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.
You can subscribe here to our biweekly newsletter, events invite list, and topic specific newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CLPHA. Or, send us an email with your interests and we would be happy to add you to our press lists.
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.
###
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
###
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.
###
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.
April 28, 2021
|
(Washington, D.C.) April 28, 2021 – CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman released the following statement in response to President's Biden's joint address to Congress tonight to mark his first 100 days in office:
"President Biden’s commitment to investing in our nation’s future through the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan, which was released tonight, has the potential to lift the lives of more than 2 million families living in our nation’s public and affordable housing. The American Jobs Plan improves the lives of public housing residents through a $40 billion commitment to retrofit and rebuild public housing properties to 21st century codes and standards.
"The American Families Plan improves the lives of public housing residents by expanding access to quality pre-school, direct support to children and families through child care, and investing of the childcare workforce, of which many public housing residents are employed. Because public housing residents are often employed in low-wage positions that do not offer paid leave they will be among the many beneficiaries of the national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program in the Families Plan.
"Public housing has always been about more than buildings. It is about the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans. The combination of the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan is a powerful offer to make those dreams a reality."
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative |
||
April 22, 2021
|
About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative |
April 9, 2021
|
About the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities
About CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative |
Pacific Standard quoted CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman in today's article "The Government Shutdown Could Decimate America's Subsidized Housing Programs." Of the partial government shutdown's impact on the housing market, Zaterman said, "Owners in many cities will be faced with financial disruption, foreclosure, or bankruptcy if they're not able to pay their mortgage or meet the other costs of the property... This really is going to ripple through the whole housing market system."
Zaterman added that the shutdown is likely to negatively impact landlords' perceptions of the HCV program and other federally funded rental assistance programs, observing that in light of the shutdown landlords may be discouraged from participating in the HCV program because now "[funding] is something an owner would have to calculate as a risk now that was previously not seen as a risk."
CLPHA’ Executive Director Sunia Zaterman spoke to Multi-Housing News about the disastrous effect the shutdown will have on not only on Housing Choice Voucher funding and other rental assistance programs, but also affordable housing projects, if it continues beyond February. Zaterman added that if the shutdown continues into March, for smaller landlords and property owners especially “there is a huge concern about the ripple effect and concerns about bankruptcy and foreclosure.”
However, as Zaterman noted in a January 16, 2019, joint press release accompanying a national conference call about the effects of the partial government shutdown on low-income people and communities and the affordable housing programs that serve them, the shutdown is already a catastrophe for millions who rely on HUD funding. “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,” said Zaterman.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development today issued additional information about HUD’s contingency plan so that PHAs administering the HCV program may access their HUD-held Housing Assistance Payment Reserves (HHR) under certain circumstances due the lapse in appropriations.
According to the letter, HAP renewal funds and Administrative Fees are scheduled to be paid on time for February, but HUD recognizes that the funds may not cover the monthly HAP needs as a result of additional leasing or costs.
HUD will allow access to HHR funds in situations where the failure to act “would result in an imminent threat to the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
PHAs may request HAP reserves from HUD under the following circumstances:
- To protect families that are imminent risk of termination of assistance; and/or
- PHAs that were eligible to receive a payment for January 2019 and did not receive it (e.g. first time RAD payments for a project) and need reserves to ensure that the property owner(s) receive(s) a HAP payment to continue assistance and protect the residents at the property.
Read the letter for instructions to request an additional payment covered by the HHR.
For more information on the shutdown’s impact on public and affordable housing, join today’s national conference call at 4:00 pm ET for insights from CLPHA and other housing industry experts. Click here to register.
As the partial government shutdown continues and creates more uncertainty for public housing authorities, CLPHA is collecting information on the impacts and effects of the government shutdown on housing authorities and residents.
We are particularly interested in examples regarding landlord willingness to accept new vouchers from HCV participants, and PHA decisions around issuing new vouchers.
We will be sharing your feedback with our media contacts and coalition partners (please let us know if you do not want your PHA’s name identified).
Please send any information to Emily Warren at ewarren@clpha.org as soon as possible.
CHCDF National Call to Learn About the Impacts of the Government Shutdown
CLPHA, as a member of the steering committee of the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding, will be participating in a national conference call on January 15 at 4:00 PM ET to provide updates on the latest information and guidance on how advocates can engage lawmakers to help end the shutdown.
In response to a January 5 Washington Post article focused on new research about where voucher holders live, CLPHA Executive Director Sunia Zaterman submitted a Letter to the Editor to emphasize examples of PHAs’ innovative housing mobility strategies. Although edited significantly for length, the version published in print and online describes landlord recruitment and retention efforts, and calls for additional local flexibilities and sufficient federal funding.
From the El Paso Times:
The Downtown El Paso area’s newest apartment project launched Wednesday after overcoming 18 months of delays tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a federal regulatory roadblock.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held Wednesday for the 80-unit, low-income apartment complex being built at a cost of $17.7 million by the city’s public housing authority, now known as HOME (Housing Opportunity Management Enterprises).
The apartments are being built on vacant land at 415 Montana Ave., on the edge of Downtown, in an area city officials have dubbed Uptown. The shiny, new WestStar Tower office building, located a few blocks away, looms in the site’s background.
“This (project) was shut down. ... We had the money, we had the site, we won on the state scale,” but federal housing administrators held back approval until recently, Gerald Cichon, HOME chief executive officer, told the crowd assembled under a white tent on a warm, partly cloudy day.
“This site is all about hope, and that’s what Nuestra Senora (the apartment complex's name) stands for. It stands for hope," Cichon said. The apartment building will feature a giant mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which [Cichon] later said also symbolizes the Hispanic culture of this area.
Read the El Paso Times' article "Delayed low-income apartment complex project launches in Downtown El Paso area," featuring Housing Opportunity Management Enterprises.
From the Louisville Metro Housing Authority's press release:
Louisville Metro Housing Authority (LMHA) is celebrating the recent purchase and closing of the 400th home in the Homeownership Program.
LMHA’s Homeownership Program allows eligible Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) or Public Housing participants to use their subsidy toward a mortgage payment instead of rent. Participants must complete pre-purchase Homeownership Counseling to become “mortgage ready.” The counseling program covers topics like searching for a house, home maintenance, budgeting and money management, credit counseling, price negotiation, and securing mortgage financing.
“This program takes dedication and hard work to complete,” said Tyese Stokes, mother of two and new owner of a 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom home in the Shawnee neighborhood. “Thankfully, LMHA assisted me every step of the way. I feel extremely blessed to own this home.”
Program partners include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 5/3 Bank, Apprisen, Louisville Metro Office of Housing and Community Development, Louisville Urban League, Republic Bank, Stockton Mortgage, and The Housing Partnership, Inc.
In 1997, LMHA became the first affordable housing agency in the nation to utilize HCV subsidy assistance toward mortgage payments for persons with disabilities or employed heads of households without homeownership history. Mortgage support is coupled with intensive postpurchase case management and individual development accounts for home maintenance to increase the likelihood of asset appreciation and decrease the risk of foreclosure.
“400 families have put in countless hours of education, counseling, budgeting, saving, and preparation to obtain this dream,” said LMHA Homeownership Specialist Stephanie Payne. “We are especially proud of their hard work and excited to reach this milestone!”
From Wells Fargo's press release:
An expanded effort to help more people of color in the San Diego region become homeowners is launching today with the support of a $7.5 million grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation. The grant was awarded to the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC), part of the San Diego Homeownership Equity Collaborative.
Homeownership rates for many households of color are significantly lower than other racial groups. For example, an SDHC‑commissioned Urban Institute study of City of San Diego households identified homeownership rates of 29.1% among Black households and 35.2% among Latino households, compared with 54.8% among white households.
"I'm incredibly grateful to Wells Fargo for dedicating funding so that more San Diego families have the opportunity to purchase a home," said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. "Public‑private partnerships like these help us address the root causes of inequity. This funding will change the lives of 5,000 families of color in our community, helping put homeownership within reach at a time when it's more crucial than ever.
The San Diego City‑County Reinvestment Task Force (RTF) will lead the implementation of the San Diego Homeownership Equity Collaborative's strategies throughout the San Diego region.
"Systemic inequities and racist historical practices have prevented families of color from achieving their homeownership and wealth‑building goals for too long," said Council President pro Tem Monica Montgomery Steppe, who introduced a proclamation that the City Council approved to declare September 21 "Homeowner Equity Day" in the City of San Diego. "I'm thrilled that the Wells Fargo WORTH grant gives San Diego an opportunity to decrease the equity gap and increase access to homeownership for new homebuyers of color."
From the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles' website:
On Monday, September 19, 2022, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) joined the Los Angeles Housing Department, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Southside Church of Christ and other community partners to celebrate the groundbreaking of Serenity. Serenity is a new construction mixed-use multifamily affordable supportive rental housing development for chronically homeless seniors, homeless seniors and independent living seniors. The project is located in the City of Los Angeles and is financed under the Proposition HHH Supportive Housing Program administered by the City of Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD). Located in the Manchester Square neighborhood of south Los Angeles, Serenity is being built on Southside Church of Christ’s existing parking lot on Manchester Avenue. The project is comprised of 50 residential units, 1,785 sq.ft. of ground floor commercial space and a two-level parking garage to accommodate both the church and residents.
Of the 50 units, 20 will be Studio/1 bath units and 30 will be 1 bedroom/1 bath units. There will be 18 affordable units dedicated to chronically homeless seniors, 18 affordable units for homeless seniors, 13 affordable units for "Independent Living" seniors and 1 manager unit. Supportive services will be provided by St. Joseph Center. Construction is expected to be completed in November 2023.
From the Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency's newsletter:
SHRA in partnership with the City of Sacramento, and Jamboree, an Irvine-based affordable housing developer, are working to finalize a permanent supportive housing community in Sacramento that will support formerly homeless families with at least one minor child.
The Vista Nueva project is nestled in North Natomas and was formerly Staybridge Suites Hotel. This hotel-to-housing conversion is made possible by over $23 million in state Homekey funds and $15.5 million from SHRA. The completely renovated project will encompass 10 transitional units for families who will be provided services and 106 permanent supportive housing units with a breakdown of 53 studios, 39 one-bedroom, 14 two-bedroom, and one two-bedroom exempt management unit.