow" from funds set aside for redevelopment. All of the housing used to be old, with obsolete systems, so we are slowly redeveloping or upgrading. There is no question that we need to be more disciplined about how the money is spent, but there is not much we can do about the time it takes to get from one site to another, the inefficiency of managing scattered site housing, and many more issues, including health care costs. We have tried private management of scattered sites and it did not work. We are going to spend money to upgrade the sites. When I participated in the discussion about the Schartenburg site and Housing Authority subsidy for 20 units, one of the things I mentioned as a virtue was that the units would be owned and managed by the developer. Many postings still thought it was crazy. I plead guilty to crazy.

Posted by: FacChek | August 19, 2008 3:55 PM

Bob Solomon:

Your answers, particularly #3 "High quality housing management, which is particularly difficult in scattered site housing".
Fell far short in getting to the crux of my inquiry, however, you did respond this way:
"I wish I had a good answer, but I don't".

Nevertheless, most if not all, city administrators would not bother to engage the issues.
Thank you for your response.

Posted by: Bugupit | August 21, 2008 7:00 AM

Thank you, Bob, for responding on this forum and for following up. While a public official, I don't think you "owe" any particular taxpayer a conversation on their terms when it is one such as NHI, so you have gone above and beyond. Although Robn does speak the truth about New Haven's political climate and, until NHI's server is seized by Rob Smuts or Sheriff Voigt, NHI's anonymity provides precious freedom of speech.

I find the housing authority senior and clerical staff putting so much effort into formalities and professionalism, but falling so short in performance. For one thing, staff roles are segmented to the point where no one person has adequate knowledge over a situation. It is also remarkable how much and how often outside contractors are relied upon. I am left with doubts about the oversight and overall control by you and Ms. Dubois-Walton.

I am also left curious of the relationship between HANH and your Big Brother just down Orange Street. Could you please comment on the level of independence of HANH and the role of the DeStefano Administration in your pursuing, accumulating and expending some of the various monies available to you? My impression is that City Hall runs the show and watches the pots of money. (Rather than defend a claim of independence, it might be more helpful if you provide justification, from your perspective, for their control). Thank you.

Posted by: robn | August 21, 2008 9:35 AM

Bob,

Firstly, although its a bit cantankerous, thank you for your voluminous responses.

I am in agreement with your disdain for the current administration in DC and with the general unfairness of surrounding towns not offerring affordable housing. However, scattering public housing into other towns isn't my conern...my concern is scattering it throughout New Haven and potentially disrupting stable neighborhoods. Memphis may not be directly analagous, but its worth looking for similar housing/crime correlations....and I'm surprised at your aggrevated protestations. Also, its an interesting rhetorical tactic to frame my inquiry as negativity ("complaint"), but please don't confuse the two.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 21, 2008 3:47 PM

Ah, Bugupit (nice name), it's the old "when did you stop beating your wife" question. Don't give us the phony answer that the Housing Authority is independent, just do a good job justifying your role as a puppet. Nice rhetorical device, but let me try to answer anyway.

First, I believe that the Houisng Authority's policies should be coordinated with the City. I think that was a weakness when I started and I am pleased things are better coordinated now. That coordination does not involve the City controlling Housing Authority decisions, but a coordinated effort on Section 8 inspections, early discussions with City Plan on redevelopment, better rates for utilities and other services, better planned City contributions to infrastructure in redevelopment (sidewalks, roads), better police and fire relationships. It covers a lot of ground, from support in seeking a $20 million HOPE VI grant to summer camp for Housing Authority children at Parks and Rec camps.

I just passed 9 years as director or commissioner, and in that time, no City employee or official has ever asked me to favor a particular contractor or hire a particular person. Never. When we discovered unethical behavior, people were fired; when we discovered illegal behavior, people were prosecuted. We did not alter our standards because of the stature or political connection of the perpetrator. Throughout those 9 years, the Mayor has been an unfailing supporter of the Housing Authority, in ways I truly admire, but the notion that he or anyone else in City Hall controls the Housing Authority funds is way off base. By the way, you can only imagine HUD reports and audits and oversight.
Well, I sure that I'm not the only one who is tired of this conversation, so I'll end it here. RobN, forget the coffee.

Posted by: info sarcastic | August 21, 2008 7:33 PM

Was it really necessary to be sarcastic?

demanding a response is not gentle, but it is an allowable way to put something to a public official. and in new haven, where so many public officials don't think they owe anyone an explanation - as your sarcasm aptly demonstrated - it was forgivable.

If she asked your opinion about the atlantic article, instead of demanded it, would you have been less so?

maybe you should rethink the getting back into court, in light of new national studies, or, tell us whether you wouldn't want to if you could and why.

Posted by: question | August 21, 2008 7:45 PM

question: i agree we need to do something abt reentry. i hope those on this list are heavily screened.

But are the disabled still top on the preference list? And are they all being served? are they no longer waiting long periods to get in? will some of them be bumped behind a released inmate?

Posted by: city role | August 21, 2008 8:14 PM

i am confused about the relationship between ha and city.

the mayor is listed as part of ha's management on ha's web site, simply as "mayor"

i'm sure a lot of you posting know what it is - can you help me out?

Posted by: bob solomon@yale.edu | August 22, 2008 9:45 AM

The National Housing Act of 1937 authorized loans to local public housing authorities authorized by the state and established by local government. Connecticut passed an enabling act which allowed municipalities to establish local housing authorities as indepndent corporations, with a five member board of commissioners appointed by the municipal chief executive, for a five year term, with a maximum of two terms. New Haven established its housing authority in 1938 and received a $5 million loan to build Elm Haven, Farnam Courts and Quinnipiac Terrace.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 22, 2008 5:56 PM

Info Sarcastic -

Are you and RobN the same person? If not (well, even if you are), you should have coffee. Ask RobN to pay for the coffee. Here's why I ask - I think I explained (God knows I tried) that the article (not a national study, by the way, although they are many studies showing the benefits of decentralizing poverty)that the Housing Authority manages a small number of scattered site units, etc. I even included real numbers and percentages. I thought I gave enough information to bore just about everyone, but who knows. Then, you ask the same question.
no, I don't believe we can or should go back to court. No, the Atlantic article is not the least bit relevant to the narrow question of the Housing Authority developing 183 "scattered site" units. No, these units do not represent the dispersal of crime into the neighborhoods. The numbers are just too small. Accept it or not, numbers don't lie, people do.

Soi, why am I bothering to write. Truth be told, I promised myself not to return. Then, you raised the question of sarcasm. So, I thought about it. I looked deep inside myself. I reflected on my role as a volunteer appointee, not paid, not fed, "public official." And, in the end, I decided that, yes, I pretty much had to be sarcastic. Why, you ask. Here's why:

RobN described and added a link to a program he felt was "shocking", said that I was its "avid proponent," and said that I "owed" an explanation. Well, maybe that's fair if I actually was an avid propnent, or a least a lukewarm proponent, but I'm not (again, this is limited to the HA's small program). So, I don't think I'm obligated to respond to every misconception RobN or Info Sarcasm might have. But, since RobN carelessly misstated my position, I thought I, not RobN, should be the spokesperson for what I believed. After I clarified my beliefs, RobN might have acknowledged his error. He might have noted the 50 or so times I publicly stated my concerns. He might have even apologized for the mischaracterization. What did he do? He whined about my criticizing his anonymity. He was the victim. Poor RobN. And, here you are, wondering why I was sarcastic to poor RobN. There's no good reason, I guess, but trying to answer the questions didn't seem to work and here you are asking the same question. If you and RobN and I all sit down for coffee (2 seats or 3?) we can have a discussion, but you'll have to pay for your own coffee.