SECTION 8: City Staff Exaggerations ??

How comical to view City Council and Public Housing Authority meetings as we routinely witness exaggerated praising of a senior City staff member by Miss Judy.  Even more hilarious is the self-aggrandizement of this Department head themself.

Good Question! I'd have to believe that Gilleland is afraid of losing him since he is able to keep some of the heat off of her!!!!!!!

Vivian if you go apply for a job today many companies will do background checks on you.  If you want to be on the Section 8 bandwagon, hey you get a background check.  Fine with me, weed out the less than desirable landlords.

I think background checks are an excellent idea to be a section 8 landlord. I also believe that a landlord MUST DISCLOSE how many section 8 homes they own. A set of rules or standards should be the norm for section 8 landlords,thats why you end up with the slum-lords,because no one is checking these people out.

Another thing that needs to stop,and in my opinion this is a big problem,section 8 landlords who live out of state,out of county,out of town. It should be a government requirement that they live in the city where they maintain a section 8 rental. To many of these people are sitting back and collecting checks and doing nothing about the deplorable conditions of the tenants & the house. Since they do not live in the city apparently the city lets them slide on housing codes & number of occupants.

 

And lastly,there should be a city ordinance pertaining to the NUMBER OF TIMES that the POLICE respond to a section 8 house,if the number of police responses is,lets say 5,but the police have been called to that particular residence 10 times then that landlord should evict the tenants or lose his section 8 status and the city confiscate the house.

 

The real problem is not that Middeltown has to many section 8's,the problem is mainly the absentee landlords. They live else where and do not have to look at the house or hear about it so they don't care as long as they are getting a check. And I know for a fact that many of these landlords never,ever visit the home they are renting as section 8.

 

Put a stop to sheriff sales of low priced homes,more and stricter regulations on landlords and I'll guarantee you'll see a difference. But as long as people with money continue to buy up houses at sheriff sales & the rules and regulations governing section 8 and the landlords continue to be slack you'll have a problem.

Hermes as long as you have a City which caters to the Section 8 program and just 4155 people, rather than the city as a whole and all of it's residents this problem will only get worse.  Tax paying residents will continue to flee the city.  Businesses will continue to close and leave.  New Businesses will not come as the poverty level will be to high to support.  No disposable income, no retail and entertainment businesses.

Sooooo, Nelson. At the time that Gilleland, Kohler and you expressed concern about LLC owned properties not revealing info. about the owners of the Section 8 properties and the potential conflict of Council member Section 8 ownership and those same councilmembers participating in the same Section 8 program that would benefit them financially, why didn't this send Gilleland and Kohler a "red alert" that this program may not be the best way to go for the sake of the city? Did they even make an attempt to stop this conflict of interest and report it to the proper authorities? Was this concern mentioned to HUD and if so, what was done about it at the time?

Viet Vet -

I believe that Miss Judy or Doug said it was about $11,750,000 for this Section 8 Program fiscal year.  The majority of these funds is used for housing assistance payments with the balance used for administrative fees (C.O.N.S.O.C. plus other City of Middletown expenses)