SECTION 8

MIDDLETOWN

Middletown agrees to cease operation of Section 8 program

By Michael D. Pitman

Staff Writer
Middletown —
The Middletown Public Housing Agency board voted Tuesday night to end an 18-month dispute with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and transfer its 1,662 Section 8 housing vouchers to Butler and Warren counties and cease operations within three months.

The next step will be for City Council to approve the Voluntary Compliance Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding at its July 15 meeting.

“In many ways this discussion became an issue of efficiency,” said City Manager Doug Adkins. “The county housing authorities are better suited to manage the resource on behalf of our residents in Butler and Warren counties, allowing the city to focus on more city services.”

The Voluntary Compliance Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding calls for the unused 300-plus Section 8 vouchers to be allocated to another county’s public housing authority to address waiting list needs. Warren Metropolitan Housing Authority will receive 350 vouchers and Butler Metro will receive the remaining balance.

Butler Metro Housing Authority Executive Director Phyllis Hitte and Warren Metropolitan Housing Authority Executive Director Jacqueline Adkins both declined to comment because HUD has not yet issued a statement. Butler Metro does handle more than 1,100 Section 8 vouchers and Warren Metropolitan handles nearly 450 Section 8 vouchers. The potential agreement will give housing authorities in each Butler and Warren counties control of all of the Section 8 vouchers assigned to the respective counties.

A representative of HUD could not be reached for comment.

Law Director Les Landen said that no one currently on the program will lose their voucher, but they will have to go to Hamilton in Butler County and Lebanon in Warren County for services, and the process of transferring the program to the respective counties is expected to take until Sept. 30.

The MPHA’s October 2012 plan — which was to reduce its voucher allocation by 1,008 over the course of four to five years — was the city’s response to a HUD letter saying they were out of compliance with assigning Section 8 vouchers to families. The city was required to have at least 95 percent of its housing choice vouchers awarded to an applicant family. As of August 2012, the city was around 82 percent compliant.

Currently the city is closer to 80 percent complaint as they had not reassigned unused vouchers in its attempt to achieve the reduction down to 654.

City officials said Middletown has more Section 8 housing per capita than any other city in Ohio, and that a reduction in the amount of subsidized housing was necessary. In 2013, Section 8 vouchers account for 49.8 percent of all subsidized housing and 14.3 percent of all available housing in Middletown, officials said.

Many of the city’s landlords accused officials of using bully tactics and unusually stringent regulations to force them out of the program. The city paid out about $10 million a year in funds it received from HUD to hundreds of landlords who rented properties to voucher-holders. Several landlords have applauded the upcoming changes and that the county will now be running the program.

Once City Council, which are the members of the MPHA board, approves the agreement the transfer of the program to the housing authorities in Butler and Warren counties can begin. And once the two housing authorities assume administrative control of the vouchers, “MPHA shall cease (housing choice voucher) program operations and commence its formal dissolution as a (public housing agency) and governmental entity.”

The agreement also “releases and resolves” all charges HUD may levy against the city, its officials, agents and contractors “concerning the utilization of MPHA’s budget authority and failure to timely reissue vouchers” and releases HUD from any claim by the city for “reimbursement, compensation and other payment related to MPHA’s administration of the (housing choice voucher) program.”

Adkins:

“In many ways this discussion became an issue of efficiency,” said City Manager Doug Adkins. “The county housing authorities are better suited to manage the resource on behalf of our residents in Butler and Warren counties, allowing the city to focus on more city services.”

MERCY SAKES ADKINS. THE ISSUE WASN'T ABOUT EFFICIENCY AS MUCH AS IT WAS ABOUT HUD TAKING YOU AND THE CITY TO THE WOODSHED IF YOU CONTINUED ON YOUR CURRENT PATH OF DEFIANCE.

IF THE COUNTY HOUSING AUTHORITY IS "BETTER SUITED TO MANAGE THE RESOURCES ON BEHALF OF OUR RESIDENTS", WHY WAS MIDDLETOWN INVOLVED IN IT IN THE FIRST PLACE? ANOTHER "CONVENIENCE STATEMENT' BASED ON THE SITUATION FROM THIS PERSON.

AND FINALLY.....

"ALLOWING THE CITY TO FOCUS ON MORE CITY SERVICES"

GOOD ONE DOUGGIE

THIS CLOWN IS NO BETTER THAN ANY OF THE PREVIOUS ACTORS AS TO SPREADING THE BULLCRAP.

The agreement also “releases and resolves” all charges HUD may levy against the city, its officials, agents and contractors “concerning the utilization of MPHA’s budget authority and failure to timely reissue vouchers” and releases HUD from any claim by the city for “reimbursement, compensation and other payment related to MPHA’s administration of the (housing choice voucher) program.”


NOW, THAT'S THE REAL REASON FOR THE SECTION 8 PROGRAM ABANDONMENT DOUG. JUST TELL IT LIKE IT IS AND YOU MIGHT GET A LITTLE MORE RESPECT.

I can not believe that TV Middletown did not film the MPHA meeting last night.
Since the Section 8 Program has dominated the focus of City Hall for the past two years and this final meeting of MPHA is not made public...another shameful action by City Hall.
I thought that was why we funded TV Middletown with our tax dollars.

City Hall can not continue to hide their wrong doings and illegal action forever....all of it will be made public.

As I stated many months ago, Mr. Adkins would get the city manager job because he would loose his job with the transfer.

I'll let others figure out why he lost his job, got the new job, got a 15% increase, and another 10% increase year 2 before starting a job.

Nothing changes in up/down, east/west Middletown dynamics. 

Sheila McLaughlin, smclaughlin@enquirer.com10:05 p.m. EDT July 1, 2014

Middletown Public Housing Authority voted Tuesday night to dissolve the agency amid accusations that it tried to kick tenants out of the program and hassled its largest landlords to reduce the number of Section 8 housing units available.

In essence it was a unanimous decision voiced by council members. All are members of the housing authority.

The next step will happen July 15, when council approves the same Memorandum of Understanding and compliance agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In doing so, the city agrees to turn over its 1,662 Section 8 housing vouchers to metropolitan housing authorities in Butler and Warren counties. Middletown was the only city in Ohio that voluntarily ran a housing authority. Most programs are administered through counties.

“No one who has a voucher will lose it as a result of this agreement,” City Manager Doug Adkins said. “Subsidized housing will still be available in the community for low-income residents.”

The Middletown Public Housing Agency should be shut down by September.

The agreement also bans Middletown officials from singling out or discriminating against tenants, owners, landlords or property managers who participate in the Section 8 program within the city limit in “the application of building codes, health codes, zoning requirements or matters or similar matters of local law enforcement.”

A recent Enquirer investigation found hundreds of documents that detailed the city’s plan to get rid of at least two-thirds of Middletown Public Housing Agency’s 1,662 Section 8 vouchers.

They said Section 8 clusters have created pockets of poverty in a city that is trying to revitalize. With about 50,000 residents, Middletown has 13 percent of Butler County’s population but has 56 percent of its Section 8 housing vouchers.

City officials argue that’s out of balance, even though previous councils had sought to more than triple the number of vouchers to help pay for the program’s administrative costs. They denied trying to push out low-income residents.

However, some landlords were placed under criminal investigation and charged with felony theft after subsequent audits of their Section 8 records. Dan Tracy was one of them. He was kicked out of the city program as a result, even though HUD allowed him back in. He’s suing Middletown over lost business.

“The city has been hard-nosed about it. A lawsuit could have been avoided by doing the right thing,” Tracy said. ■

We need to hear from M29 about his complicity in increasing the vouchers during his time on council.

Posted: 5:22 p.m. Monday, July 14, 2014



MIDDLETOWN

Council expected to vote Tuesday to move Section 8 to Butler, Warren

By Michael D. Pitman

Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
Middletown City Council is expected to approve an agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Tuesday and begin transferring the city’s 1,662 Section 8 housing vouchers to Butler and Warren counties.

The board of the Middletown Public Housing Agency, which is made up of all five City Council members, voted unanimously July 1 to accept a Voluntary Compliance Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding with HUD to shut down its city-run Section 8 housing program by Sept. 30. The agreement also stipulated the city would hand over all of its housing choice vouchers to the metropolitan housing authorities in Butler and Warren counties.

Butler County would receive 1,312 of the city’s vouchers and Warren County would receive the other 350 under the agreement. It was initially reported that any vouchers not assigned to a family (there are currently more than 300) would be sent to a public housing authority with a waiting list, but Middletown Law Director Les Landen said that is not the case.

Landen said once City Council approves the deal, he would “then anticipate it would be signed by HUD, the city and MPHA, and that agreement would be in place.

“And that would likely lead to a couple of agreements with Butler County and Warren County,” he said.

The pending agreement would end an 18-month dispute between Middletown and HUD over the city’s subsidized housing program.

HUD officials had maintained Middletown was out of compliance with the agency’s regulations by not having at least 95 percent of its available vouchers filled. The city had a compliance rate of only 82 percent, according to HUD.

City officials were adamant about their desire to reduce the amount of Section 8, or low-income housing, citing the fact that Middletown had more Section 8 housing per capita than any city in Ohio and almost double what the rest of Butler County has. Section 8 accounts for more than 14 percent of all available housing in the city and nearly 50 percent of all subsidized housing, according to 2013 data from the city.

The city pays out around $10 million a year in funds from HUD to hundreds of landlords who rent properties to voucher-holders. Middletown was one of two cities in Ohio that still managed its own public housing authority.

Butler Metro Housing Authority Executive Director Phyllis Hitte and Warren Metropolitan Housing Authority Executive Director Jacqueline Adkins are not commenting on ensuing transfer of vouchers until they receive an official notification from HUD. The spokesman for HUD’s regional office in Chicago, which covers Ohio, has not returned phone calls from the Journal-News seeking comment.

I've been trying to keep up with this whole debacle but the question I don't think I've found an answer to (and maybe I missed it), is whether this transfer means that the number of Section 8 vouchers in the city of Middletown will increase, decrease or maintain?

BMHA wil bring Middletown back in to compliance with 1312 vouchers from HUD and WCPH will have 350 vouchers in the city of Middletown but located in Warren County. This is the number 1662 that was in question all along with Middletown not being in compliance. The were so sure they did not have to fill those vouchers as they became available thru people leaving the program. They were wrong. If the powers that be knew half as much about the program as they thought they did, they could have saved themselves lots of money they spent on attorney fees and the possible ensuing law suits to come. IMO

over the hill wrote: BMHA wil bring Middletown back in to compliance with 1312 vouchers from HUD and WCPH will have 350 vouchers in the city of Middletown but located in Warren County. This is the number 1662 that was in question all along with Middletown not being in compliance. The were so sure they did not have to fill those vouchers as they became available thru people leaving the program. They were wrong. If the powers that be knew half as much about the program as they thought they did, they could have saved themselves lots of money they spent on attorney fees and the possible ensuing law suits to come. IMO

I was hoping that, after the Section 8 administration was moved out of the city, the Butler County folks would correct the amount of vouchers that Middletown is SUPPOSE to have....that being around 700 or so. There needs to be a fair allocation of vouchers distributed in each community in Butler County depending on city population. It wouldn't hurt to see the communities that haven't received their fair share finally absorb the correct number into their community. There is no purpose in over-saturating this city while leaving other towns with less than their fair share. As a matter of fact, it helps weaken an already vulnerable city when they continue to deem Middletown the SW Ohio Mecca for Section 8. Let's spread the Section 8 out to dilute it's effect.

The past and present city leaders were ignorant to ask for more Section 8. That doesn't mean that we need to see the mistake continue with the mega-voucher numbers concentrated here.

Middletown lost their control of the program(big mistake). I agree with you VV but according to HUD they see the need. It probably did not help when Judy and Doug decided to declare Middletown 54% poverty level. But as we know that was about the money not about what was best for our city.