Home Rule Flexible Grant Option

Summary

S. 462
The Senate bill limits the Home Rule option solely to the City of Indianapolis, Indiana.

H.R. 2
Title IV would allow local governments to apply for housing assistance grants earmarked for their jurisdiction. If approved by the Secretary, the locality would receive the housing assistance grants for one to five years, including public housing operating funds, modernization assistance, and Section 8 certificate and voucher funds. The local government would be required to meet some of the same standards imposed on HAs but would be exempted from other existing regulations. They could use Section 8 and public housing funds interchangeably. A more recent draft version requires the local government to follow most housing regulations. It sets the number of participating jurisdictions to ten in FY 1999, twenty in FY 2000, twenty in FY 2001, and twenty-five in FY 2002.

PHADA position

• PHADA strongly opposes the Home Rule provision and would oppose any bill that would go beyond the Senate bill's demonstration. HAs were originally established as independent entities to insulate low-income housing programs from local politics and this would reverse that successful strategy.

• Well-run HAs should continue to receive funds to operate their housing programs without the imposition of a "middleman" in the form of the city government. Congress should not risk funds being diverted to other than housing purposes.

• The best way to deliver housing assistance is to devolve as much authority and flexibility as possible to well-run housing authorities. The Moving to Work demonstration program that was in Congressman Lazio's bill during the 104th session would create an opportunity to test various approaches to effectively providing quality housing and services at the lowest cost to the federal government.

• Examples of the effect that local government and political intervention in housing program can cause is evident in several large, troubled HAs, including New Orleans, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Should these cities be invited to become more involved in the day-to-day delivery of housing assistance and services?

• The existing structure provides an excellent balance, in most cities, between local control and insulation from the daily rough and tumble of local politics.

Suggested action
Remove the Home Rule provision from the bill. Expand the Moving to Work demonstration program to allow HAs to experiment with alternative approaches to providing housing assistance and services.