Welcome to CLPHA's Press Room
CLPHA experts welcome interview requests from print, radio, television, and online reporters and are happy to provide their insights on issues of public housing and related legislation and policy.
For media inquiries, please contact:
David Greer
Director of Communications
During the COVID-19 quarantine, David can be reached at (202) 550-1381 or dgreer@clpha.org.
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Grants will help PHA residents with immediate and locally defined needs exacerbated by COVID-19
Washington, D.C. (February 9, 2021) -- The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) is pleased to announce the ten recipients of its COVID Resident Support Grants. The recipients are CLPHA member public housing authorities (PHAs) from across the country that will utilize their grants to meet immediate and locally defined needs exacerbated by COVID-19 for projects such as providing residents with essential household supplies, helping households successfully lease affordable units with their housing vouchers, and supplying technology and devices that will help resident children attend virtual school or connect resident seniors with healthcare resources. The recipients were chosen via a competitive selection process, and the robust response to CLPHA’s call for applications demonstrates the need for additional funds to support COVID-19 relief services and supplies for low-income Americans.
“As housing providers for some of the nation’s most vulnerable children, families, and seniors, our members are uniquely positioned to serve the low-income residents in their communities that are hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects,” said CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman. “We are pleased to provide these ten grants that will support PHAs in their efforts to not only keep residents stably housed, but also to provide crucial supplies and resources that will help residents cope with the new normal created by the pandemic."
The grantees are:
- INLIVIAN (Charlotte, NC)
- Elm City Communities (New Haven, CT)
- Housing Authority of the City of Goldsboro (Goldsboro, NC)
- Jersey City Housing Authority (Jersey City, NJ)
- Lucas Metropolitan Housing (Toledo, OH)
- Oklahoma City Housing Authority (Oklahoma City, OK)
- Home Forward (Portland, OR)
- Housing Authority of the City of San Buenaventura (Ventura, CA)
- Tacoma Housing Authority (Tacoma, WA)
- Wilmington Housing Authority (Wilmington, NC)
Learn more about CLPHA’s grantees and how they will use these funds to help meet the public health, education, employment, and basic urgent needs of their residents profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic here.
These ten sub-grants are made possible through CLPHA’s grant from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s (CDP) COVID-19 Response Fund.
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About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program; administer more than a quarter of the Housing Choice Voucher program; and operate a wide array of other housing programs. Learn more at clpha.org and on Twitter @CLPHA .
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative
The Housing Is Initiative, led by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, helps build a future where sectors work together to improve life outcomes. Housing stability is a critical first step to improve life outcomes for low-income children, families, and seniors; CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative is based on the premise that sectors can better meet needs when they work together. Housing Is establishes, broadens, and deepens efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. Learn more at housingis.org and on Twitter @housing_is.
About The Center for Disaster Philanthropy
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s mission is to leverage the power of philanthropy to mobilize a full range of resources that strengthen the ability of communities to withstand disasters and recover equitably when they occur. CDP manages domestic and international Disaster Funds on behalf of corporations, foundations and individuals through targeted, holistic and localized grantmaking. For more information, visit: disasterphilanthropy.org, call (202) 464-2018 or tweet us @funds4disaster.
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About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative |
November 20, 2020
About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national non-profit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program; administer more than a quarter of the Housing Choice Voucher program; and operate a wide array of other housing programs. Learn more at clpha.org and on Twitter @CLPHA .
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative
The Housing Is Initiative, led by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, helps build a future where sectors work together to improve life outcomes. Housing stability is a critical first step to improve life outcomes for low-income children, families, and seniors; CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative is based on the premise that sectors can better meet needs when they work together. Housing Is establishes, broadens, and deepens efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. Learn more at housingis.org and on Twitter @housing_is.
About The Center for Disaster Philanthropy
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s mission is to leverage the power of philanthropy to mobilize a full range of resources that strengthen the ability of communities to withstand disasters and recover equitably when they occur. CDP manages domestic and international Disaster Funds on behalf of corporations, foundations and individuals through targeted, holistic and localized grantmaking. For more information, visit: disasterphilanthropy.org, call (202) 464-2018 or tweet us @funds4disaster.
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(Washington, D.C.) March 31, 2022 -- Council of Large Public Housing Authorities Executive Director Sunia Zaterman released the following statement on the Biden administration’s FY23 budget request:
“The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities applauds the Biden administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget request with its 9.4-percent increase in HUD discretionary funding over 2022 enacted levels. The Biden administration has consistently demonstrated a commitment to expanding housing opportunities for low-income Americans. The FY23 budget request reflects this commitment.
“CLPHA is pleased that the FY23 budget increases funding across many programs that CLPHA members operate. Among CLPHA’s top legislative priorities is a significant expansion of the Housing Choice Voucher program. The multi-billion dollar increase in the funding request for the HCV program, which represents an expansion of 200,000 households, is an important step forward to fulfilling this key priority.
“The expansion of the HCV program coupled with increased administrative fee funding, more Tenant Protection Vouchers, additional LITHCs, new RAD conversion subsidies, and targeted climate and health investments can have a major impact on preserving public housing, expanding rental assistance and developing new affordable housing.”
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About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
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(Washington, D.C.) March 9, 2022 -- Council of Large Public Housing Authorities Executive Director Sunia Zaterman released the following statement about the HUD budget in fiscal year 2022 spending omnibus package:
“The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities applauds the $4 billion increase in funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over last year in the fiscal year (FY) 2022 omnibus appropriations bill released last night. The increase amounts to $53.7 billion for HUD in this omnibus bill. "Subcommittee Chairman David Price and the Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee recognized the critical role that public housing and Housing Choice Vouchers play with several funding increases. First, an expansion of up to 25,000 new incremental vouchers for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, including survivors of domestic violence and veterans as part of the $200 million increase in the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance Program. Second, the Project-Based Rental Assistance budget increase of $475 million over the FY 2021 budget will continue to safely house 1.2 million very low- and low-income households.
“For public housing a $645.5 million increase over FY 2021, including $3.2 billion to meet the full annual capital accrual need in order to improve the quality and safety of public housing for more than 2 million residents. Finally, the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative received an increase of $150 million above FY 2021, which represents a 75 percent increase. While America’s housing crisis continues, these funding increases recognize that public and affordable housing programs are the most effective way to keep low-income families housed.”
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(Washington, D.C.) February 25, 2022 -- Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) Executive Director Sunia Zaterman released the following statement about President Joe Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court: “The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities applauds President Biden’s historic nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. If confirmed, Judge Jackson will be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court after more than two centuries of the Court’s existence, and she will bring near gender parity with four women serving on the Court. Judge Jackson will bring experience as a public defender to the Court for the first time since Justice Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991. “President Biden campaigned on the promise to be intentional with his first Supreme Court pick. Intentionality is at the heart of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement to bring greater racial equity to our nation’s workplaces. President’s Biden choice of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for a seat on the nation’s highest court represents an important step forward for racial justice in our country.” |
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Pew Charitable Trust's state policy news outlet Stateline quoted CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman and CLPHA member executive directors in an article about the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on public housing authorities.
Zaterman told Stateline that PHAs need $5 billion in emergency supplemental funding due to several challenges PHAs are facing during this crisis, including a "significant reduction" in rental income, a dramatically reduced workforce, massive cleaning-related expenses, and communications challenges with residents while PHAs' physical offices are closed. PHAs also need a further $3.5 billion in emergency supplemental funds for the for the Housing Choice Voucher program.
“I’m worried,” Emilio Salas, acting executive director of the Los Angeles County Development Authority, told Stateline. “Tremendously.”
Douglas Guthrie, president and CEO of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, told Stateline that his PHA is working hard to address his city's homelesssness crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We can't wait for waivers from HUD to do what needs to be done today,” Guthrie said. “Shelter is the most important thing right now.”
Andrew Lofton, executive director of the Seattle Housing Authority, told Stateline that PHAs are also preparing for the inevitable surge of residents who test positive for COVID-19: "It’s just a matter of time."
Read Stateline's article "Public Housing Authorities Hit Hard by the Pandemic."
As of January 1, 2020, California has a state-wide law prohibiting landlords from rejecting potential tenants solely on their use of a housing voucher. The law, known as Source of Income (SOI) protection, replaces SOI ordinances that were previously in place in several California cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County to cover voucher holders across the state.
A recent HUD-commissioned study on landlord acceptance of voucher holders in five cities found that those cities with an existing SOI law protecting voucher holders had higher rates of landlord acceptance compared to those cities without SOI protection. While cities with SOI laws devote varying amounts of resources to enforcement, HUD’s study suggests awareness of local SOI protections meaningfully deter discrimination by landlords. The Poverty & Race Research Action Council maintains an updated list of all SOI laws in place across the country.
In an effort to call attention to the affordable housing crisis during the 2020 election cycle and to spur presidential debate moderators to ask candidates about their affordable housing plans, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 campaign placed a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times on December 16 & 17. The ad featured OHOV: 2020’s letter urging PBS NewsHour, Politico, and debate moderators to ask presidential candidates how they would address the nation’s affordable housing crisis during the next debate, which will be held on December 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. CLPHA joined more than 1,000 organizations as co-signers to OHOV: 2020’s letter.
Following the devastating November fire at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority’s (MPHA) Cedar High apartments, Minneapolis’s Star Tribune reported on the chronic federal underfunding of public housing that contributes to the massive, nationwide capital needs backlog at public housing communities and requires PHAs to make tough choices about building maintenance and repairs.
“Our priority is to make sure that life and safety are always taken care of,” said MPHA Interim Executive Director/CEO Tracey Scott in an October interview with the paper. “Quite simply that’s the hard choice you have to make because you would like to replace a kitchen cabinet but that has to come second to life and safety. We have to make choices.” MPHA estimates that its properties need an estimated $152 million in maintenance and renovations.
New York City Housing Authority Chair & CEO and CLPHA Board Member Greg Russ, MPHA’s former Executive Director/CEO, underscored the difficult choices housing authorities have to make when it comes to prioritizing maintenance and renovation projects: “We don’t have enough funding to keep basic systems in place nationally and have to pick and choose when we do get the capital money.” Russ added that inadequate federal funding is why MPHA and other agencies employ the RAD program to diversify and their funding sources so that they can afford the important and expensive rehabilitation of their properties.
CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman said that more “organized political will and bipartisan support” is needed in Congress in order to increase funding and fully address PHAs’ capital needs. “We are at the turning point in part because the affordable housing crisis is so heightened in our communities,” Zaterman said. “This is such an essential resource, the understanding that we have to invest is more pervasive and people are beginning to understand that ... but we haven’t had the reflection in our funding yet.”
Scott further stressed the effects that insufficient federal funding has on her agency’s ability to house and serve their low-income residents. “We’re a public agency and the mission is that we provide quality, well maintained homes for families to thrive and these are members of our community that need support and that helping hand,” she said, “We are providing a roof today, but if we don’t maintain it there would not be a roof tomorrow.”
CLPHA Members Elm City Communities, Miami-Dade Public Housing & Community Development Also Featured
Affordable Housing News magazine featured Executive Director Sunia Zaterman in its Fall 2019 issue, where Zaterman discussed CLPHA’s priorities, goals, and strategies for preserving and improving public and affordable housing. “We are very focused on appropriations and polices that support public housing authorities and the people they serve,” said Zaterman, adding that “[f]rom the beginning, we’ve been very focused on supporting the most innovative housing authorities in the country.” She cited programs like the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and Moving to Work (MTW) as flexible, locally-oriented policies that innovative housing authorities are using to improve their housing stock and resident outcomes. Zaterman also emphasized the public housing portfolio’s capital needs backlog of more than $50 billion and the chronic underfunding of public housing programs, issues that are at the center of CLPHA’s advocacy efforts.
The article also highlights CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative, which seeks to broaden and deepen efforts to align housing, education, and health organizations to produce positive long-term outcomes for low-income individuals and families. Zaterman discussed some of the Housing Is Initiative’s work, including the Housing Is Summit, an annual convening dedicated to collaboration among the housing, education, and health sectors, and the creation of a data sharing agreement template for housing authorities and school systems so that they can identify shared issues and interests and develop evidence-based interventions. “We understand that housing is absolutely essential and foundational, but often, for families and special needs populations, is not sufficient in and of itself,” Zaterman said. “Our goal with the Housing Is Initiative is to improve and enhance our partnerships in healthcare, education, and workforce development to improve life outcomes for families, seniors, and persons with disabilities who reside in assisted housing.”
Read Affordable Housing News' article (on pages 20 and 21).
CLPHA members Miami-Dade Public Housing & Community Development (Miami-Dade PCHD) and Elm City Communities (ECC) were also featured in Affordable Housing News’ Fall 2019 issue. Read about Miami-Dade PCHD’s RAD-assisted Liberty Square redevelopment on pages 34-36 and about ECC’s employment of MTW flexibilities to create innovative resident programming and redevelop its public housing portfolio on pages 64-65.
From the Chicago Housing Authority's press release:
The Chicago Housing Authority this week received $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for 75 new vouchers that will provide housing assistance to young adults who are transitioning out of foster care and are experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness.
HUD made the award as part of $12.9 million being distributed to 16 public housing authorities in nine states across the country. The new allotment will increase the number of vouchers that are available through CHA’s Foster Youth to Independence program (FYI) from 100 to 175. The new vouchers will be effective as of June 2023.
The FYI program aims to create a community response to youth experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness who have been involved with the child welfare system. FYI makes Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) assistance available to public housing authorities who have a partnership with public child welfare agencies, in CHA’s case, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Under the program, public housing authorities can provide housing assistance to young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years old who left foster care or will leave foster care in the next 90 days and are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
“Youth who are transitioning out of the foster care system are a particularly vulnerable population, and it is vitally important that public agencies are intentional about supporting them so that their transitions are successful. We are grateful to HUD for making these new vouchers available,” said CHA CEO Tracey Scott.
From HACLA's website:
On Thursday, February 9, 2023, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) joined Mayor Karen Bass, Meta Housing Corporation, The People Concern and Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramirez to celebrate the grand opening of LAMP Lodge in Los Angeles' 14th Council District. Located at 660 Stanford Avenue, LAMP Lodge offers a total of 82 affordable units, with 40 units dedicated to Project Based Vouchers, with HACLA's estimated project contribution is $16.3 million in HAP over the 20-year contract. The target population is homeless and chronically homeless disabled individuals and all units are reserved for households earning at or below 30% AMI. Supportive services will be provided by The People Concern. Residents will enjoy amenities including on-site laundry facilities, community kitchen space, bicycle parking and central courtyard.
From HACLA's website.
On Thursday, February 2, 2023, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) joined Abode Communities for the grand opening of Adams Terrace, located at 4347 and 4314 W. Adams Boulevard in Council District 10 of Los Angeles. The building consists of a total of 86 affordable units, 43 of which are decided to Project Based Vouchers, for an estimated HACLA project contribution of $20 million in HAP over the 20-year contract. The target population served are homeless and chronically homeless disabled seniors (Aged 55 and up). Supportive services will be provided by St. Joseph Center.
From HACLA's website.
On Thursday, February 2, 2023, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) joined Abode Communities for the grand opening of Adams Terrace, located at 4347 and 4314 W. Adams Boulevard in Council District 10 of Los Angeles. The building consists of a total of 86 affordable units, 43 of which are decided to Project Based Vouchers, for an estimated HACLA project contribution of $20 million in HAP over the 20-year contract. The target population served are homeless and chronically homeless disabled seniors (Aged 55 and up). Supportive services will be provided by St. Joseph Center.
HUD PD&R conducted a qualitative case study of the Coordinated Entry for All System in King County, Washington. In King County’s coordinated entry (CE) system, Continuums of Care (CoCs) prioritize individuals experiencing homelessness through a standard assessment of individuals’ vulnerability and service needs. CoCs then match these individuals with housing and support services.
The PD&R report examined the implementation of the coordinated entry system. The study team conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with recently housed tenants, direct service staff in various roles, and policy leaders involved in the Coordinated Entry for All (CEA) system in King County. A qualitative analysis was conducted to examine how CE facilitates or creates barriers to housing individuals experiencing homelessness.
Participants in the current study confirmed data-based findings from locally commissioned evaluations of CEA’s implementation that revealed disparities by age, race, and gender in housing prioritization and referrals among single adults experiencing homelessness. Study findings align with emerging research showing the potential for CE systems to exacerbate racial disparities in homelessness. The analysis also identified several ways in which King County adapted to emerging concerns and provides recommendations for CE systems to consider. Finally, the study also highlights the importance of including lived experience in policy and program implementation and research.