CLPHA Press Room

From the Paterson Times:

After years of delay, crews began demolishing the World War II-era Riverside Terrace housing development on 5th Avenue this week, to make way for 246 new senior and family apartments.

Demolition is expected to take six months, said Israel Roizman of Roizman Development which is undertaking the approximately $105 million construction project at the 17-acre site. He said 30 buildings have to be knocked down. Site preparation work, road work, sewer and plumbing, and electricity work is being done simultaneously with demolition, he said.

Roizman said groundbreaking will likely be held in March.

Municipal officials welcomed the latest development.

Read the Paterson Times's article "Paterson: Demolition starts at Riverside Terrace housing development," featuring the Paterson Housing Authority.

From Cambridge Day:

One of Cambridge’s biggest landlords, the Cambridge Housing Authority, is about to take an extraordinary step: return security deposits to its tenants and stop collecting the payments from new residents. The authority’s board approved the change Wednesday.

Staff at the public housing agency said a financial analysis showed that it was spending more than five times as much to maintain the accounts as it collects when a small number of tenants moving out owe rent or leave their apartments damaged. “It just doesn’t pay to keep them,” said Andrew Kerivan, CHA asset manager, referring to the deposits.

The Authority expects to begin returning the money Feb. 15 and finish by the end of March, executive director Mike Johnston said. A memo to its commissioners said 1,642 of its 2,929 public housing households  paid a deposit when they moved in. The maximum amount, under the agency’s policy, is $200. Kerivan said close to $300,000 is held in security deposits.

Read Cambridge Day's article "Housing Authority does the math, will cancel security deposit system, return tenant money," featuring the Cambridge Housing Authority.

Article from the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority:

Exciting and great things are happening at Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. We recently closed on the financing to transform and preserve The Evanston through the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program (RAD). There are 100 families residing at that site and their home will undergo renovation improvements estimated at $4 million. Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority closings through RAD thus far add up to $39 million. We are anticipating $82 million in preservation work for 2020. CMHA goes beyond housing by serving as an economic engine to the community with job creation. To celebrate the preservation work being done at The Evanston, a “Reno Day” was held January 7, 2020.

As part of an ongoing commitment to providing affordable housing throughout Hamilton County, CMHA is renovating the low-rise building with new flooring, new bathrooms, retouched kitchens and more.

Furthermore, on January 9 U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Midwest Regional Administrator Joseph P. Galvan designated Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority’s Findlater Resource Opportunities Center, 595 Strand Lane, and the Winton Terrace Resource Opportunities Center, 4848 Winneste Ave., as EnVision Centers as part of Secretary Ben Carson’s signature EnVision Center initiative today. Following a highly competitive selection process, the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority and City of Cincinnati are the newest of 34 communities across the country with an ‘EnVision Center’ designation. Read HUD’s press release.

From the St. Thomas Source:

The V.I. government and V.I. Housing Authority received a $69 million obligation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fund the demolition and replacement of residential buildings at the Tutu Hi-Rise housing community, according to Government House.

The funding will facilitate the demolition and replacement of the first five of 17 residential buildings at Tutu Hi-Rise damaged by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

In a release Thursday, V.I. Housing Authority Executive Director Robert Graham said the funding would allow the Authority the move forward with its plans to demolish and begin construction to replace buildings 10, 11, 12, 14 and 22 at the complex.

Read the St. Thomas Source's article "FEMA Approves $69 Million to Begin Replacement of Tutu Hi-Rise Apartments," featuring the Virgin Islands Housing Authority.

From Next City:

At the beginning of the spring 2020 semester, the chancellor at the University of Washington Tacoma sent out an advisory to students: “If you or someone you know is dealing with housing issues that might interfere with the ability to succeed in school,” it said, “a new program could help.”

A new apartment building had just opened, ten minutes’ walk from campus, and 63 of its 152 units would be subsidized for students who were homeless or housing-insecure — struggling regularly to pay rent or utilities, moving frequently, or living in substandard housing. It was the second year in a row that a new development opened near campus with some of its small apartments set aside for low-income students. And the apartments are small — as little as 250 square feet for a studio in the building that opened last year.

“When I went inside, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this wouldn’t even hold my office,’” says Mentha Hynes-Wilson, the vice chancellor for student affairs at UWT. “But the feedback we’re getting from students is that it is really meeting their needs.”

Typically, the studios start at around $800 a month. But through the College Housing Assistance Program at the Tacoma Housing Authority, some students are eligible for subsidized housing units, in the range of $400 to $800 a month, based on income. The CHAP program was launched as a pilot in 2014, with 47 homeless or “near homeless” students at Tacoma Community College (TCC) receiving housing vouchers to use on the private market, providing a flat subsidy based on their household size. Over the next two years, the Authority tracked those students’ performance, along with the performance of 154 students in similar positions who didn’t receive housing assistance. At the end of that period, according to the Authority, 60 percent of the participants had graduated or remained enrolled, as opposed to 16 percent of the students who didn’t receive assistance. And the GPA for the pilot group was 3.05, as opposed to 2.75 for the larger group. The pilot was later expanded at TCC, and it was made available to UWT students, many of whom transfer from the community college, in 2018.

Read Next City's article "Tacoma’s Got Housing Vouchers Just for College Students," featuring the Tacoma Housing Authority.