L.A. Housing Authority Free of HUD Oversight, ‘Good to Go!'

TPR last interviewed you in July 2006. At that time, your department owned and managed over 7,000 units of public housing, and you owned and managed another 1,000 units of mixed-use buildings. What has changed over the last two years regarding your responsibility to deliver housing for the public?

Given the great leadership that we have in the city-especially in Mayor Villaraigosa and Deputy Mayor Bud Ovrom, working closely with our board of commissioners-a lot has changed over the last couple of years. Most importantly, we are now out of the federal oversight by HUD of the MOU we entered into when we went into near-receivership back in 2004.

This past year, we officially exited the MOU, which means we're a freestanding agency like any other housing authority around the country. It's an incredibly remarkable achievement, because the federal government is running the other authorities that were in similar circumstances back in 2004, which are now in receivership-Detroit, Miami, and New Orleans. That is a testament to the leadership that we have. We decided as a team that we were not going to let our authority go that route.

That's on the regulatory side. On the operations side, our Section 8 program is 100 percent leased-up and high performing, once again. We have completed a couple public housing modernization activities, which put units that were vacant for many, many years back on the rolls, serving Angeleno families. We have also engaged in acquisition of properties in different parts of the city that allow us to serve clients in different programs and make progress on efforts to de-concentrate poverty.

How does all that impact your work? Two years ago, the housing authority was administrating almost 45,000 vouchers for families and serving upwards of 52,000 families. What are HACLA's housing goals today?

Part of the problem that many authorities around the country have had because of the change in regulatory environments is that they are under-leased. They are using less than their allocated portion of federal money. That is due to the change in the law a couple years ago, which drove housing authorities to lease up very quickly. But as the funding fell last year, it forced housing authorities to reconsider and then drop the number of families served.

Today, we are very pleased that we are maximizing every dollar from the federal government in Los Angeles. We're serving the same number of families, with slight increases in Section 8 and public housing, but unlike other areas, we have not had to cut our rolls. We are maximizing the number of families we can serve under our federally approved maximums.

Where are the prospects for additional public housing in L.A. should new funds become available?

Right now, we're running the operation the way it should be run, and we're in complete compliance with federal regulations. The housing authority is now turning the page.

Something very exciting that happened in 2007 is that our board adopted a strategic plan, which calls for the housing authority to add 30,000 units in ten years. That is a huge number, and it is a number that is very consistent with the direction of the mayor, insofar as it dramatically increases the amount of affordable housing in the city over the next decade.

One of the biggest opportunities that we have is the redevelopment of public housing sites. The biggest site that we're looking at right now is Jordan Downs, which is a very exciting opportunity for us because of what it can do not just for Jordan Downs but also for the entire Watts community.

Have efforts to integrate the housing and school bonds and other services like childcare proven successful? What needs to happen to make integration more successful?

We have reached out to Superintendent Brewer, and he has been very receptive to the concept, especially at a place like Jordan Downs, where, as we redevelop an eight-acre area into a vibrant, mixed-income, mixed-use development with public housing replacement on a one-to-one basis with workforce housing and market-rate housing, the opportunity also exists to redevelop Jordan High School and to integrate programs, providing a network of services that are all-inclusive for family self-sufficiency.

Perhaps Jordan High School could have a clinic or an adult educational learning center. It's exciting to consider that the school might be open from 6 a.m. to midnight, providing a wide range of services, not just education. We want to bring services to the community at large, and we want to address development services for the youth that will address one of the biggest problems in the city, which is gangs.

Mayor Villaraigosa has taken on some increased responsibility for the issue of gangs. Educators from the communities have long said that it's better to have grandparents on the campus than police officers. What can be done on these projects to realize that goal?

Starting with a blank sheet and looking at the models that have worked around the country. Some in New York-for example, Common Ground-do exactly what you described. It takes a village. If we can integrate housing with education, health care, gang reduction, and youth employment and training-I've heard it said that nothing stops a bullet faster than a job.

As we begin to do all of these things, the great opportunity here-and again, a lot of this is a direct result of the Mayor's effort to have his departments and agencies work closely together-is that we can actually bring coalitions and networks of services to address what was before simply a housing or education issue.

Has the subprime mortgage crisis increased pressures on the authority to develop and provide more housing?

We have seen increased demand, especially at the lower levels of the economic strata. As people lose their property and have to find another place to live, we have seen a tightening of the rental market.

Interestingly enough, on the other side, we have also seen a slightly greater supply of rental housing. That is due to properties where the tenants or the people that were buying them cannot perform in that format, so the owners decide to use them as rental properties rather than as for-sale properties.

The last thing that we're working with the city on is a collaborative strategy on neighborhood stabilization. There is some legislation moving its way slowly through Congress that might allow municipalities and housing authorities to acquire vacant properties and put those back into use in homeownership or in subsidized rental situations.

Let's turn to the November national election. HACLA obviously receives federal funding. What do you hope results from new leadership in the White House and Congress?

We are working very hard to lessen our dependence on federal funding, and have made strides in that direction. Notwithstanding, when the budget only gives 84 cents on the dollar to operate public housing or Section 8, it is a very difficult task. What we hope, under any administration, is that we have the opportunity to at least receive full funding for the true costs of operating public housing and for all the Section 8 vouchers that have been approved. We are also looking forward to significantly increased funding for Hope VI, because in Los Angeles, that will be a great tool for us to use in redevelopment projects.

Is the Hope VI Program still alive?

Right now, it's still funded at $100 million. The administration has asked to zero it out the last three years; Congress has put the money back. It enjoys widespread bipartisan support, so I think Hope VI will definitely happen. If we get a Democratic administration, I think that administration will probably push for something along the lines of $600 million-what it was in its heyday. That kind of funding could be extremely beneficial to Los Angeles.

What should our readers know about the 2007 strategic plan adopted by HACLA?

The elements of the plan are important because we talk about public safety as being the number one concern of our residents, which ties very closely with the initiatives of the Mayor and Jeff Carr, the gang czar. Also, it ties in the efforts of LAPD to address the significant gang problem in the city.

The second part of that is that the goal to get 30,000 new units in ten years is big. If we are unsuccessful but even get halfway there, it will have a tremendous impact for Angeleno families, especially those working families that can't afford the high rents in our city.

At the time of your last TPR interview two years ago, Mayor Villaraigosa was proposing a $1 billion city housing bond. What is the status of that bold initiative?

That initiative is probably going to come back at some point, because even with the great coordination that is now happening amongst agencies, like HACLA, CRA/LA, Planning, and the Housing Department, the dollars that a city like New York puts into housing don't even compare to what we do in Los Angeles. You would expect Los Angeles to have about half the amount of housing dollars that New York has, but the figure is closer to one-tenth or one-twentieth because of the funding structure in New York and the different state programs and city and county governments. The only way that we're really going to address the issue of affordable housing in our community is with a bond of that nature.

A year from now, what HACLA accomplishments will you be sharing?

A year from now, we will be sitting down to review the strategic plan for redevelopment at Jordan Downs that will address how we will go from 700 public housing units to a total of 2,100 mixed-income units. We'll talk about how we integrate resale components at Jordan Downs.

The other big thing is that you'll see that the Housing Authority is in close cooperation with the city family. We'll be doing a lot more to address permanent supportive housing in the city.