Between the Public and the Private: Landlord Liaisons at Public Housing Authorities

Problem: Local public housing authorities (PHAs) in the United States face a different set of mandates and opportunities today than they did before 1980; PHA financing and program authority are more flexible, while federal funding has shrunk, and new obligations have arisen. Taken together, these changes in federal policy have so diversified PHAs' responsibilities that they risk organizational incoherence and ineffectiveness in trying to fulfill all their obligations. Purpose: To understand the future prospects for public and assisted housing in the United States, we trace the influence of the last two decades of federal policy on the obligations and discretion of public housing authorities. Methods: We coded the federal policy actions that have affected affordable housing policy since 1980 to identify their likely implications for PHAs' organizational strategies. Our coding distinguished initiatives likely to prompt strategic innovation by PHAs from those likely to prompt a reactive posture or defense of existing arrangements. Results and conclusions: In combination, the most prominent and binding federal initiatives push PHAs toward reactive and defensive organizational strategies. More federal initiatives foster changes in PHAs' services, revenues, and internal capacities than in their markets and external partnerships. The federal initiatives with the most dramatic and far-reaching impacts on PHAs' strategies are the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, voucher expansion, voucher funding formulas, and cuts in public housing funding. By comparison, other federal initiatives have had a more limited and diffuse impact on PHAs' statefies. Takeaway for practice: Reports from individual cities suggest that PHAs have responded to these federal policy changes by choosing to focus their organizational strategies on achieving specific aims for narrow subpopulations. These choices about organizational strategy matter because federal housing policy outcomes now depend both on what PHAs choose to do and on what they are capable of doing. PHAs that strive for organizational coherence may choose both to diversify funding streams and to serve fewer poor clients, while those attempting to fulfill all their federal policy obligations risk excelling at none. In the future, PHAs struggling to survive may reduce services to the poorest households to an even greater extent than federal policy now dictates. Research support: None.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program is the largest housing subsidy program in the United States, serving over 2.2 million households. Through the program, local public housing authorities (PHAs) provide funds to landlords on behalf of participating households, covering a portion of the household’s rent. Given the reliance on the private market, there are typically many more locational options for HCV households than for traditional public housing, which has a set (and declining) number of units and locations. The growth of this program has been robust in recent decades, adding nearly 1 million vouchers in the last 25 years. This has been a deliberate attempt to move away from the traditional public housing model toward one that emphasizes choice and a diversity of location outcomes through the HCV program. There are many reasons for these policy and programmatic shifts, but one is undoubtedly the high crime rates that came to be the norm in and near far too many public housing developments. During the mid-20th century, when the vast majority of public housing units were created, they were frequently sited in undesirable areas that offered few amenities and contained high proportions of low-income and minority households. As poverty further concentrated in central cities due to the flight of higher-income (often white) households to the suburbs, many public housing developments became increasingly dangerous places to live. The physical design of public housing developments was also frequently problematic, with entire city blocks being taken up by large high-rises set back from the street, standing out as areas to avoid within their neighborhoods. There are many quantitative summaries and anecdotal descriptions of the crime and violence present in some public housing developments from sources as diverse as journalists, housing researchers, and architects. Now that the shift to housing vouchers (and the low-income housing tax credit [LIHTC]) has been underway for over two decades, we have a good understanding of how effective these changes have been in reducing exposure to crime for subsidized households. Further, we are beginning to better understand the limitations of these efforts and why households are often unsuccessful in moving from high-crime areas. In studies of moving housing voucher households away from crime, the following questions are of particular interest: What is the connection between subsidized housing and crime? What mechanisms of the housing voucher program work to allow households to live in lower-crime neighborhoods than public housing? And finally, how successful has this program been in reducing participant exposure to crime, and how do we explain some of the limitations? While many aspects of the relationship between subsidized housing and crime are not well understood, existing research provides several important insights. First, we can conclude that traditional public housing—particularly large public housing developments—often concentrated crime to dangerously high levels. Second, we know that public housing residents commonly expressed great concern over the presence of crime and drugs in their communities, and this was a frequent motivation for participating in early studies of housing mobility programs such as Gautreaux in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity experiment. Third, while the typical housing voucher household lives in a lower-crime environment than public housing households, they still live in relatively high-crime neighborhoods, and there is substantial research on the limited nature of moves using vouchers. Finally, while there is research on whether voucher households cause crime in the aggregate, the outcomes are rather ambiguous—some rigorous studies have found that clusters of voucher households increase neighborhood crime and some have found there is no effect. Furthermore, any potential effects on neighborhood crime by vouchers need to be weighed against their effectiveness at reducing exposure to neighborhood crime among subsidized households.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program is the largest rental housing subsidy program in the United States and has the potential to increase housing options for low-income families. In order to realize this potential, however, the program must attract landlords who accept housing choice vouchers. The primary objectives of this study are: 1) to provide insights from Public Housing Authority (PHA) staff on the factors associated with landlord decisions about whether to participate in the program; and 2) to identify a collection of promising and innovative practices that PHAs have used to increase landlord participation. The study provides key insights into landlord participation in the HCV program and the perspectives of PHA staff on factors influencing landlord decisions on whether to participate. The study also identifies a diverse collection of innovative activities adopted by PHAs to mitigate financial concerns among landlords, make the HCV program simpler, and alleviate landlord concerns about HCV tenants. The study finds that a majority of PHA staff interviewed identified financial reasons as the most important factor affecting landlord participation - with payment standards and fair market rents, damage costs and security deposits, and profit motivations cited as key determining factors.

Neither academic researchers nor the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have studied evictions from public housing in national perspective. Combining federal registers of public housing authorities (PHAs) with individual-level records from >25 million eviction filings issued between 2006 and 2016, this is the first national-level study to estimate the prevalence and dynamics of eviction in public housing units. We find that the average PHA files roughly 40 evictions each year or 7.6 cases for every 100 public housing households. Public housing complexes were responsible for approximately 5.8 out of every 100 eviction filings in our sample, while only 3.5 in 100 renting households resided in public housing. Controlling for socioeconomic factors, we show that PHAs with a higher percentage of Black residents have significantly higher eviction filing rates. Eviction filing rates in PHAs are associated with those in the surrounding private rental market, indicating that PHAs do not function independently from the social contexts in which they are embedded. These findings reveal significant variation in eviction filing rates across local PHAs and highlight the need for clear policies on lease terminations and improved documentation of eviction actions in public housing at the federal and local levels.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, which is the largest rental subsidy program in the United States, relies on the participation of landlords. Research shows, however, that not all landlords are willing to participate. The present study analyzes qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted with landlords (N = 25) in an effort to deepen our understanding of their experiences with the HCV program, and specifically, to explore the challenges they face in communicating with the public housing authority (PHA). The sample comes from a city where the financial incentive to participate is not strong, and a lack of source of income protections makes landlord participation more voluntary. Landlords reported communication issues with the local PHA as one of the biggest challenges of working with the program—specifically, difficulty interacting with staff and accessing program information. Ultimately, these communication issues created negative experiences for landlords, characterized by frustration and feeling unsupported, which led some to reduce their participation. These findings suggest a need to improve communication between PHAs and currently participating landlords, especially in light of recent expansions in the HCV program.

This paper examines the obstacles and issues involved in developing a comprehensive preservation agenda for public housing and explores the capacity of public housing authorities (PHAs) to meet the current and future demand for affordable housing. The paper discusses the current challenges facing the public housing program and PHAs and examines the roles and functions PHAs can assume in the current preservation and affordable housing crisis. Six specific roles for PHAs are included: resolving the equity/community dilemma, improving management, articulating modernization needs and carrying out modernization programs, preventing the loss of public housing units through sales and demolition, assuming management of privately owned subsidized housing, and developing new public housing. Although there is also much potential in nonprofits as providers of low‐income housing, they must be joined by PHAs in a comprehensive low‐income housing production and preservation strategy.

In this paper, we provide the first comprehensive programmatic and place-based overview of public housing authorities’ (PHAs) adoption of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), which aims to preserve public housing through public-private financing and operations. We first chronicle the political and functional constraints imposed upon public housing that have culminated in RAD’s adoption. Using novel datasets, we then outline the geographic distribution of RAD’s two components, describe characteristics of PHAs leading and lagging in different types of conversions, detail the characteristics of public housing residents impacted by eventual RAD conversions, and describe the shifting nature of ownership and management of federally subsidized housing under RAD. We find that local capacity appears to play a role in the adoption of RAD and propose that a clear binary between public and private housing does not exist, with RAD involving partnerships of public, non-profit, and profit-driven actors among which primary ownership is distributed in various ways. The promising use of RAD by some PHAs and the trend away from oversight in others suggests a need for stronger monitoring to ensure that public housing’s public benefits remain for federally subsidized renters.

Purpose and ObjectivesIn 2016, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a new rule requiring smoke-free policies in conventional public housing by July 2018 (HUD, 2016). This process evaluation describes the policy development experiences of conventional and nonconventional public housing authorities (PHAs) in North Carolina and Georgia that had established smoke-free policies before the HUD rule.Intervention ApproachHUD began to issue guidance that encouraged smoke-free policies in public housing in 2009, and most early adopters were outside of the Southeast. Documenting the process early adopters in the Southeast used to develop their policies provides useful lessons for conventional PHAs and those with properties not covered by the rule.Evaluation MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with PHA representatives from 23 PHAs with some level of smoking restriction, along with residents from 14 of these PHAs, from January to August 2016.ResultsOrganizational leaders and board members were usually the primary players in making the decision to adopt a policy, with approval processes consistent with any type of policy adoption. Common reasons for establishing the policy included costs of turning a unit; health of children, nonsmokers, and staff; HUD guidance; and concerns or experience with fire caused by cigarettes. Levels of restriction were influenced by layout of the property, perceptions of compliance and enforcement challenges, concerns about smokers congregating, resident mobility, weather concerns, consistency with HUD guidance, and availability of funds for designated smoking areas. Resident input was obtained through general meetings, resident advisory boards or councils, surveys, and formal comment periods.Implications for Public HealthUnderstanding the process of policy development and adoption enables public health practitioners to be more effective partners in advising on the flexible components of the HUD smoke-free rule and accelerating the adoption of comprehensive policies within nonconventional PHAs.

A 2018 rule requiring federally-subsidized public housing authorities (PHAs) in the United States to adopt smoke-free policies (SFPs) has sparked interest in how housing agencies can best implement SFPs. However, to date, there is little quantitative data on the implementation of SFPs in public housing. Massachusetts PHAs were among the pioneers of SFPs in public housing, and many had instituted SFPs voluntarily prior to the federal rule. The aim of this study was to examine the adoption, implementation, and outcomes of SFPs instituted in Massachusetts PHAs prior to 2018 using a survey conducted that year. The survey asked if PHAs had SFPs and, if so, what activities were used to implement them: providing information sessions, offering treatment or referral for smoking cessation, soliciting resident input, training staff, partnering with outside groups, using a toolkit, and/or providing outdoor smoking areas. We used multivariable regression to investigate associations between implementation activities and respondent-reported policy outcomes (resident support, complaints about neighbors' smoking, and the number of violations reported per year). Of 238 Massachusetts PHAs, 218 (91%) completed the survey and 161 had an SFP prior to 2018. Common implementation activities were offering smoking cessation treatment/referral (89%) and information sessions for residents (85%). Information sessions for residents were associated with higher resident support (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 4.3; 95%CI 1.2-15.3). Training staff (AOR 6.3, 95%CI 1.2-31.8) and engaging in ≥5 implementation activities (AOR 4.1, 95%CI 1.2-14.1) were associated with fewer smoking-related complaints. Utilization of multiple implementation activities, especially ones that informed residents and trained PHA staff, was associated with more favorable policy outcomes. We identified five groups of PHAs that shared distinct patterns of SFP implementation activities. Our findings, documenting implementation activities and their associations with SFP outcomes among the early adopters of SPFs in Massachusetts public housing, can help inform best practices for the future implementation of SFPs in multiunit housing.

Over one million HUD-supported public housing units provide rental housing for eligible low-income families across the country. A survey of over 100 public housing authorities (PHAs) across the country indicated that there is a high level of interest in developing low-cost solutions that improve energy efficiency and can be seamlessly included in the refurbishment process. Further, PHAs, have incentives (both internal and external) to reduce utility bills. ARIES worked with four PHAs to develop packages of energy efficiency retrofit measures the PHAs can cost-effectively implement with their own staffs in the normal course of housing operations at the time when units are refurbished between occupancies. The energy efficiency turnover protocols emphasized air infiltration reduction, duct sealing, and measures that improve equipment efficiency. ARIES documented implementation in 18 housing units. Reductions in average air leakage were 16% and duct leakage reductions averaged 23%. Total source energy consumption savings due to implemented measures was estimated at 3-10% based on BEopt modeling with a simple payback of 1.6 to 2.5 years. Implementation challenges were encountered mainly related to required operational changes and budgetary constraints. Nevertheless, simple measures can feasibly be accomplished by PHA staff at low or no cost. At typical housing unitmore » turnover rates, these measures could impact hundreds of thousands of units per year nationally.« less

Often automatic upon a conviction, collateral consequences work to relegate individuals to the status of second-class citizen by the systematic deprivation of opportunity in all aspects of life. Shockingly, these penalties are not aimed solely at ex-offenders. Individuals arrested frequently are denied access to opportunity by virtue of their interaction with the criminal justice system. In the context of public housing, even an arrest is not required for the imposition of collateral consequences. Instead, a public housing agency employee, without having to satisfy any statutorily mandated burden of proof, may make a determination that a household member or guest has engaged in “drug-related criminal activity,” terminate the household from public housing assistance, and subsequently evict the family.This Article hopes to add to the existing scholarship and advocacy regarding exclusionary federal housing policies. It is meant not only to supplement the collateral-consequences literature by identifying and examining additional issues in the administration of federal housing policy, but also to draw attention to the inequities inherent in the current system. More specifically, this Article explores federal termination policies and the way in which they are administered by local public housing authorities (PHAs). I argue that federal law grants an unwarranted amount of discretion to PHAs in assessing cause for exclusion from the program and also fails to provide sufficient statutory and regulatory guidance in the enforcement of PHA lease agreements. Reviewing alleged “drug-related criminal activity” lease violations through a criminal law lens may assist PHAs in making appropriate termination decisions. With this, I recommend that a framework be established requiring PHAs to meet a statutorily mandated burden of proof prior to a “drug-related criminal activity” termination. This standard ought to focus on such activity through a criminal law frame.

ABSTRACTDecreasing federal resources since the 1980s, policy devolution to the local level, and expansion of market-based approaches for affordable housing delivery have resulted in public housing authorities (PHAs) evolving from public organizations to hybrid organizations that encompass public and private characteristics. Although federal rules guide their implementation of U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) programs, PHAs are created locally under state authorizing legislation. Under what conditions do PHAs create new affordable housing using their ability to employ both public and private means of service delivery? Although PHAs have the ability to create new units outside the traditional assisted stock, no clear estimate of the number of units created using these newer means exists, or even a count of how many PHAs are engaging in such activities. Descriptive analysis allows for estimates of this basic information. A multivariate analysis using data from a national survey of PHAs, content analysis of state enabling legislation, and publicly available data sets suggests that whereas the local market context partially predicts affordable housing ownership outside of the public housing program, state enabling legislation and local institutional relationships also facilitate housing production. We estimate that in 2013, PHAs owned more than 150,000 units outside of the traditional HUD-assisted housing stock.

The United States is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. Simultaneously, disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity partly due to anthropogenic climate change. Disasters exacerbate adverse impacts on extremely low-income renters living in federally-subsidized housing units managed by Public Housing Authorities (PHAs). To date, there is an overall lack of knowledge around what disaster risk management (DRM) strategies are being implemented by PHAs, as well as factors that influence PHA DRM implementation. A national survey was administered to PHAs to assess their implementation of DRM strategies. Survey results, along with secondary data, were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Fisher’s exact test of independence was used to calculate the association between each binary DRM strategy variable (“Yes” versus “No”) and each PHA characteristic. Findings suggest that PHA Moving To Work (MTW) status, PHA size, urban classification, state-level political affiliation, and perceived hazard risk influence PHA DRM implementation.

This chapter presents the statistical approach to testing for lead-based paint in public housing, developed by Environmental Protection Agency in support of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In December, 1989 HUD was under pressure from Congress to release, by April 1, 1990, guidelines on testing and abating lead-based paint in public and Indian housing developments. The rationale for the selection of a sample of units to be tested is presented, followed by a discussion of statistical decision rules to be used by public housing authorities to make decisions on abatement of units and components within units. Congressional legislation requires all public and Indian housing authorities to conduct a random sample of all public housing developments where children live, or are expected to live, and to test these units for lead-based paint. To test for lead-based paint, the Guidelines direct a public housing authority to identify a sampling frame of units with a common construction history.

Female elderly individuals make up the majority of public housing residents. Inappropriate guidelines have been neglecting their differentiated needs and this has been negatively affecting their quality of life in public housing. Recognizing the specific needs of female seniors is a key to successful provision of public housing by the government because the proportion of female seniors in public housing has been increasing. This research aims to assess urban public rental housing through post-occupancy evaluation of six housing projects that were developed by public housing authorities in Korea. Focusing on flexibility, safety, accessibility and support for care, questionnaires and interviews were conducted to provide gender-sensitive directions for public housing designs in an ageing society. There are four main findings: (i) The nuclear family-oriented floor plan needs to be changed to provide flexibility reflecting the diverse lifestyles of one or two member residents. (ii) The life safety guideline that assumed housing is mainly catered for healthy young residents would need major revision. (iii) Accessibility issues would need to consider the presence of a caregiver and flexible application, depending on the lifecycle of elderly individuals. (iv) The support for care with a complicated smart home system would need improvement.