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.
*Please let us know if you are working on deadline.
To view all of CLPHA's press releases, click here.
To view all of CLPHA's press statements, click here.
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Thanks again for your interest in CLPHA!
Announcing the New CLPHA.org
(WASHINGTON) January 7, 2019 - The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) is pleased to announce the launch of our newly-redesigned website.
The new CLPHA.org showcases our member PHAs and offers industry news and updates with a bright, modern look and dynamic, user-friendly content that is easy to navigate on a desktop computer or a mobile device.
DYNAMIC: A carousel of stories and the latest news on the front page keeps the content fresh. CLPHA.org is a website to bookmark and visit regularly.
INFORMATIONAL: At the new CLPHA.org, you will find articles and information about the latest developments on Capitol Hill and from HUD, facts and updates about programs important to public and affordable housing, and news from CLPHA about our work on behalf of our members.
USER-FRIENDLY: The new CLPHA.org features sections on each of CLPHA's priorities: Public Housing, Housing Choice Vouchers, Moving to Work, RAD, and our cross-sector initiative Housing Is. Plus, dedicated sections for Legislation & Policy, Press, News & Events, and Membership.
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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.
Experts to Present First National Snapshot of Health Partnerships in Public Housing
Free Webinar Aug. 29, 12 PM ET
WASHINGTON (August 28, 2018) - Half of the nation’s public housing authorities (PHAs) are engaged in a resident health initiative, most with a health organization partner according to Health Starts at Home: A National Snapshot of Public Housing Authorities' Health Partnerships, the latest report released by the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) and the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC). The report provides the first national snapshot of PHA efforts to address residents’ health care needs and emphasizes opportunities for collaboration between the health and housing sectors.
Report authors Steve Lucas, MPH, CLPHA Health Research and Policy Manger for the Housing Is Initiative, Keely Stater, PHD, PAHRC Director of Research and Industry Intelligence, and Kelly McElwain, PAHRC Research Analyst III, will present their analysis during a free webinar on August 29, 2018 at 12:00 PM ET.
“Housing and health systems need to work together,” said Lucas, who designed and implemented the original survey that led to the report. “Public housing authorities are significant providers of housing to those in need, offering the health sector scale and expertise. We found that PHAs across the country are engaged in a wide range of partnerships with different health organizations that address various target populations and health priorities. Though there are barriers to housing-health collaboration, such as funding and staffing capacity, these can be overcome with cross-system partnerships that seek to address these needs.”
Lucas published the initial survey findings in an issue of CityScape, a research publication of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development. The article, “Connecting Fragmented Systems: Public Housing Authority Partnerships with the Health Sector,” is posted to the HUD User website.
What: Free Webinar: Building PHA Health Initiatives and Cross-Sector Partnerships
When: Wednesday, August 29, 2018, 12:00 PM ET
WEBINAR RECORDING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-jm5eF_YU&t=24s
Webinar Presenters
Steve Lucas, MPH
Health Research and Policy Manager, Housing Is Initiative,
Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
Keely Stater, PhD
Director of Research and Industry Intelligence,
Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation,
HAI Group's Research Division
Kelly McElwain
Research Analyst III,
Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation,
HAI Group's Research Division
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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 26 percent 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 Housing Is
CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative helps establish, broaden, and deepen efforts to align affordable housing, education, and health systems to produce positive, long-term results. We are building a future where systems work together to improve life outcomes for low-income people. Learn more at HousingIs.org and on Twitter @Housing_Is.
CLPHA Opposes Administration Proposal to Increase Rent Burden on Lowest-Income Residents
WASHINGTON (May 14, 2018) - The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) strongly opposes the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) recently announced proposal to increase rent burdens on low-income residents residing in public housing and assisted housing.
The core of HUD’s rent reform proposal is to shift the burden of chronic federal underfunding of assisted housing to low-income residents who can least afford it. While there are advantages to a proposal that simplifies rent calculations and reduces administrative burdens for public housing authorities (PHAs), this proposal requires that PHAs raise rents in order to benefit from common sense rent simplification. Even with the benefit of housing assistance, many public housing residents are already spending more than 30% of their income on rent. A 2017 HUD study reported that the average Housing Choice Voucher recipient had a rent burden of 37% in 2015. Nationally, we represent PHAs serving residents in the most expensive housing markets in the country, where voucher holders are especially likely to have to incur high rent burdens to gain access to higher opportunity neighborhoods of their choice.
Given existing rent burdens, this proposal raises serious concerns about the negative impact the proposed rent calculations would have on residents. Through changes to 35% of unadjusted income for families and 30% of unadjusted income for the elderly and disabled, many assisted households would see significant rent increases. For example, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) estimates that public housing residents would see an average 36% rent increase while Housing Choice Voucher households would experience an average 23% rent increase. With an average annual household income of $21,000 for public housing residents and $16,000 for voucher holders served by HACLA, these increases represent substantial burdens that may interfere with a household’s ability to afford other necessities.
Beyond concerns regarding the fairness of further cost-burdening residents, there is some evidence to suggest that increased rents do not financially benefit PHAs and may have the opposite effect. When the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) implemented a HUD-mandated flat rent increase in 2014, impacted residents experienced an average rent increase of 46%. NYCHA saw their rent collection rate decrease among those impacted by the increase. NYCHA’s experience reflects the reality that increased rent payments only exacerbates affordability issues and puts more residents at risk of delinquency and eviction, resulting in more challenges for PHAs and less predictable revenue.
In addition to our concerns about the impacts of the proposed rent calculations, we note that the timing of these proposed changes are problematic for two reasons. First, some components of the proposal contradict important changes to housing assistance made through the recent federally enacted Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA) in 2016 by unanimous vote of the House and Senate. HUD has yet to publish implementation regulations for some of the key provisions in the bill. For example, HOTMA increased the deduction of medical expenses for elderly and disabled families and tied the deduction to inflation, while HUD’s proposal eliminates these deductions entirely. A significant number of elderly and disabled households currently use medical deductions, many of whom have substantial medical costs. We question the elimination of this deduction particularly when it is already undergoing a very different set of changes through congressionally-mandated HOTMA.
We also question the timing of these proposed changes given the fact that in 2012, HUD commissioned a four-site demonstration from MDRC to study several rent reform elements included in the proposal, including triennial recertification, elimination of income deductions, and ignorable asset limits. One of the research questions the demonstration is explicitly testing is whether these reforms reduce work disincentives and increase family self-sufficiency among families receiving vouchers. With results expected in 2019, HUD should use insights from the study to inform design of a rent reform model that most effectively promotes self-sufficiency.
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About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
CLPHA, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit organization working to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education. It represents most of the nation’s largest public housing authorities.
Sunia Zaterman, Executive Director, Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, provided the following statement in her opening remarks at the Housing Is Summit on the death of George Floyd:
"I would like to address the events of the past week that have roiled our nation’s conscience. The death of George Floyd once again reveals this nation’s centuries old, enduring stain of racism. Our hearts are with the Floyd family and the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and the multitudes of black men, women and children who have paid the ultimate price for this country’s systematic and lethal racism.
We as a nation cannot move forward until we right the wrong of racial injustice. This means understanding, acknowledging, and dismantling our sanctioned systems of deep structural inequality.
With our nation facing the deadliest pandemic in more than a century, unemployment rates equal to those during the Great Depression, and now the tragic murder of George Floyd, America’s deep racial inequities have been laid bare. Black Americans are two and a half times more likely than whites to be killed by police. The latest overall COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is nearly two and half times higher than the rate for White Americans. If they had died of COVID-19 at the same rate as White Americans, about 13,000 Black Americans would still be alive. COVID-19-related employment loss hit Black Americans far worse than White Americans. Black households have only 10 cents in wealth for every dollar held by white households. 30 percent of black families still live below the poverty line.
These deep structural inequities can and must be dismantled. Our work is to build a movement with cross-sector partners in housing, health and education that rethinks how these systems can work collectively to achieve racial justice and equity. Let our collective work across sectors lead the way so we as a nation can breathe again.”
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 and follow @housing_is for news on CLPHA’s work to better intersect the housing field and other areas of critical importance such as health and education.
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For Immediate Release
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“The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is pleased House Democrats addressed concerns of large public housing authorities in the HEROES Act with increased funding for rental assistance for those who are at the greatest risk for homelessness and housing insecurity. The bill authorizes $4 billion in additional funding for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance with $1 billion of that designated for new temporary assistance for households who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness, or who are fleeing domestic violence. The bill also includes $750 million additional funding for Project-Based Rental Assistance, $2 billion in additional funds for the Public Housing Operating Fund, and $100 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance. CLPHA is also pleased with the proposal to protect funding that was shortly due to expire under the Choice Neighborhood Initiative by extending funding through September 30, 2021.
CLPHA will continue to forcefully advocate to policymakers that we as a nation must emerge from this unprecedented pandemic with an unequivocal commitment to address the growing need for rental assistance. “
(202) 550-1381
About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities |
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In yesterday's article "Trust in Public Housing at Stake Over Looming Government Shutdown," YES! Magazine quoted CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman and CLPHA members Kurt Wiest, Bremerton Housing Authority Executive Director, and Mark Gillett, Oklahoma City Housing Authority Executive Director, on how another government shutdown could continue to sow mistrust in public housing authorities (PHAs) and HUD.
Zaterman, who noted that landlords could shy away from participating in voucher programs if there is concern that PHAs will not pay them, asked, “Just the prospect of payments not being made will have a very disruptive impact—will the federal government contract be honored?”
Wiest stressed the importance of PHAs maintaining a good rapport with landlords. “We work really, really hard to have good relationships with local landlords. And if there’s the slightest hint that they won’t get their subsidy payments as promised, it erodes trust,” said Wiest. “And this program operates on trust.”
Gillett added that if PHAs cannot pay their landlords, there could be dire consequences for tenants. “There is a provision in the law saying if a housing assistance payment isn’t paid, it shouldn’t be grounds for eviction,” Gillett said. “But it’s never been tested.”
On January 31, HUD, the City of New York, and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) announced an agreement to address longstanding issues at the housing authority’s properties. The agreement establishes specific requirements and milestones for property improvements and establishes a federal monitor who will be selected by HUD and the Southern District of New York, with input from the city.
On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio appointed Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner, to succeed Stanley Brezenoff as interim chair until a permanent head of the authority is selected.
Brezenoff, who also serves on CLPHA’s Board of Directors, called the job as NYCHA’s interim chair and CEO, “one of the toughest and most rewarding jobs in America.” In Tuesday’s press release announcing his successor, Brezenoff said, “I will leave this interim role knowing that we are putting NYCHA in very capable hands. I am confident that Commissioner Garcia is the right person to continue our efforts to improve the quality of lives for residents, and preserve public housing for generations to come.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman in an article about the government shutdown's impacts on Section 8 Voucher holders if the shutdown continues beyond March 1.
Zaterman said, “Without a guarantee from HUD that funding will be available in March, many [public housing authorities] will need to notify landlords and residents next month that delayed payments are a possibility. Anxious residents and landlords fearful of missed payments, combined with other cascading impacts due to lack of staffing at HUD, including program grants not being renewed and affordable housing development deals not being approved, amount to an unmitigated disaster for millions of low-income families.”
Today, Gray News Bureau published a comprehensive article "SNAP, WIC, Section 8: Separating fact from fiction in the government shutdown" featuring a quote about the shutdown’s effects on HUD programs from CLPHA Executive Sunia Zaterman. Gray News pulled the quote from CLPHA’s January 16 joint press release with the Campaign for Housing & Community Development Funding (CHCDF), of which CLPHA is a member of the Steering Committee.
On the shutdown's effect on housing authorities' future rental assistance payments, Zaterman said, "Without a guarantee from HUD that funding will be available in March, many Public Housing Authorities will need to notify landlords and residents next month that delayed payments are a possibility. Anxious residents and landlords fearful of missed payments, combined with other cascading impacts due to lack of staffing at HUD, including program grants not being renewed and affordable housing development deals not being approved, amount to an unmitigated disaster for millions of low-income families.”
You can read the article via Gray News Bureau TV affiliates:
CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman spoke to the Pew Charitable Trust's Stateline blog about the looming crisis facing public housing authorities (PHAs) if the shutdown continues. In today's article "Cities Scramble as Shutdown Leaves Families in Federal Housing Vulnerable," Zaterman warned that if the shutdown is still in effect by the end of February, many PHAs will not have enough funds to continue rental assistance payments for March and beyond.
“It’s definitely an all-hands-on-deck, high-urgency red alert for agencies that don’t have sufficient reserves for a sufficient amount of time,” Zaterman said. “And most don’t.”
From the Toledo Blade:
A modest two-story house with sand-colored siding and dark green shutters will soon be home to three young men who are either aging out of foster care or exiting the Lucas County Juvenile Justice Center.
It’s the first of what Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority President and CEO Demetria Simpson and juvenile court Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon hope will be many rental homes geared toward helping young adults find their footing as they navigate living independently for the first time.
Representatives from LMHA, its nonprofit affiliate Lucas Housing Services Corporation, Lucas County Juvenile Court, Toledo City Council, and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s office celebrated on Monday with a ribbon cutting at the Nebraska Avenue home, marking the start of a pilot program called Bridge to Independence and Success.
The goal is to give Lucas County young adults who are 18-21 and aging out of foster care or leaving the criminal justice system the stability and guidance they need to forge successful adult lives.
Read the Toledo Blade's article "Housing authority to pilot supportive housing geared toward young adults," featuring the Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority.
From the Los Angeles County Development Authority's press release:
The Los Angeles County Development Authority’s (LACDA) Public Housing Program received a High Performer designation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the 10th year in a row, under HUD’s Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS). The PHAS is an in-depth evaluation of a Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) performance including the physical condition of properties, financial health, management systems, and the effectiveness of its modernization Capital Fund Program. The LACDA received a top rating in each category, with a total score of 98 out of 100, the highest score in its history! The LACDA’s Public Housing Program, with 2,962 units located at 63 properties throughout the County of Los Angeles, is the second largest PHA in Southern California.
From Cleveland.com:
Students fail assignments because they lack a home computer. Veterans have trouble making doctor’s appointments. Residents who need help paying utility bills can’t access their accounts online.
Digital exclusion poses a daunting, isolating problem that includes a lack of access to affordable internet networks and hardware; lack of skills to navigate, consume, and produce content in the digital sphere; and lack of access to troubleshooting support when devices break.
“Everything is going digital now, as far as resources for help,” said computer trainer Shenee King, who works with the Cleveland Housing Network.
The most daunting obstacle to digital access is poverty.
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Almost three years ago, DigitalC and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority took on the problem of digital exclusion. Their solution married training and networking in a program called “Connect Your Community.”
The project aimed to provide reliable broadband for CMHA residents, while giving them digital skills and devices. The broadband is sent from antennas placed atop a nearby charitable hospital to receivers on housing authority properties and a homeless shelter.
Read Cleveland.com's article "A quarter of Cuyahoga County homes have no internet access -- why that matters and how it’s changing," featuring the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.
From Forbes:
Once, these edifices were the bulwarks against illness. Today, they're part of the cure for the malaise afflicting housing availability. Nationwide, vacant hospitals, mental institutions and sanitariums are being recast as newly-opened apartment buildings. In communities from Los Angeles to New York City, and from Charlottesville, Va. and Washington, D.C. to Denver, the doors of shuttered healing centers are swinging back open to admit residents.
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One Chicago-based developer is taking the hospital-to-housing trend one step further, to offer affordable housing to those who need it most. It is transforming old and abandoned hospitals into multifamily structures offering affordable housing for low-income seniors. In Aurora, Ill., a far western suburb of Chicago, Evergreen Real Estate Group acquired the former St. Charles Hospital, an historic Art Deco structure, and brought it back to life as Aurora St. Charles Senior Living, a 60-unit independent living facility near downtown Aurora that includes 44 units affordable for seniors at or below 50 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), and six units each for those earning 30 and 60 percent or less of AMI.
Read Forbes' article "Vacant Hospitals Help Address Ills Of Limited Affordable Senior Housing," featuring the Chicago Housing Authority.
From Lawndale News:
The Chicago Housing Authority received a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Friday for the JobsPlus program that supports job readiness and connect public housing residents at Dearborn Homes with employment, education and financial empowerment services. CHA is one of nine Public Housing Authorities (PHA’s) that received a total of $20 million in JobsPlus grants from HUD to help public housing families increase their earned income and become self-sufficient. HUD’s investment will leverage an additional $4,355,700 working alongside key partners such as the City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Department of Family & Support Services, Chicago Park District, Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, Centers for New Horizons, FamilyWorks and East Lake Management.
Read Lawndale News' article "CHA’s Dearborn Homes Receives Grant that Supports Work Readiness," featuring the Chicago Housing Authority.