The Borough's Burden, Part 4

The Bright Hope public housing complex on Pottstown's west side, formerly called Penn Village, is operated by the Montgomery County Housing Authority and represents one way low-income housing is concentrated in Pottstown and other older traditional towns.

What Role Does Public Housing Play?

This is the $64,000 question in Pottstown.

We should begin by understanding that not all of this high concentration low-income housing can be laid at the feet of public housing, whether it be in the form of Section 8 Housing or public housing projects like Bright Hope.

Mercury Photo by Kevin Hoffman

Montgomery County Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro,

left, addresses the Pottstown crowd last month. At right are

commissioners Bruce Castor and Leslie Richards.

When the Montgomery County Commissioners visited Pottstown last month, Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro pointed out that Pottstown has a lower concentration of Section 8 vouchers than is often proclaimed.

I have no reason to doubt that information.

But not all low-income housing is public housing and what he could NOT deny, and which the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission study we began examining yesterday and will continue to draw from today confirms, is that public or not, there IS a concentration of poor and low-income housing here in Pottstown.

And the burden that Pottstown bears from that concentration is equally heavy, whether that low-income housing comes from a public source or not.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Joel Johnson, the executive director of the Montgomery

County Housing Authority also spoke at that Pottstown meeting.

When the police are called to a low-income home for a domestic, a drug call or other disturbance that so often accompanies such households, it costs taxpayers the same, whether their rent is paid through public vouchers or not.

When a child from Bright Hope needs an IEP from the school district and a specialized one-on-one aid to give him or her the best leg up on keeping up with their education, it costs taxpayers the same whether their rent is paid through public vouchers or not.

And when we complain to public officials about Section 8, it is only because that portion of the low-income housing burden is the only portion we can hope to directly affect by appealing to those public officials who are answerable to us and can, hopefully, do something about it.

OK, so enough preaching from the mount.

Back to some more facts from the DVRPC report, "The Mismatch Between Housing and Jobs," issued in 2011.

For those of you who haven't been following along, we began working through this report in yesterday's post and today are posting the sections I pulled out of that report that contain numbers, facts and assumptions about how the region handles publicly assisted housing.

As with yesterday's post, what appears below was taken directly from the report, but is not necessarily posted in the same order as the report. Anything in bold is my own emphasis or additional comment.

The Montgomery County Housing Authority operates 615 housing units; the Bucks County Housing Authority operates 742 housing units; and the Chester County Housing Authority operates 331 public housing units. 

There are 331 public housing units in Chester County, managed by the Chester County Housing Authority. These are located in the City of Coatesville, Phoenixville Borough, Oxford Borough, South Coatesville, and West Chester Borough. Almost 1,600 assisted housing units are also located in the county, all within 14 municipalities located primarily along the Route 30 and Route 322 corridors. 

In Montgomery County, 615 public rental units are managed by the Montgomery County Housing Authority. Public housing units are concentrated within six municipalities in the county, three of which are older boroughs along the Schuylkill River (the Boroughs of Conshohocken, Royersford, and Pottstown) and two of which are well-developed suburban townships (Upper Moreland and Upper Dublin). An additional 3,500 subsidized units are located throughout the county. 

Between 2009 and 2010 approximately 53,650 Housing Choice Vouchers (the new name for Section 8 ) were allocated in Greater Philadelphia. The rationale behind the Housing Voucher Choice Program is to give low-income families an opportunity to move to moderate and median-income areas where they can better access jobs and secure a better education for their children. 

The five southeastern Pennsylvania counties are allotted 26,209 certificates and vouchers (49 percent of the region’s total). Housing Choice Vouchers and certificates are also administered by the other five Pennsylvania housing authorities of the City of Chester (1,586), Bucks County (3,398), Chester County (1,521), Delaware County (3,086), and Montgomery County (1,480).  

Public Housing in Montgomery County:
Pottstown -- 632 units
Norristown -- 546
Lansdale: -- 647 

Public Housing in Chester County"
Coatesville – 510
Phoenixville – 107
Spring City -- 190 

The most common perception and concern of those opposed to affordable residential development in their communities is that the presence of subsidized housing or tenants with rental assistance leads to declining property value.

Several studies, however, conclude that the impact of federally subsidized housing on nearby property values is not always negative, but varies by type of unit and by type of community.

One study that reviewed the impacts of subsidized housing in New York City, for example, found that units subsidized under the federal Section 202 program (housing for the elderly) or constructed using Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) had a positive impact on property values that then remained stable over time.

For Section 8 and public housing, the same study found that the impact on property values was relatively minor for smaller scale projects and that any negative impact on values typically occurred within the first three years after project completion and then dissipated.

Another study noted that affordable housing developments that replace vacant, abandoned, or otherwise blighted conditions generate positive impacts on surrounding properties, and stressed that good management and housing maintenance is critical to sustaining property values.

Good property maintenance (of both affordable and market rate developments) and proactive property code enforcement are key to maintaining neighborhoods. Units subsidized under the Housing Voucher Choice program are inspected annually and landlords must agree to correct any deficiencies within a limited time in order to continue to receive their subsidy.

Housing advocates note that this requirement (if properly enforced) can result in a Section 8 rental unit being better maintained than another unit rented through an absentee landlord in the same neighborhood without a subsidy.

Some studies do suggest, however, that there is some threshold (in terms of either number of units or scale of the project) where an over-concentration of subsidized units in one community, particularly of tenant-based subsidies, may result in stagnant or declining property values. This threshold is difficult to define and most likely varies by community, depending on the existing characteristics of both the neighborhood and the tenants.

Past and current housing policies that concentrate affordable housing assistance in distressed communities, although well-intended, have unintentionally contributed to suburban sprawl and contributed to disinvestment in cities and older suburbs.

Public housing residents pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward the rent and the federal operating subsidy makes up the remaining difference. The operating subsidy funding received each fiscal year is often not sufficient to cover actual operating costs, which can lead to poor maintenance of public housing units.

The Section 8 program, now referred to as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, assists low-income households, defined as those earning 50 percent or less of the median income.

Housing vouchers may be used for any unit where the owner agrees to participate and where the unit satisfies the standards set by the local housing authority (This puts the responsibility for maintenance and standards squarely in the lap, in Pottstown's case, of the Montgomery County Housing Authority.) 

Under the current program guidelines, HUD pays the difference between what a low-income family can afford to pay towards their rent (defined as 30 percent of their adjusted income or 10 percent of their gross income, whichever is higher) and an approved fair market rent for an adequate housing unit. Landlords who agree to participate in the program are required to allow the housing authority to inspect the unit annually.

Although the intent of the Housing Choice Voucher program is to enable low-income tenants to use the subsidy for a unit in a location of their choice, the Fair Market Rent limit realistically encourages their use primarily in places with the lowest housing costs (including cities, boroughs, and older suburbs).

Counties and local jurisdictions that receive Community Development Block Grants, HOME , and other types of federal funds are required to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act and the requirements of the Community Development Act.

Which brings us back to this. Does THIS look like fair housing choice?

These regulations require that the county or municipality affirmatively further fair housing to the maximum extent possible. Under these requirements, every jurisdiction receiving federal community development funding must (1) conduct an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice; (2) take appropriate actions to overcome the effects of impediments identified through that analysis; and (3) maintain records reflecting actions they’ve taken and their accomplishments to date.

A 2009 court decision involving Westchester County, New York, emphasized the seriousness of fulfilling this requirement.

In February 2009 a federal judge ruled that Westchester County had failed to conduct an adequate analysis of impediments and had taken no steps whatsoever to further fair housing while continuing to receive HUD funding, despite clear racial segregation throughout their communities. In July 2011, after repeatedly rejecting revised analyses of impediments submitted by the County, HUD stopped providing community development funds to the County and is currently pursuing additional action, including the possible restitution of previously awarded funding.

Low Income Housing Tax Credit

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 established the LIHTC to encourage the construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low income persons. LIHTC accounts for nearly 90 percent of all affordable rental housing created in the United States today. 

Photo by Kevin Hoffman

Mary Beth Lydon, now Mary Beth Bacallao, protested the 

proposed senior housing project in 2010. She is now a 

member of the Pottstown School Board.

(Some may recall, this was the program that, in 2010, was going to be used to construct the low-income senior housing project along Industrial Avenue, a project which was considered controversial and was ultimately denied by the state, even though borough council voted to support it.) 

The tax credit is available to owners of and investors in rental housing for up to 10 years as a dollar-for-dollar reduction of federal tax income liability, provided that the rental housing project remains in compliance with occupancy and rent requirements for a 15-year compliance period.

The LIHTC program is one of the largest funding sources available to local Community Development Corporations (CDCs) for the development and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing. 

Most states (including New Jersey and Pennsylvania) usually allocate low-income housing credits to cities and older suburbs. This policy is well-intended but has played a role in creating concentrations of poverty, encouraging suburban sprawl, and exacerbating the mismatch between these older areas and their surrounding growing suburbs.

In general, Pennsylvania has not been proactive in requiring municipalities to provide affordable housing for low and moderate income families. One exception is the 1975 case of Township of Willistown v. Chesterdale Farms (341 A. 2d 46), in which the Pennsylvania courts ruled that the local zoning ordinance was exclusionary because it did not allow any acreage for apartment construction and thus excluded a lower-income population which could rent but not purchase.

Improving the financial status and quality of life in the region’s cities and older suburbs requires revisions to the current property tax structure as well as housing policies and programs.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) released a report in 2001, The New Economy and Jobs/Housing Balance in Southern California, which found that balancing housing and jobs in a defined geography has numerous environmental benefits, lowers infrastructure costs, and improves family stability. 

The same study found that an excess amount of the region’s vacant land had been zoned for commercial and industrial purposes relative to their forecasted housing needs for the Year 2025, which would undoubtedly exacerbate the mismatch.

By providing an analysis of zoned land for future uses, local governments can plan for the appropriate number and type of housing units in proximity to existing and future employment centers.

A new approach is needed, one that recognizes that public policies and funding streams can catalyze a more balanced and sustainable approach to housing that will benefit older and newer communities, workers and employers, and the region as a whole.

Tomorrow, we will conclude with a look at the recommendations made in this report for ALL levels of government.

Until then, thanks for sticking with me on this...

Dear Commissioners, Let's Talk Price

Dear Montgomery County Commissioners Josh Shapiro, Leslie Richards and Bruce Castor:

Thanks for coming to Pottstown tomorrow night to hear what we have to say.

Hopefully, some of our more thoughtful residents will show up to greet you and help you understand what ails us.

In case they don't, it seems prudent to jot down a few thoughts for your consideration:

Well just one thought really. You see, as complex as modern life it, the issues here in Pottstown boil down to a pretty simple equation.

Concentration of low-income housing + lack of living wage jobs = high crime, high taxes and low quality of life.

Look, you need not waste too much time Monday night explaining to us why things are done this way.

We get it.

In a lot of ways, it makes sense for Montgomery County to steer its poor to places like Pottstown and Norristown.

After all, it's where all the social service agencies are located already (although that's a chicken-or-the-egg example if ever we saw one); they both have bus systems and people who can't afford cars can walk to places more easily than out in the middle of the cookie-cutter sub-divisions where you need a car to get your mail.

And when it comes to housing vouchers (read Section 8), then you spend less public money in places where the rents are cheaper. After all, those federal subsidies for housing vouchers are tax money as well; best to get the most bang for the public buck.

On the other side of the coin, you could hardly pick worse places to concentrate low-income housing than in places like Pottstown and Norristown, at least not in terms of what's best for those communities.

Those still hanging on by their fingernails to home-ownership and jobs there are doing so under the burden of the highest tax rates in the region,

They're sending their children to schools with more special needs students than the wealthy suburbs that surround them, all under a state aid formula that gives them less funding than those same wealthier neighbors.

Their children walk to those schools through streets with a higher crime rate than their quiet suburban neighbors, whose children ride to school in buses or SUVs.

They're protected by police forces that must feel like they're running to stand still in terms of keeping up with the constant crime that shadows all concentrations of low-income life.

And their classmates are living in sub-standard apartments because the housing authority and the borough both lack the resources to ensure those places are kept up to code.

In case I'm not being clear, here is a good summary of what the impact of the county's policy of sending low-income families here, courtesy of the Brookings Institute's Metropolitan Policy Program:

• Lead to increased crime rates and poor health outcomes. Crime rates, and particularly violent crime rates, tend to be higher in economically distressed inner-city neighborhoods.Faced with high crime rates, dilapidated housing stock, and the stress and marginalization of poverty, residents of very poor neighborhoods demonstrate a higher incidence of poor physical and mental health outcomes, like asthma, depression, diabetes, and heart ailments.
• Limit educational opportunity. Children in high-poverty communities tend to go to neighborhood schools where nearly all the students are poor and at greater risk of failure, as measured by standardized tests, dropout rates, and grade retention.Low performance owes not only to family background, but also to the negative effects high-poverty neighborhoods have on school processes and quality. Teachers in these schools tend to be less experienced, the student body more mobile, and additional systems must often be put in place to deal with the social welfare needs of the student body, creating further demands on limited resources.
• Reduce private-sector investment and increase prices for goods and services. High concentrations of low-income and low-skilled households in a neighborhood can make the community less attractive to private investors and employers, which may limit local job opportunities and ultimately create a “spatial mismatch” between low-income residents and employment centers. In addition, lack of business competition in poor neighborhoods can drive up prices for basic goods and services—like food, car insurance, utilities, and financial services—compared to what families pay in middle-income neighborhoods.
• Raise costs for local government. The concentration of poor individuals and families—which can result in elevated welfare caseloads, high rates of indigent patients at hospitals and clinics, and the need for increased policing—burdens the fiscal capacity of local governments and can divert resources from the provision of other public goods. In turn, these dynamics can lead to higher taxes for local businesses and non-poor residents.
• Hinder wealth building. Many residents in extreme-poverty neighborhoods own their home, yet neighborhood conditions in these areas can lead the market to devalue these assets and deny them the ability to accumulate wealth through the appreciations of house prices.Moreover, the presence of high-poverty neighborhoods can affect residents of the larger metropolitan area generally, depressing values for owner-occupied properties in the region by 13 percent on average.

To Pottstown residents, the Brookings Institute just described conditions in our town.

Pottstown might have absorbed a portion of this county-sponsored burden if it were still a thriving community in which people with high school educations made a living wage at the local plant.

Indeed, wages that could support a middle-class family in Pottstown would solve many problems here simultaneously.

But the days of the labor-intensive factory are gone forever.

This kind of work isn't around here anymore

Those who wish for their return must realize that the manufacturing that remains in America is extremely specialized and high-tech.

A high school education is rarely enough to secure one of those jobs.

Good jobs to have certainly, but those who work there can no longer walk down the street the day after graduation and sign up for a place on the assembly line.

In fact, the people who get those jobs are those best prepared by a superior education system, which brings us right back to the Catch-22 with which we live every day here in Pottstown.

So presuming the county commissioners can do little to bring jobs to Pottstown, what should we ask for, other than their apologies for the decades of neglect at the hands of a flawed housing policy?

So what can Josh Shapiro, Bruce Castor and Leslie Richards do for us?

What can they offer us when they arrive at 7 p.m. Monday at the Montgomery County Community College's West Campus here in town?

They're here on a "listening tour," with no other purpose than to hear what we have to say. So what should we say?

I propose the following:

Let us recognize the reality that any suggestion that more low-income housing be directed toward wealthier communities will never come to pass.

It's a fool's errand folks. That's where the money is, and no politician is going to get campaign donations from a community where they just located a low-income housing project like Bright Hope.

Fair? Sure. Likely? Never.

Further, let's recognize that people who live in low-income housing are people, not statistics. If they're voting on where to live with their vouchers, they are going to live where they feel comfortable and where their dollar goes furthest, just like the rest of us.

How happy is a family living on $30,000 likely to be surrounded by neighbors who all make $250,000?

Also, we must recognize that barring a major structural change in county government, Leslie, Josh and Bruce don't have full control over this issue.

The entity which sends us voucher upon voucher is the Montgomery County Housing Authority, an independent agency not under the control of the county commissioners. It's not a county department.

So even if they agreed to, the commissioners could not stem the flow of vouchers.

What is in their power, is to pay the price for the policy.

So let's look at this like the capitalists we all claim to be.

The truth of the matter is we're providing a service for Montgomery County.

We are taking in their tired, their hungry, their poor, so their wealthier constituents don't have to. There's a dollar value to that service.

The real problem is we just aren't charging enough and we're going out of business as a result.

It's not that hard to document the increased costs Pottstown and Norristown take on with each low-income voucher that crosses the borough line.

So let's demand a better price -- an agreed upon amount of county dollars that go to the borough and school district for each housing voucher that comes this way.

Fortunately for the county, the borough and the school district share the same borders, so the accounting will be easy.

In the schools, that money can ONLY be used to pay for special education costs, or tutors for low-income students in homes using vouchers.

In the borough, that money can ONLY be used for things related to the costs those vouchers bring:

• To pay for increased policing; 
• To pay for more (and better-trained) code inspection officers to ensure the buildings at which these vouchers are being used are kept up and not contributing to the degradation of the neighborhood;
• To pay for increased recreational opportunities for the children in those households, giving them a place to recreate other than the streets. (By happy coincidence, we have a community center located right in the center of town where such programs could be located);
• To pay for adult training programs to help the adults in these households get the jobs that exist today. (By happy coincidence, the previous county commissioners had the foresight to locate a college campus right here in town, which makes for a handy training location.)

Those are just a few suggestions for concrete things the county commissioners could do for this community.

But for Monday's "listening tour" to have any real value, I don't think the commissioners should leave Pottstown without having committed to real help.

Anything else will just be vague promises, happy talk and smoke.

Been there, done that. And we know what it's worth.