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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:39 pm 
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7. What if I have problems with the tenant?

If you have repeated problems with the tenant, you have the right to enforce your lease and take the necessary actions against the tenant. Whenever you do start proceedings against a client, you must follow local regulations. Should you send the tenant any correspondence, such as a warning letter or a notice to vacate, please send a copy to the local housing agency. In some cases, the housing agency may take action against the tenant to terminate the assistance prior to the eviction.

http://www.landlordassociation.org/section8.html

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:45 pm 
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Section 8 Is Broken
When badly managed, the voucher program doesn’t deliver housing choice for low-income residents – and may even undermine revitalization efforts.
By Christopher Swope


Section 8 “a catalyst in neighborhood deterioration and ghetto expansion.” Every day, Rutkowski says, he finds himself fighting the program’s unintended consequences: neglected properties, persistent crime and a continual influx of dysfunctional families, some of whom have never lived outside of public housing.

Section 8 is supposed to deconcentrate poverty, but in Rutkowski’s view, it actually reconcentrates it – in struggling neighborhoods such as his. At best, this has a destabilizing effect. At worst, it can drive middle-class residents out and turn the entire area into a slum. “Once a neighborhood has some problems,” Rutkowski says, “Section 8 accelerates those problems.”



http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/127/section8.html

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:50 pm 
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Activists: City Could Lose 10,000 Section 8 Housing Units


By this fall, according to activists, the city could lose over 10 percent of the remaining 90,000 affordable housing units that exist under the federal Section 8 program if Congress doesn't plug a $2.4 billion budget shortfall at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A pair of U.S. representatives, Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn and Queens and Jerrold Nadler of Brooklyn and Manhattan, are holding a rally tonight to pressure Congress to approve supplemental funding so HUD can continue to guarantee owners of Section 8 buildings rents to match the market. Without such gurantees, there's a risk of apartments leaving Section 8 for the increasingly expensive open market.

“If owners can’t rely on the subsidy then they will opt out of the Section 8 program,” Patrick Coleman of the group Tenants and Neighbors, one of the rally’s organizers, said. The rally's at 6:30 at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square South.

The problem surfaced in July, when HUD’s monthly payments to landlords with project-based Section 8 contracts became spotty, causing owners to cut-back on maintenance and tenant services, the rally’s organizers said.

At first, HUD said administrative problems were behind the late payments, according to Mr. Coleman said. The rally's organizers blame the Bush administration for securing only $6.1 billion of the estimated $8.1 billion needed to operate project-based Section 8 this year. HUD is not only scaling back allocations to buildings, but now they are only guaranteeing funding through Sept. 30, Mr. Coleman. Though $7.1 billion has already been allocated for the 2009 fiscal year, there is still the matter of the $2.4 billion deficit that HUD will accumulate in 2008 if no additional money is secured.

“The problem is what will come on Oct. 1,” said Mr. Coleman. “This is unprecedented so we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next fiscal year. They’re saying ‘we’ll hobble along until Sept. 30 and then get more money,’ but Congress has never approved a HUD spending bill on time so they are not going to have enough to renew building contracts.”

Even if Congress approved supplemental funding on Oct. 1, renewing all the contracts at once would be a huge administrative burden for HUD employees, who usually stretch negotiations out over the course of a year.

http://www.observer.com/2008/city-could ... ts-october

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:03 pm 
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Housing problems in Hot Springs

By: Tim Akimoff

The residents of the Larson Apartments in Hot Springs have paid their rent faithfully. Still, they faced eviction and having their water turned off because the property owner was foreclosed on and he neglected to pay a... More>>

http://videos.missoulian.com/p/video?id=1948813


I called the Section 8 people and the fellow there said, ‘Give me a date,' so that's what I did,” Berge said. “They said they thought we had been extremely patient about the bill, and they didn't blame us for turning it off.”

Allison, Ebbing and the Gilligs, meantime, all chipped in $2 apiece to buy gas for the lawnmower and Lyle cut the grass - another Witczak responsibility that wasn't being taken care of.

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008 ... news01.txt

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:13 pm 
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Renters find doors shut on affordable Section 8 housing

By Meghan Hoyer
The Virginian-Pilot

June 9, 2008

Princess Porter waited seven years to get a Section 8 voucher that would help her get out of subsidized housing.

But when Porter finally received the federal rental assistance in April, another obstacle loomed just as large: actually finding a place to live.

In Portsmouth, more than 150 people have Section 8 vouchers in hand and are searching for rental housing. Norfolk has a similar backlog. And thousands more are on waiting lists just for the opportunity to search.

Porter's visits to apartment complexes and housing often led to the same scene: dozens of people applying for a few units, or landlords rejecting Section 8 vouchers outright. Only last week, after searching for a month and a half, did she find a three-bedroom house in Portsmouth's Truxtun neighborhood.

"The housing is so scarce here," said Porter, who wanted to stay in Portsmouth because of its proximity to her job and Norfolk State University, where she's one year away from getting her degree. " I didn't want to give up the voucher because I had waited so long to get it. But at times, it got really frustrating."

While Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk officials say they aren't experiencing Section 8 rental problems, Norfolk and Portsmouth are in an affordable-rental crunch.

So as the busy summer rental season heats up, housing authorities in the region's urban core are seeking more landlords for their federally subsidized rental programs - and in some cases are weighing major incentives - to relieve some of the shortage.

" We really need to try to get as many landlords and as many units so we can serve more clients," said Donnell Brown, the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority's assistant executive director of housing operations.

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/06/renters ... le-housing

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:28 pm 
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Section 8 Tenants Rights



Your rights: the basics
The first step in having a working knowledge of your rights is knowing what rights tenants have won before you. If tenants are not informed enough about their rights to know when they have been violated, those rights might as well not exist at all.

The next thing every Section 8 tenant should know is that when an owner enters into an agreement to have project-based Section 8, that owner gets special deals from the government, including guaranteed monthly rental income, and/or low interest rates, or low mortgage payments.

In exchange, the government expects owners to follow certain rules to ensure that tenants are being treated well. However these rules are often not enforced by HUD, as they often are not aware of violations. Therefore, tenants must be the “eyes and ears” of HUD, and inform them in order to defend your rights.

The following information was taken from various HUD publications, many of which tenants never see, even when landlords are told by HUD to give one to each tenant. These publications include: HUD Management Agent Handbook 4381.5 REV-2, HUD Resident Rights and Responsibilities, as well as many others put out by tenants rights organizations around the country.

Did you know?
The owner is obligated by HUD

Recognize legitimate resident organizations which meet regularly, operate democratically, are representative of all residents, and are independent of management.
Provide an accessible meeting space within the premises for resident council meetings.
Provide residents with information regarding rent subsidies and other public assistance.
Respond to valid resident requests involving concerns about conditions or quality of life.
Allow you to participate in decisions regarding the well-being of your home.
Take immediate action to resolve all significant or recurring problems brought up by tenants.
Provide a copy of any written request by a resident or Resident Council to the person filing it.
Take immediate action to address problems brought to them by HUD.
The owner is not allowed to:

Interfere with the efforts of residents to organize or to represent resident interests.
Interfere with the efforts of residents to obtain rent subsidies or other public assistance.
Discriminate against tenants because of race, national origin, religion, beliefs or other protected classes.
Withhold the use of community rooms when requested by the Resident Council in connection with the functions of the organization.
Withhold the use of community rooms when requested by residents seeking to organize or collectively consider any matter pertaining to the project.
Charge residents a fee for use of community rooms unless a fee is normally charged for other events (such as potlucks, etc).
Send management representatives to resident meetings.
Evict, threaten to evict, withhold benefits, or otherwise retaliate against residents for organizing or asserting their rights.
“Buy resident leaders out” by offering special favors such as employment, reduced or free rent, preferential repairs, or other benefits not available to all residents in the development.
Attempt to form a competing resident organization under the control of the management company or the owner.
Sexually or otherwise harass tenants.
So, all Section 8 tenants have the right…

To organize for better living conditions, more dignity, greater control over their own housing situation, tenant ownership, better treatment from the owner, and anything else they might want.
To complain to HUD, other tenants, tenant organizations, or the media about Section 8 landlords who violate these regulations or otherwise bother them.
To live in decent, safe, and sanitary housing.
To have timely repairs and quality maintenance.
To use common space to organize, consider tenant issues, or any other reason.
To an immediate response to requests or complaints, without harassment or intimidation.
To be given reasonable notice in writing of any inspectin or other entry into your apartment.
To keep all information provided by management confidential.
To be recognized by owners as having a voice in decisions.
To equal treatment and use of the building’s services and facilities.
To a one-year notice of the intent of the owner to get out of the Section 8 program in order to rent on the open market.
To receive notice of, and to participate and comment on:
HUD approval of rent increases
conversion from owner-paid utilities to tenant-paid utilities
reduction in resident utility allowance
conversion of residential units to non-residential use
HUD approval of major construction or remodeling
And every other right that tenants have according to local, state and federal laws.
If the owner violates these rules

HUD expects tenants or resident councils to adopt the following procedure for getting the owner to comply with these rules:
Notify the owner in writing.
Wait a reasonable amount of time for a response, or for the owner to fix the problem.
If there is no response or the problem is not fixed, send the complaint in writing to the HUD Loan/Asset Manager for your building. To find out who the Loan/Asset Manager is, call HUD and ask them for the name of the Loan/Asset Manager for your building.
Your HUD Loan/Asset Manager is supposed to make a note of violations during their management reviews, which could result in a lower overall rating. Your participation in management reviews and inspections is key to making sure HUD makes a record of problems.
Failure to pass management or physical inspections can result in a HUD-imposed change of management. In extreme cases, it can result in a foreclosure on the mortgage or a repossession of the property by HUD. In some cases, HUD has sold the building to the tenants for $1 after repossession!
HUD is rarely aware of violations since tenants rarely report them for fear of retaliation (which is, by the way, illegal). Since landlords routinely break this law, the safest thing to do is to complain as a group, collectively. Afterwards, with both the tenants and HUD watching them, they will be less likely to abuse your rights in the future.
More options for Section 8 renters
These are not the only options available to you if you wish to protect yourself and defend your rights. The key lies in eternally pushing for even more rights by organizing all the tenants in your building collectively to have a united voice. As new, higher standards of how owners must treat tenants are brought to the table, older and weaker standards become stronger.

Tenants can put pressure on the landlord in many other ways, too. Organizing a tenant council in your building is the most effective way to protect yourself. As a group you can identify strategies and tactics to win the changes you want in your home and protect your rights.

Tenants across the nation are organizing together and coming up with new and effective ways to win changes in their living situaiton. How and why to organize is the subject of the other manual in the STOP Renters Kit, the “Section 8 Tenant Organizing Manual”.

http://www.tenantsunion.org/STOP/37/sec ... nts-rights

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:31 pm 
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Advising Section 8 Tenants whose buildings have been foreclosed


The foreclosure of rental properties is forcing renters out of their homes in record numbers. In previous blogs, we have spoken briefly about the shift of former homeowners into the rental market, and how this increased demand on the rental housing supply will –inevitably-drive up rents. We have, however, neglected to discuss some tools that can help tenants slow down the onslaught on housing stability caused by these foreclosures.

As lenders (or the investment trusts) take over residential buildings, many feel pressured to get properties vacated and ready for resale. Some lenders have hired local real estate agents who employ intimidation tactics and take shortcuts on tenant’s rights in an effort to force them out of their apartments.

http://speakunited.org/blog/paola+ferre ... foreclosed

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:35 pm 
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The Problem With Section 8: A Crackdown in The Antelope Valley

Good piece of reporting today on LATimes.com about a crackdown on Section 8 tenants in The Antelope Valley, and the various issues it raises. Chief among those issues, as Jessica Garrison and Ted Rohrlich report, is whether it's fair, or even legal, to have armed deputies piling into an apartment without a warrant to investigate a neighbor's complaint about the people who live there.

But we've heard this story from another angle, and it's worth revisiting. Suppose you have saved for years and can finally afford a house -- a newly built house -- in a new subdivision in Palmdale. You buy the home in part because you've heard that other homes in the subdivision are selling quickly -- it must be a good buy. Then you move in and learn who was buying those other houses: investors. Then you learn their scheme: they buy houses, sometimes newly built, and immediately rent them out under the Section 8 program. You realize that you haven't bought into a middle-class neighborhood of like-minded homeowners at all; you've put your life savings into a neighborhood of low-income, federally subsidized renters. You hear that property values in the subdivision have already fallen sharply in the several months since you bought your house. Of course you're upset about Section 8.

Realtor Donna Oehler told us about one subdivision where an investor bought 14 houses and turned them all into Section 8 rentals. She was explaining the risks of buying into a brand-new subdivision rather than an established neighborhood.




http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/ ... m_wit.html

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:22 pm 
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Swissvale officials tied an increase in the number of Section 8 residents in the community over the past five years to higher crime and lower property values, and said the program should ensure residents aren't concentrated in only a few communities.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08178/892500-56.stm

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:33 pm 
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Tenants upset after HUD cuts funding to downtown apartment


INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Is the federal government cutting funding to some low income housing to make way for more high rent development in downtown Indy?

The area in question is two downtown buildings that sit between some luxury condos being built and some high end development on the canal.

Some tenants think they're being forced out.

"Nobody has come to us and said those words they haven't said we want you out of here, but one has to wonder," said Attorney Wayne Turner.

Senate Manor Apartments is federally subsidized housing which sits on some choice real estate downtown. Luxury condos are going up next door.

"Clearly it's not going to be section 8 housing, it's going to be a little better and probably there are those that would like to see section 8 housing go on it's own way," said Gerry Moss the co-owner of Senate Manor Apartments.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a contract with Senate Manor: paying rent for 85 tenants.

But HUD says because of low safety inspection scores, funding will cease next Monday.

The owners can't figure out why HUD gave them such low inspection scores this time when not much has changed.

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp? ... v=menu35_3

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:41 pm 
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The authority's housing programs, which include operating the city's public housing complexes and its Section 8 and work-force development programs, will require more than $4 million from reserves to make up for shortfalls.

The federal government calculates how much each city's housing program should cost to run, but this year will provide only 83 percent of that money. Over the past two years, Norfolk's housing authority has seen an $11.5 million drop in federal funding.

"We really haven't had to hit the reserves up until now," chief financial officer Clara Graves said.

The authority has about $11 million in its housing reserves, money it has socked away over the years when tenants' rent payments and federal funding exceeded the cost of running the programs.

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/06/norfolk ... g-programs

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 2:13 pm 
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Tenants forced to flee want compensation

REMEMBER YOU HAVE RIGHTS ALSO AND IF YOU ARE MADE TO FLEE BECAUSE THE LANDLORD AND THE HOUSING AUTHORITY ALLOW SECTION 8 TENANTS TO VIOLATE YOU.

TAKE THEM TO COURT FOR COMPENSATION!

Tenants are seeking compensation after they were forced to abandon their apartments April 4 because of structural concerns at a 15-unit St. Joseph's Drive building.

The tenants are scheduled to meet the building's owner today at a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing. The legal body handles disputes between landlords and tenants.

Lawyer Sharon Crowe said the impact of the move on the Ambassador Heights tenants was "catastrophic." Crowe said her clients seek financial compensation for the "inconvenience and stress" of having to leave their belongings behind with only a few minutes notice -- as well as for several burglaries at the building that followed.

The maximum amount that can be sought under the Residential Tenancies Act is $10,000 per tenant. Crowe said some tenants are seeking the maximum amount, others will settle for less.

Building owner Robert Creek said yesterday he hopes to eventually reopen the still-empty building. He declined to comment on today's hearing.

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/280940

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:24 pm 
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Crime and Section 8 housing


In the new Atlantic, Hanna Rosin has a story on why crime stats are going up in areas you wouldn't expect: follow the Section 8 housing vouchers. The program, which was designed to break up concentrations of inner-city poverty by giving people public money they could use to find housing elsewhere, apparently has resulted in the same crime, but in different places. Excerpt:

Studies show that recipients of Section8 vouchers have tended to choose moderately poor neighborhoods that were already on the decline, not low-poverty neighborhoods. One recent study publicized by HUD warned that policy makers should lower their expectations, because voucher recipients seemed not to be spreading out, as they had hoped, but clustering together. Galster theorizes that every neighborhood has its tipping point--a threshold well below a 40 percent poverty rate--beyond which crime explodes and other severe social problems set in. Pushing a greater number of neighborhoods past that tipping point is likely to produce more total crime. In 2003, the Brookings Institution published a list of the 15 cities where the number of high-poverty neighborhoods had declined the most. In recent years, most of those cities have also shown up as among the most violent in the U.S., according to FBI data.

I'd love to know what the Dallas experience with Section 8 housing vouchers has been. Can a rise in neighborhood crime be correlated with them? If so, let's see evidence. If not, why have we escaped what cities like Memphis have not?


http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnew ... secti.html

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:32 pm 
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In the Twin Cities metro Housing Authority last May auctioned off Section 8 housing vouchers. “They had 5,000 vouchers and 25,000 on the waiting list,” he said. Many had been waiting ten years. Jeff Crosby, president of the International Union of Electrical Workers-CWA Local 201, which represents thousands of GE workers in Lynn, Massachusetts, addressed the foreclosure crisis in an AFL-CIO blog. “So why were 102 houses in Lynn facing foreclosure in February, more than double the 44 houses one year ago?” he wrote

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13300/1/141/

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 Post subject: Re: Section 8 Savages
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:07 pm 
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[img] Mission Gardens, which houses 50 low-income tenants, has been supported by federal Section 8 rent subsidy contracts due to expire in 2011. Once those contracts expire, the owner is free to raise rents.

In Santa Cruz County, the seventh most expensive place to live in the nation, market rates could force out people paying no more than $1,300 for a three-bedroom, two-bath townhome.

That's unlikely to happen now that Bentall expects to close a deal with owners Wayne and Byron Kelly by the end of the year.

Bentall plans a $1.33 million rehabilitation project, upgrading all 50 units with new windows, flooring, cabinets and kitchen and bathroom fixtures.

"These are townhomes a mile from the beach with a nice view," said James Morgan, loan officer with California Housing Finance Agency, which awarded Bentall a $4.17 million loan to buy the complex, make improvements and preserve its affordability.

The Santa Cruz redevelopment agency is chipping in $1.5 million toward the purchase. The complex is assessed at $4

[/img]

http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_9762175

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