Vacancies baffle Clarion Housing Authority

Campbell addressed both issues during the authority’s regular meeting on July 26.

Campbell explained one reason the authority is having trouble filling Medardo Estates are the stipulations put upon by HUD.

“We have been working with HUD to get a waiver approved for Medardo,” she said. “Right now, Medardo says it has to be a family (that lives in the apartments). We want to change that to just say two or more people.

“Medardo had two-bedroom and three-bedroom units and it has to be two people per bedroom, and we are trying to say we can have unrelated people (staying in the units).”

Another area in which Campbell has been using to try and fill vacancies is by granting waivers to smaller families to occupy larger apartments. “At this point, since we have so many vacancies, we can work a little differently on that.

“Even if someone is on the two-bedroom list and we have a three-bedroom (apartment) open, we can offer them the three-bedroom. We definitely have leeway there. We got to get people on the list and showing up.”

Director of Housing Management Shannon Vasbinder said, “We can never put more people in two per bedroom, but we can put in less. We are asking (HUD) for a less restrictive occupancy standard.”

According to Campbell, the authority has had a waiver for the Hillside Apartments for five years to allow renting apartments to singles. Campbell said the authority has renewed the waiver each year and HUD has renewed the waiver.

Campbell was more perplexed when it came to the voucher program. “Right now we have 56 vouchers on the street, which means we have 56 households that have a voucher and can lease up with a landlord but can’t find a unit.”

“It’s just people leaving the (Section 8) program,” she said. “It’s not people violating the terms of their contract; so I can’t quite put my finger on that.”

The authority’s legal counsel, Stephen French, offered maybe higher wages being paid by companies is playing a role in people leaving the Section 8 program. “Could (the reason) be that we are at full employment and wages are up? If you have a two-income household and you have two people making $15 per hour, that’s 60 grand per year and that is unprecedented for this area. It may just be they don’t need the program anymore.”

Campbell is concerned what could happen if the vouchers go unused.

“I just don’t know what this looks like in a year,” she said, “because the way HUD determines your funding for Section 8 is they look at the previous year and how much you used. So they are going to look back to this year and say, ‘’Well, you didn’t use that much. We used a lot but we didn’t use it to our full capacity like we normally do; so I don’t know what they are going to do about funding.

“If they drop our funding, they are going to be dropping everybody’s funding around the state, and then what are they going to do with all of the funding? I don’t know if HUD is going to reevaluate how they determine funding.”

Authority board secretary Steve Ketner asked Campbell when she first noticed vouchers going unused. Campbell said she noticed it when the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program program began winding down. The ERAP program was part of the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I could understand this if we still had the ERAP money, but the ERAP money is leaving,” she said.

French believes the realization of COVID-19 pandemic funding evaporating changed people’s perspectives.

“I think people realized that COVID money was going away, they were going to have to go out and get a job,” he said. “They are now shocked by how much they are making because the wages are up. Everybody is paying more money.”

Board member Casey O’Toole offered a different explanation. Through the voucher program, “they have inspections and they have things they have to do now that they didn’t have to do for two years (with ERAP).”

The next Housing Authority and Redevelopment Authority meeting is scheduled at 9 a.m. Sept. 28.