HUD: Housing Authority default fixed
San Francisco’s longembattled Housing Authority, which was facing a $ 30 million deficit two years ago, has cleaned up its finances and operations and is no longer in default with the federal government, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Housing Authority, which provides vouchers for about 13,000 units and owns public housing units in Potrero Hill and Visitacion Valley, has been plagued with management and maintenance problems for decades, the result of federal budget cuts and poor local oversight. Tenants complained of decrepit plumbing, broken elevators and bug infestations — the situation was bad enough in 2013 that thenMayor Ed Lee fired and replaced almost all of the Housing Authority commissioners.
In a letter last week, Hunter Kurtz, HUD’s assistant secretary for public and Indian housing, told city officials the Housing Authority has “cured its default” for several programs that agency administers, including the Section 8 program.
Acting Director Tonia Lediju, whom Mayor London Breed brought on last year to fix the beleaguered department, said the HUD letter is proof that “it’s a new day at the Housing Authority.”
“We are turning it around,” she said. “It’s not perfect yet. We are not where we want to be but we are on the right trajectory.”
Two years ago, an audit of the San Francisco Housing Authority uncovered a $ 30 million deficit, forcing the city to take control of the agency and reallocate about $ 7 million that had been intended for other uses. A few months later, the U. S. Housing and Urban Development Department mandated that the city assume responsibility for the agency because it had defaulted on several agreements and obligations.
Lediju, the city’s chief auditor, was brought in to take over the agency, and the operations and finances were outsourced to thirdparty companies.
The San Francisco Housing Authority administers Section 8 vouchers, which pay private landlords as well as the nonprofit housing organizations
that have taken over most of the city’s public housing during the past decade.
Lediju said being in HUD’s good graces will enable the city to go after more federal money, which will lead to more lowincome families and individuals getting housed, particularly homeless veterans.
“We will be applying for additional vouchers,” she said.
The Housing Authority’s improvement comes as the city has just completed its $ 2.2 billion Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which transferred the ownership of 3,500 public units in 29 buildings from the authority to nonprofits like Mercy Housing and Chinatown Community Development Center. That program included the renovation of much of the city’s public housing stock.
The Housing Authority still owns the land the former public housing sits on, but no longer the buildings. In addition to administering the Section 8 voucher program, the Housing Authority still owns two affordable complexes, one on Potrero Hill and one in Sunnydale. Those complexes are being rebuilt and gradually getting taken over by private nonprofits.
Joaquin Torres, chairman of the Housing Authority Commission, said “the curing of this default is a vote of confidence from HUD.”
“We have proven beyond a doubt that San Francisco is truly invested in our most vulnerable residents in a significant and serious way,” he said.