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GEE The MJ Finally Caught on about Section 8

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pacman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: GEE The MJ Finally Caught on about Section 8
    Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 7:44am
Sounds like I could have written this editorial for the MJ. The biggest problem is a reduction of 862 while a start if they follow through isn't enough.  And Holy Bat Cave the MJ admitting Section 8 is a major cause of the rise in Poverty in Middletown.  COUNCIL DO YOU HAVE YOUR READING GLASSES ON TODAY. What with Councils constant denial of Poverty and Section 8 even being a problem.  Have to give the MJ a Clap on this one.  Now if Council only wakes up.  Oh and by the way Council we have an issue with Education and with low average income in the City also.  Many of these issues have been duscussed on these forums for months.  Maybe it would good for Council members to make this forum a regular part of their day and dare I say participate, no that is asking and expecting to much.

Council's resolve will be tested

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Middletown City Council will apparently make another effort this year to begin reducing the number of Section 8 housing vouchers under the city's purview, but it remains to be seen whether council members will remain committed to that goal.

City Hall seemed to be on that same track last year after council members made a startling discovery: That the city's federal housing assistance program had grown from 767 vouchers in 2000 to 1,662 in 2008, and no one appeared to know — at least in public — how it had happened. We would guess that it's no coincidence that, in roughly the same time span, the city's poverty rate grew from 12 to 22 percent — one of the primary reasons that Forbes.com recently declared Middletown one of the nation's 10 fastest-dying cities.

Middletown has more vouchers than all the rest of Butler County, which has less than 1,000, and thus has "an imbalance" of Section 8 housing vouchers because the decision to acquire more was made "without a conscious conversation with council," City Manager Judy Gilleland told council last year.

The apparent result? Middletown contained 15 percent of Butler County's population in 2007 but is home to 23 percent of the county's poor. And no surprise — it also is home to 56 percent of the county's Section 8 population.

So 2008 was a year of discovery for city leaders as it relates to Middletown's Section 8 program. At least one council member publicly admitted he knew little about the program before discussion about its future were well under way.

Give Gilleland credit for negotiating through these delicate waters. She inherited the 1,600-voucher program and didn't try to assign any blame to her predecessors; instead, she tried to steer council toward making "conscious" choices about the program's future and whether it should stay under the city's control or be turned over to the county's metropolitan housing authority.

In the end, after a laborious process, council members decided not only to retain the city's Section 8 program (one of only two operated by cities in Ohio), but to negotiate a new contract with CONSOC Housing Consultants, the company that has been managing the program for the city — despite numerous criticisms of CONSOC's performance.

And that brings us back to square one — what to do with Section 8.

It now appears that council will attempt to prune the number of vouchers and thus reduce the scope of the program. Gilleland told council's housing subcommittee last week that the city's new contract with CONSOC includes a provision to reduce — through attrition — the number of vouchers by half, from 1,662 to 800. In other words, the city won't be seeking new vouchers and will be selective about replacing them when local vouchers move elsewhere or terminate — in order to return the number to under 1,000.

We expect that council's commitment to this strategy will be tested again soon.

Last year, Gilleland's initial discussion regarding Section 8's future here resulted in a number of tenants attending a subsequent council meeting and providing emotional and compelling testimony about the program's value to them and disputing stereotypes about Section 8 tenants.

Not long after that evening of touching and powerful remarks by tenants, council's focus abruptly shifted from the bloated number of vouchers to who would manage the program in the future. With little comment, council dropped the idea of dropping Section 8.

That was last year. Now that CONSOC has been brought back into the fold, attention is shifting back to the number of vouchers. But it would be surprising if council is not publicly challenged again by residents who rely on the vouchers.

In our estimation, council members are correct to be finally exerting some control over this program, but will they be able to do it in a manner that doesn't appear to create hardships for tenants? And will they be able to resist their impassioned pleas if tenants return to council chambers? Getting this horse back in the barn is going to be a challenge for council members — and a test of their resolve.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VietVet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 9:54am
Looks like we have a "loose cannon" attitude at the Journal. How dare they cast this city government in a negative light! Criticizing the decisions, actions and direction of our esteemed leaders on Section 8 is not an acceptable behavior. Isn't it enough that these distinguished city leaders have "rebel-rousers" finding fault with everything this city does on these pesky blogs? Now, our righteous city hierchy has another source of criticism to worry about in a most unlikely place- your former city puppet-the Middletown Journal!!!! Oh boy- heads will roll at the old Journal now!   
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Impala SS Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 10:09am
It is about time they start putting the truth in the dam paper. I am tired of reading squeaking clean crap in there that is so corrupt and un true.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vivian Moon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 10:38am
Money & Power vs City Council....I can't wait to see this fight begin.Smile
I'm told that some of the Section 8 landlords own 50 houses...so that's $50,000 in income a month. I just can't see them going down without a fight.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pacman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 10:56am
Vivian you can't continue to put the City at risk for a few hundred peoples benefit. If the Current Council can't understand that then they need to be removed.  I will vote for no current Council person in November that has continued to ignore the issue of Section 8 for the benefit of only a few, regardless of their stance on other issues.  The rest of the City should also look at this major issue when they vote in November. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vivian Moon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 11:16am
Paceman
I agree. I wish the City would make the list of Section 8 landlords public but I don't think they will. How much money do you think these landlords gave to the campaigns of the current council members over the past nine years? Are any of our coucil members involved or connected in any way to the Section 8 program? I just can't believe that we doubled our Section 8 housing and Mr. Kohler had no knowledge of what was going on.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pacman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 11:24am
Kohler had no knowledge.......Bull $h*t.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pacman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 11:36am
Vivian it is the leadership of the City that continues to hold the City back.  I talked to several people that went to the last Housing Committee meeting and every time someone tried to bring up issues in the past that got us into the mess we are in they were shut down by the City.  We only want to discuss the future not the past type of BS.  If you don't look at your mistakes that you have made and understand what you did wrong you are bound to repeat them.
 
I also talked to some people that were at the Mayors speech and they basically stated they were fed up with the, "Middletown is wonderful", "Middletown has a bright future", "We have great trees and wonderful Parks", speech over and over again by the City with nothing being done.  They want results and want to see some action taken, even if some of the actions fail they want to move the City Forward.
 
It is time for more and more Citizens to voice their opinions and use the power of the Ballot Box to rectify the problems that are sitting downtown. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vivian Moon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 2:21pm
What LEADERSHIP?
What FUTURE?
I'm tired of hearing they want our involvement...what a joke!
They really don't want new thoughts or new ways to do business in Middletown.
If they don't clean up the mess from the past they will never be able to deal with the problems of the future.
The power of the ballot box is now our only hope.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pacman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 3:07pm
Vivian, we must deal with the Problems that have been created by current/previous employees and admins, those are the problems of TODAY.  It is going to take some bold moves and swift action to fix the mess.
 
The MJ States:
 
"In our estimation, council members are correct to be finally exerting some control over this program, but will they be able to do it in a manner that doesn't appear to create hardships for tenants? And will they be able to resist their impassioned pleas if tenants return to council chambers? Getting this horse back in the barn is going to be a challenge for council members — and a test of their resolve."
 
If it is "hardship" everyone is worried about all 1662 Vouchers should have been turned over to Butler County before they decided to issue a New Contract to CONSOC.  The correct way to have handled this mess was to decide your direction you are going with Section 8 and then move forward rapidly.
 
This 10% a year crap is going to take forever. 
 
Questions:
 
Is the 10% reduction going to be immediate as vouchers are returned?  If so we need no waiting list and it should be discontinued immediately as no one will be getting a new voucher  for quite a few years.
 
Is the 10% reduction going to be a consistent 162 voucher reduction every year until we get to 800 or is it going to be 10% of the outstanding Vouchers each year which will take even longer?
 
Voucher are portable once someone has the voucher they can move where they like.  Can these vouchers be turned over to the local housing authority as or if voucher holders move out of Middletown?
 
Once the number of voucher reaches the desired number what will the waiting list be in numbers?  This should be a low number say 100 or less to keep from happening what has currently become a mecca for poverty in Middletown.
 
Is CONSOC on board with this reduction and if so are they going to support it and back it or are we going to have trouble with reducing the numbers thus reducing the amount of money CONSOC is paid?
 
Is Council going to maintain their Monthly meetings on this issue or Will we see, "Meeting Canceled" all of the time?
 
Why does the Housing Subcommittee contain no Business Owners, No Chamber of Commerce Rep., No Citizens that aren't tied to the City, Section 8 either as a recipient or a Landlord or an employee of the City?
 
You're welcome to add your own questions, Maybe we will get lucky and someone from Council will come on board and answer them.......I know I am not holding my breath.
 
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mike_Presta Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Mar 15 2009 at 6:44pm
Originally posted by Pacman Pacman wrote:

Maybe we will get lucky and someone from Council will come on board and answer them
Pacman: Errrr, ummm, perhaps they can check with their handlers at Middletown Moving Forward and get back to you!! Unhappy
“Mulligan said he ... doesn’t believe they necessarily make the return on investment necessary to keep funding them.” …The Middletown Journal, January 30, 2012
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