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City, HAWS ask for help
They hope groups will step in to help families
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Published: July 3, 2009
The Housing Authority of Winston-Salem and city officials will ask local churches, nonprofit groups and human-service agencies to help families that might be affected by a cutback in HAWS' services.
Larry Woods, the executive director of HAWS, and Mayor Allen Joines spoke about that strategy yesterday after their meeting with other HAWS and city officials at City Hall.
Woods said he realizes that local churches and nonprofits are struggling amid the recession, but they might be able to provide assistance -- including money -- to the affected families.
Asking them for support "would be a worst-case scenario," Joines said.
HAWS might have to cut about 1,800 people from its Section 8 housing-voucher program beginning in October and reduce the number of all remaining vouchers by 10 percent, starting in September ,because of a drop in financing from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HAWS officials are working with federal housing officials to avoid making these cuts.
The city and HAWS might apply for grants from private foundations and from the federal government to help fill the shortfall gap, Joines said.
He said that the city does not have any money available to help HAWS. In mid-June, the Winston-Salem City Council approved a $371.4 million budget for 2009-10.
"The city's budget is extraordinarily tight, and we don't have any excess funds right now," he said.
Even if the city had available cash, it might be inappropriate for the city to use its money to fix a federal problem, Joines said.
HUD officials told Woods two months ago that HAWS would be getting less money this year, and that the cut was retroactive to January. That meant HAWS was spending money it didn't have for five months.
HUD required HAWS to fill the gap with money that it has in a reserve, which is leftover money that HAWS has from years in which it reached its cap of 4,100 vouchers.
HUD calculated that HAWS had about $6 million, but the agency had $3.2 million in its reserve. HUD officials have admitted the mistake, but they have not fixed it.
In their appeal, the city and HAWS will ask HUD to recalculate the HAWS' reserve money, Joines and Woods said.
The housing-choice voucher, known as Section 8, is a federal subsidy designed to fill the gap between the market rate for a home or an apartment and what a poor person can afford. Under the program, people choose their neighborhood, and they are allowed to take the voucher with them if they move.
Woods said he also wants to talk to landlords about options to prevent affected families and from being homeless. There are about 2,300 landlords with Section 8 housing in the city.
The city and HAWS are not alone in dealing with a shortfall from HUD. Joines said that HUD has overestimated the reserves of 900 housing authorities throughout the country.
■ John Hinton can be reached at 727-7299 or at jhinton@wsjournal.com.
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