This program sounds like it’s about "getting people off welfare." But only around 4 percent of public housing residents in Cambridge receive family income assistance. Moving To Work frees the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) from close supervision by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Washington. The CHA gets to write its own rules.

Washington wants to see if the CHA can come up with cheaper ways to run public housing, and rules that are more business oriented. To make major changes, CHA still has to ask HUD for approval. The CHA must hold a public hearing, too.

One such hearing took place January 19 at Manning Apartments. About fifty tenants and advocates were there. They were concerned mainly about proposed changes to the rent rules under Section 8, the federal program that subsidizes private landlords to rent to lower income tenants.

“Shallow subsidies” questioned

"We didn’t expect this many folks," said Michael Johnston, who is in charge of leasing and the waiting list, for CHA.

Many ideas were put forward, but the most contentious was "shallow subsidies." A "shallow subsidy" could pay part of the rent for six months when a person is temporarily unemployed. Johnston admitted that only about 10 percent of the CHA waiting list was likely to benefit; the other 90 percent were considerably poorer.

Section 8 funds would would thus be diverted to people who are needy, but not as poor as most of those on the CHA waiting list. When asked why CHA would focus on helping the least desperate ten percent, Johnston responded, "I can’t help the others."

People who already have Section 8 vouchers should not worry about losing them, he said. “Essentially we have a program that is locked up for people who are on Section 8 now." At the same time, “what we’ve been paying for rents is too high."

The dilemma is that there is far too little money to help those who are in need. The Section 8 waiting list will be reopened in April, after having been closed since 2003. Greg Russ, CHA Executive Director since 2004, warned that "many of you probably will not like" some of the changes that will be coming. "We’d like to look at some radical options… and there is a high level of fear in making any kind of change."

Apartments in buildings that the State and Federal governments own—”the projects”—are not affected by the “shallow subsidy" issue. That means the 3500 families and 700 elderly who are on the Cambridge residents’ waiting list for public housing.

Since Somerville is not a Moving To Work demonstration city, “shallow subsidies” are not in question there.

Assistant Director Kevin Bumpus says that they have 8448 households on the waiting list for the Somerville Housing Authority’s 1422 public housing units, and 1122 waiting for Section 8 openings.

Section 8 takes up only a part of the 100-page Moving To Work proposal that the CHA plans to hand over to HUD very soon. Rent Simplification, already approved by the CHA Board of Commissioners, will affect Federally housing developments, but not the 1100 units built by the State.

The 22-page Rent Simplification document was the product of months of meetings among CHA staff and with tenant advocates, followed by more months of public meetings.

The Board voted at the Pisani Center in Washington Elms and Newtowne Court, the city’s largest family housing complex. They first heard from residents and advocates one more time, but said they heard nothing new.

Commissioner Adams, who is a tenant, reported angry encounters with neighbors, but said,"I have faith in the policy… I’m not a sell-out."

Commissioner Clark said the new policy "gets the Authority off the back of the tenants… it’s a very different day."

Rent Simplification limits deductions for childcare and medical expenses. It limits the number of times rent can be lowered when family income drops. Advocates say that the proposed changes move away from the principle of making housing affordable for low income people.

The Cambridge Eviction Free Zone (EFZ), which organizes Section 8 tenants, says that "for families with children, tenants with disabilities, and tenants with unstable incomes, these changes can mean increases in rent that would make their housing unaffordable."

The CHA admits that this could happen. Their answer is to set up a grievance process, which can grant "Hardship Exemptions" from the rules. One example of such a hardship would be high medical expenses.

Things are different today

Neither the legal aid (CASLS—Cambridge And Somerville Legal Services)—office nor EFZ say that CHA wants to harm tenants. They believe that CHA is adjusting to anti-public-housing policies coming from Washington and Beacon Hill

However, CASLS staff attorney Ellen Shachter thinks that Greg Russ “brings a more business oriented model" to the Executive Director’s office than had prevailed for 30 years under Dan Wuenschel.

EFZ organizer Mary Regan agrees that "there is a different ideology now with Greg Russ. “I think they’re very determined to make these changes—but they haven’t been very open about it. I know that Section 8 tenants are already very upset. Maybe some of this is beyond the reach of the Housing Authority. But they should be as open as possible with the tenants."

Advocates are concerned that housing authorities are making revenue-driven decisions, that hurt the lowest income people.

As Shachter said at the January 19 hearing, "It’s really important to see who the majority on that waiting list is… I don’t think it will be a good thing to have more shallow subsidies. The vast majority cannot really use this kind of subsidy."

In Cambridge, the rules already encourage people who are "less poor" to remain in public housing. Thus, rents are based on a percentage of your income, but since there is a maximum rent, at a certain point you stop sharing your rising income with CHA.

A new rule allows a resident $50,000 in assets before they must be reported. Having over that amount doesn’t mean you can’t stay, only that you must pay more. But of course—no more than the maximum.

There are no rules against public housing residents owning assets like bank accounts, pensions and 401(K) accounts, or real estate. One could even own rent-producing property. "It’s rare, but it happens," says Dumas.

CHA insists that the impact of Rent Simplification on revenues will be "zero-sum." Tory Gunsolley, CHA’s Director of Administration and Policy, explains,"The main goal of rent simplification is reducing administrative costs—and,” he adds, “also a method that residents can understand."

Ultimately, “reducing costs” has to impact CHA’s workers. An outside contractor already provide maintenance for JFK Apartments on Essex Street—"spun off" by CHA and no longer governed by union rules.

Over time, these policies point toward a shift toward a higher-income resident population. A four-person household in the Boston area already can earn up to $66,150 and still get into public housing.

Gunsolley acknowledges, "We’re trying to think about how to stay afloat." More "radical changes" are on the horizon—and not just for Cambridge. Next year, HUD will begin directing federal funds to individual housing developments like Putnam Gardens or Washington Elms. The money will no longer come through the Housing Authority, leaving these developments more vulnerable to abandonment by the Federal government.

Clampdown on pets?

The Authority doesn’t seem to be getting off the backs of tenants who own pets. Notices went out last fall warning that CHA intends to clamp down on dogs and cats. "It’s not a change in policy. We always had a no pets policy, except for those dogs who could stay because they were ‘grandfathered’ when the policy was set,” Terry Dumas recalls. "Some of those grandfathered dogs lived a long time." Dumas has been Director of Planning and Development off and on for around 20 years.

The "unchanged" pets policy is a little ambiguous. First, elders and people with disabilities should know they can have pets.

You may be told—you absolutely can’t keep that dog—but if you do anyway, you have to put down a security deposit of one months’ rent to keep that dog.

Back in the day

Almost by definition, you must be low income to get into public housing. But once you’re in, you do not have to leave if your income goes up.

That was not always the case. In the 1940s and 1950s, families were regularly evicted in the spring because of increased incomes. In the 1960s, the rules changed, and the public housing population became more stable.

In those same years, hundreds of thousands of very poor people were placed in public housing after being evicted by urban renewal programs. The majority of them were African-American.

With all these changes came the civil rights and Black Liberation movements, which stimulated low-income people of all nationalities to organize.

From that time on, Washington began to see public housing as "A Problem". Each successive administration, whether Republican or Democrat, has cut the public housing budget.

Hundreds of thousands of public apartments have been demolished, many through the HOPE VI program initiated under the Clinton administration.

HOPE VI hardly exists now, but the destructive trend has accelerated under the Bush administration.

Rental subsidies to private landlords have increased over the same period. Programs like Section 8 have grown in importance.

So any cutbacks or rule changes for Section 8 vouchers are very important indeed.