UNMATCHED COVERAGE
The Journal-News has been following the citys’ dispute with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regarding Section 8 since October 2012. The Journal-News will have the latest information on this developing story.
The Middletown Public Housing Agency board voted Tuesday night to end an 18-month dispute with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and transfer its 1,662 Section 8 housing vouchers to Butler and Warren counties and cease operations within three months.
The next step will be for City Council to approve the Voluntary Compliance Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding at its July 15 meeting.
“In many ways this discussion became an issue of efficiency,” said City Manager Doug Adkins. “The county housing authorities are better suited to manage the resource on behalf of our residents in Butler and Warren counties, allowing the city to focus on more city services.”
The Voluntary Compliance Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding calls for the unused 300-plus Section 8 vouchers to be allocated to another county’s public housing authority to address waiting list needs. Warren Metropolitan Housing Authority will receive 350 vouchers and Butler Metro will receive the remaining balance.
Butler Metro Housing Authority Executive Director Phyllis Hitte and Warren Metropolitan Housing Authority Executive Director Jacqueline Adkins both declined to comment because HUD has not yet issued a statement. Butler Metro does handle more than 1,100 Section 8 vouchers and Warren Metropolitan handles nearly 450 Section 8 vouchers. The potential agreement will give housing authorities in each Butler and Warren counties control of all of the Section 8 vouchers assigned to the respective counties.
A representative of HUD could not be reached for comment.
Law Director Les Landen said that no one currently on the program will lose their voucher, but they will have to go to Hamilton in Butler County and Lebanon in Warren County for services, and the process of transferring the program to the respective counties is expected to take until Sept. 30.
The MPHA’s October 2012 plan — which was to reduce its voucher allocation by 1,008 over the course of four to five years — was the city’s response to a HUD letter saying they were out of compliance with assigning Section 8 vouchers to families. The city was required to have at least 95 percent of its housing choice vouchers awarded to an applicant family. As of August 2012, the city was around 82 percent compliant.
Currently the city is closer to 80 percent complaint as they had not reassigned unused vouchers in its attempt to achieve the reduction down to 654.
City officials said Middletown has more Section 8 housing per capita than any other city in Ohio, and that a reduction in the amount of subsidized housing was necessary. In 2013, Section 8 vouchers account for 49.8 percent of all subsidized housing and 14.3 percent of all available housing in Middletown, officials said.
Many of the city’s landlords accused officials of using bully tactics and unusually stringent regulations to force them out of the program. The city paid out about $10 million a year in funds it received from HUD to hundreds of landlords who rented properties to voucher-holders. Several landlords have applauded the upcoming changes and that the county will now be running the program.
Once City Council, which are the members of the MPHA board, approves the agreement the transfer of the program to the housing authorities in Butler and Warren counties can begin. And once the two housing authorities assume administrative control of the vouchers, “MPHA shall cease (housing choice voucher) program operations and commence its formal dissolution as a (public housing agency) and governmental entity.”
The agreement also “releases and resolves” all charges HUD may levy against the city, its officials, agents and contractors “concerning the utilization of MPHA’s budget authority and failure to timely reissue vouchers” and releases HUD from any claim by the city for “reimbursement, compensation and other payment related to MPHA’s administration of the (housing choice voucher) program.”
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