Congress Aims for Demolition of Public Housing Laws

Across the country, the grimmest of the nation’s public housing complexes are being reduced to rubble, making way for new designs for smaller, safer communities to house the nation’s poor.

In Washington, lawmakers this week are planning a similar dismantling of the laws that have governed public housing since the New Deal. In their place, Congress aims to erect a smaller, more flexible federal statute that fits a new day of welfare reform.

Proposed new policies would encourage middle-income working families to move into public housing--even if, as many fear, that means the poorest of the nation’s poor will have less access to subsidized shelter. Most unemployed residents would be subject to new community work requirements. And the federal government would grant local public housing authorities new latitude to set and enforce rules for their complexes.

And in a bold new direction for housing projects that have become home to generations of poor Americans, some lawmakers and officials have broached the virtually unthinkable: time limits on the stays of some residents.

“The reality of public housing today as a warehouse for the poor has come face to face with the promise of public housing as a steppingstone to self-sufficiency,” said Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.), the author of a House bill passed in May that contains a host of stiff new provisions. With the proposed initiatives, added Lazio, self-sufficiency appears to be winning “hands down.”

In two Los Angeles public housing projects, there already are signs of the new welfare reform era to come. As part of a five-city demonstration project announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in April, new resources for those making the transition from welfare to work will be located in or near the William Mead Homes complex near City Hall and Imperial Courts in South-Central Los Angeles.

In the coming months, day-care centers and expanded classrooms and job centers will be added to small computer-training facilities already present in those complexes. While Los Angeles Housing Authority officials welcome the facilities--and the new coordination with other offices implementing welfare reform--they say that proposed changes in housing law will go even further in reintroducing the norm of employment among public-housing residents.

“It’s clear, at least from the point of view of creating incentives for residents, that we need more flexibility,” said Donald Smith, executive director of the Los Angeles Housing Authority. Many of the changes proposed in the congressional bills “are all positive in that they give our folks an opportunity to do some capital accumulation as they go to work. And in the long run, I think they will make public housing a little healthier.”

But while few mourn the leveling of housing complexes beset with dangers, drugs and decay, the political debate over remaking public housing law has been more controversial. Republican lawmakers and the Clinton administration all embrace the goal of bringing public housing into the welfare reform era, but disputes over how to do that have stalled enactment of reform legislation for several years.

This week, with action expected on a public housing authorization bill in the Senate, most differences among House and Senate lawmakers and the Clinton administration appear to have narrowed. Some believe that will clear the way for legislation to help do for public housing what last year’s landmark welfare reform bill did for a welter of other public assistance programs for the poor: End the housing assistance program as we know it.

While that is an accomplishment all sides are eager to chalk up, the Clinton administration has threatened to veto the legislation if it includes one disputed provision of the House bill. Aimed at drawing and keeping middle-income residents in public housing, the provision would let 65% of newly vacated public housing units go to families who make up to 80% of their area’s median income.

In places like Orange County, that could open a substantial share of new slots to families earning just over $50,000 per year. In Los Angeles, families making $37,000 a year could move into most newly available units. Currently, the average income level of public housing residents is just above $7,000.

The Clinton administration has charged that the House plan to turn over so many apartments and rent vouchers to middle-income families--at a time when the number of public housing slots nationally is shrinking, and growing numbers of families are struggling to make the transition from welfare to work--would leave the new legions of working poor out in the cold. Demand for federal housing assistance already outstrips supply. Of the 5 million low-income Americans who qualify, only 1.2 million get it, according to HUD.

“HUD supports an increased income mix in public housing, but the House bill goes too far in keeping out poor families to make room for people with higher incomes,” said HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. “How can we desert a family earning minimum wage for a family making close to the median income?”

According to the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, of the 260,000 housing subsidies that become available each year for families with children, the House bill reserves only 65,000----a quarter--for the very poor. That would block access to public housing subsidies for as many as 124,000 poor families who under current rules can now get either a voucher to help defray rental costs or an apartment in public housing.

The Senate bill expected to win passage this week adopts a formula for allocating newly available housing subsidies that is much closer to the Clinton administration’s proposal. It reserves 40% of newly available housing subsidies for the very poor. It further dictates that three-quarters of such openings would go to families making 60% of their local median income or less--a provision designed to make working-poor families a substantial presence in public housing.

The Clinton administration has proposed to reserve all but 10% of new housing subsidies for such low-income people.

But while the House, Senate and White House have different formulas for bringing the working class back to public housing, they are much closer on other provisions designed to make public housing policy mesh with the new demands of work and self-sufficiency.

Nationally, about 28% of public housing residents rely on cash grants under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, the central welfare program that used to be known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children. But in some inner-city public housing projects, 70% of adult residents are welfare recipients and fewer than 20% are employed at any given time.

All the proposals subject adult public housing residents to work requirements if they are unemployed and not elderly, disabled or caring for preschoolers at home. Those public-housing residents entering state welfare-to-work programs would find an array of carrots and sticks intended to enforce--and reinforce--two central messages of welfare reform: One, that work pays, and, two, that failure to comply with new welfare rules will be punished with financial sanctions.

Each proposal also contains provisions to prevent a resident’s rent from rising in the first 18 months of employment. After that, rents, which traditionally have been calculated as a percentage of monthly income, would rise over three years’ time, easing the transition to work and out of public housing.

The House bill goes even further, requiring unemployed adult residents to enter into binding agreements with their public housing authority that set a target move-out date.

All the proposals require welfare agencies and local public housing authorities to coordinate their efforts and share information that could help push welfare-dependent residents into the workplace. For example, if a public housing resident suffered a reduction in her welfare check because she failed to comply with new welfare-to-work rules, she would get no break on her rent for that month.

Finally, all the bills aim to encourage more cooperation between local public housing authorities and welfare agencies in the location of job training and placement centers in or near public housing complexes. At complexes like Imperial Courts and William Mead Homes, that work is already well underway.

At both complexes, planners are seeking nearby space and clearing onetime apartments for use as computer learning centers, employer-hospitality suites and day-care centers. And they are forging relationships with local business leaders, prospective employers and nonprofit organizations to create jobs and transportation networks for residents.