| Housing authorities take PHAS message to Capitol Hill
Key legislators call for delay in implementation The debate over the Public Housing Assessment System reached a crescendo in recent weeks as housing professionals from across the country voiced their concerns about HUD's flawed assessment tool. The March 21 Senate hearings on PHAS provided housing authorities with a platform to make their case that the system has far too many problems for HUD to go ahead with implementation.
The hearing coincided with the publication of PHADA's "special report" on PHAS and the NAHRO legislative conference that brought hundreds of housing professionals to Capitol Hill. The housing authority message to Congress -- that PHAS has serious flaws that need to be addressed before it is implemented -- seems to have resonated with many key legislators.
Republicans/Democrats express concerns with PHAS These include whether PHAS can accurately assess the condition of public housing stock, whether the HUD inspectors are adequately trained, concerns about existing technical problems and the fact that HUD issued the final rule in "direct contradiction" to the VA/HUD conference report language. In addition to Bond and Mikulski, PHADA has learned that several other legislators are requesting that HUD delay implementation of PHAS and/or have expressed doubts as to whether the system is ready for implementation. They include Representatives Rick Lazio (R-NY) and Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman and ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity; Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), chairman of the Senate Housing Subcommittee; Senator Robert Torricelli (D-NJ); Senator Connie Mack (R-FL); and Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), a member of the House VA/HUD appropriations subcommittee. PHADA will provide more details on the positions of these and other legislators as they become available.
The Senate Hearing Taking up a point he would repeat several times during the hearing he noted that Congress had instructed HUD to delay implementation of PHAS until certain conditions had been met, including an opportunity to review the report of the General Accounting Office (GAO) and achieving consensus with industry groups on the mechanics of the system. He cited the letter from Senators Bond and Mikulski and concluded as well that HUD should delay implementation. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rod Grams (R-MN) also attended the hearing. In his opening statement, Senator Kerry took a different tack. "How many times do we have to go over this?" he wanted to know. He noted that 85 percent of the HAs passed the physical inspection. He went on to say that the Senate did not want the old system, it wanted scoring. He could not understand why HAs were worried about being labeled troubled, because if that happened, they would get to work with HUD for the benefit of the residents. "This is common sense stuff," he remarked. Senator Grams gave a brief opening statement praising the high quality of work of the St. Paul, Minnesota Housing Authority. Senator Dodd concluded the opening remarks. He felt that the wide scoring variations indicated that something was awry. "HUD is trying to ride the bicycle while fixing it," was his observation on the current PHAS situation. He asked both sides not to give up on each other.
Testimony of Housing Authority Officials Each of them spoke very forcefully about the problems associated with PHAS. With charts and analysis, Schloz showed how with the thousands of deductible points, subtracting points from 100 does not represent a percentage, and so the inspection score gives a very unfair picture of HA performance. "This would appear to be a flawed formula," he said. Rose added, "Such a scoring system seems ridiculous, but it is on the brink of being officially enacted by HUD." Nelson questioned the legitimacy of a system based on the arbitrary choice of the number 41 as the cutoff between standard and troubled HAs. Hester informed the senators that the scores were not accurate. He showed pictures of Mt. Airy Homes, which he described as one of the best developments in the nation, yet it received a 47 on PHAS. According to Hester, "HUD should consider substantially revising the physical …component. (It is) way too detailed, too complicated, far exceeding the statutory mandates, too costly to implement ... and still vulnerable to producing inaccurate results." Both Rose and Hester emphasized that the standards were far too stringent. According to Rose, "With the PHAS inspection protocol that exists, I believe an inspector that scores deficiencies diligently will always fail the property being inspected." He added that the inspector who came to his authority verified this opinion. Hester testified that "PHAS goes way beyond [acceptable living conditions to] a ‘white glove' or ‘just built standard'." Rose and Nelson bemoaned the inclusion of minor or insignificant deficiencies in PHAS. Rose showed a picture of a resident's flowers brushing the wall of a building as an example of "penetrating vegetation." Nelson testified that "if you follow this logic, then the ivy climbing the walls at Yale University must make it a slum." Beyond the insignificant deficiencies, Nelson's comments added concerns about the disproportionate number of points taken off for some items, "a cracked toilet seat, which costs next to nothing to buy, takes only a few minutes to repair, which does not greatly inconvenience the resident, and which passes Housing Quality Standards in the Section 8 program, causes a unit to lose 37.5 points." Nelson also pointed out the unfairness of deducting points for tenant-generated problems a PHA could not control. Senator Allard took this point up in his questioning asking Assistant Secretary Lucas whether PHAS took into account whether a problem was resident generated or not. Mr. Lucas acknowledged that it did not. Schloz, Rose and Nelson all mentioned problems with the inconsistencies of the inspectors. Rose's authority went from a 91 to a 29 in eleven months, while Nelson's went from a 62 to a 90 in the same period of time. Both pointed out that nothing in the property itself could have caused such a difference in such a short period of time. Schloz who personally accompanied inspectors on many inspections testified that "in our professional opinion, there remain serious inconsistencies with the Physical Condition Inspection process in PHAS." Schloz pointed out several additional problems. One was the fact that many site items still have no proportionality. Making a second observation he added that "the format does not take into account multiple items in any area," for instance if a unit has more than one bathroom or multiple light fixtures in a bedroom. Nelson recounted his experience as part of the industry input group in negotiating the Dictionary of Deficiencies with HUD during the fall of 1999. He explained that the group reached a consensus to develop an evaluation based on a pass-fail method, but that HUD would not consider it. Then, after HUD had initially indicated that the weights and criticality levels would be open for consideration, it announced on the final day that they were not on the table. According to Nelson, "HUD has allowed REAC to develop an assessment system that is secretive, arbitrary, ignores and is in defiance of the Congressional directive for industry consensus." Hester and Nelson also spoke about the financial indicator. Both agreed that entity-wide scoring was unfair. Hester felt that the indicator is too detailed -- scoring information not relevant to an HA's financial health. In addition, he stated that it was too intrusive and substituted HUD's opinion for the judgment of the local officials in decisions such as spending and reserves. The financial indicator components are also uncertain, he said, because HAs no longer know what the standards are since they are scored on curves and based on flawed peer groupings. Hester compared HUD's deciding to score HAs based on their position on a curve to a police department deciding what the right speed limit is based on the curve of the speed of all passing motorists.
Assistant Secretary Lucas's Remarks Lucas defended PHAS saying it "effectively and fairly measures each HA based on objective, uniform standards." He did not address any of the issues raised by the public housing officials. According to Lucas, PHAS was having the desired effect of improving public housing. "PHAS works. We saw a large decrease in deficiencies for PHAs who have traveled with us through the PHAS cycle two years in a row." The Assistant Secretary claimed that the Department had been responsive to public housing officials in the revision of the Dictionary of Deficiencies. "We listened to the industry and we learned," he said, adding that HUD had modified 65 percent of the physical deficiency definitions. Discussing the upcoming GAO report, he said that HUD would incorporate its findings into the PHAS inspection protocol. He anticipated that inspections for the March 31, 2000 PHAs will begin by the end of April. In concluding, Lucas stated, "From any objective vantage point, PHAS represents a major improvement over PHMAP."
The Committee's Questions Following up some of the concerns public housing officials had raised, Senator Allard asked Lucas if HUD's own building would pass a PHAS inspection. The Assistant Secretary said he was not sure, but that there was an appeal process which could handle some of the anecdotal evidence which had been presented. Senator Grams picked up this line of questioning by asking Hester how St. Paul was doing. Hester repeated the example of Mt. Airy Homes and compared PHAS to Housing Quality Standards (HQS). Mt. Airy would pass HQS, according to Hester, but there are many unbelievably nitpicky items on PHAS which caused it to fail. Grams opined that an inspector could come into his house and it would probably fail. Cracks are inevitable, he noted, when you have wood, plaster, earth and weather combined. Senator Allard asked Lucas to follow up on why HUD had proceeded with the final rule prior to the issuance of the GAO report. Lucas said that the GAO report was not going to be issued for several months and PHAS could not be delayed. He said HUD had consulted with the congressional staff and they had concurred that PHAS should be implemented without waiting for the GAO study. Allard then produced a letter from the Chairman of the Senate VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee which he said stated that the GAO report could not be ignored. Asking Lucas whether HUD had complied with the congressional language concerning the conditions which must be met before PHAS could be implemented, Lucas responded by saying that HUD had complied as it understood the language. Allard asked Assistant Secretary Lucas whether HUD could have a good system without the support of the HAs. Lucas responded by saying that HUD had come a long way, and that he felt the housing authorities understood what PHAS was all about. He repeated that there was an appeals process to handle problems. In response, Rose stated that the appeals process was punitive. It calls for a reinspection and that HAs would have to pay for it if the appeal were denied. Rose added that many ridiculous deficiencies are still included in the protocol.
|
