Across the country, we believe PHAs are the key actors working within local communities to preserve and improve their existing housing stock, and to place housing-insecure families into decent and affordable housing, whether in housing that PHAs own and manage, housing developed through public/private partnerships or through contracts with private landlords utilizing housing vouchers.
CLPHA members work with practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and policy makers to improve and realign the way the housing system works with other federal, state, and local systems in order to increase federal investments in affordable housing, leverage private sector investments, improve local housing conditions, and help improve life outcomes for the residents they serve.
However, for the past several decades housing authorities have labored under diminishing funding allocations in the operating and capital funds and voucher administrative fees. This has led to a loss of units and inadequate maintenance and service delivery. At the same time, they have had to adhere to increasingly burdensome and costly regulatory requirements. CLPHA, along with other industry stakeholders, has repeatedly called for reform. We believe that for too long the regulation of public housing programs has been overly bureaucratic, inflexible, focused on process instead of outcomes, and out of touch with local innovation. These one-size-fits-all regulatory approaches inhibit jurisdictions from effectively tailoring federal programs to local community needs.
Working within this difficult environment, five core principles guide CLPHA’s mission and policy and advocacy work at the national level and how our members operate at the local level. These principles are:
- Secure adequate funding;
- Stimulate capital investment;
- Ensure program and funding flexibility;
- Promote innovation of housing authorities; and
- Reduce silos across sectors.