Update on the CMHA Voucher Lottery

Waiting List Lottery Deadline Extended to Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 5 PM EDT

From a Press Release by CMHA: The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) announced today that it is extending the entry deadline for its Housing Choice Voucher Program Waiting List Lottery until Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 5 p.m. EDT. The deadline has been extended in order to ensure that everyone who wants to enter the Waiting List Lottery has an opportunity to do so, after technical difficulties may have prevented many interested households from submitting entries when the lottery first opened on Monday.

“While we have experienced some technical difficulty yesterday, as of today, over 20,000 entries have been submitted. Nevertheless, in an effort to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to complete the entry process, we felt an extension of the timeline was the fair and prudent thing to do,” said Jeffery K. Patterson, CMHA Acting CEO.

To submit an entry online, interested entrants should visit the Waiting List Lottery Web site at www.applycuyahogacounty.tenmast.com. Seniors and persons with disabilities can contact the HCVP Waiting List Lottery Call Center at 800-223-4969 from 8 a.m. EDT – 8 p.m. EDT to obtain assistance with submitting an entry.

More information about the Lottery and the HCVP is available on the HCVP Waiting List Lottery web site at www.applycuyahogacounty.tenmast.com or by calling the HCVP Waiting List Lottery Call Center at 800-223-4969 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily and on weekends.

Editor's Note: That is pretty amazing that with the site only open for 10 to 11 hours so far already 20,000 people applied. Now, some will be duplicates and will be kicked out of the final total, but there are a lot of people in need. Is the market for housing so unstable that kids graduating from high school put their name on the list figuring that they may need help in the next five years? Once you get to the website, click on "application" then the link with English or Spanish depending on which language you are comfortable and finally click "begin". Make sure that anyone struggling with housing applies because the site will not be open again until 2016 or 2017 most likely.

Brian
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Information on the Opening the Waiting List

Housing Choice Voucher List Opening

This August, the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) will be opening its waiting list with a lottery for the first time since 2006, and this time, the entire HCVP Waiting List Lottery will be conducted online.

Entries for the lottery will only be accepted online on the HCVP Waiting List Lottery website at

www.applycuyahogacounty.tenmast.com

There also will be a link to the lottery website from the CMHA website.

Seniors and persons with disabilities can contact:

There will be a call center open for assistance with submitting a lottery entry, but the application must be submitted online

Interested persons cannot access the lottery at any CMHA office or facility. Instead they should go to the library or to a social service provider. NEOCH will be offering help to homeless people at our offices at 3631 Perkins Ave.

The website and Call Center will go live on Monday August 1, 2011, providing helpful information about the HCVP and the lottery itself.

The actual lottery and waiting list will open mid-month for only five days.

After they close, a random computer draw will take place to create the waiting list with 10,000 names. Entry in the lottery and placement on the waiting list will not guarantee a household a voucher. All households will need to be qualified as eligible when they reach the top of the waiting list.

Brian
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Cleveland: A Nice Place to Live

Photo by Pleasure Simmons, which was one of the images selected by the Downtown Cleveland Alliance Photo competition.

What Makes Cleveland Great???

The City of Cleveland feels scorned by the loss of LeBron James, and we all feel like electing Dan Gilbert as the County Executive for what he wrote and said. Cleveland is not all about sports, and no matter if the Indians, Cavs and Browns stink we have a great deal going for this city that often goes unrecognized. In the area of housing and homelessness, there are a number of things that make us among the top cities in America.

1. Guaranteed Access to Shelter: There are still some issues to work out on release of information, intake, and disciplinary procedures, but we still maintain the appearance of allowing everyone who comes to the door into the shelters. If a person is willing to abide by the rules they will have access to one of the publicly funded shelters. This is expensive and causes overcrowding, but it is a life saver for many. The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County officials should be thanked for all their work to protect homeless people.

2. Peace with the Police: The City of Cleveland signed a consent decree in 2000 that settled 10 years of lawsuits. The Coalition repeatedly sued the City over their policy of arresting and threatening arrest of anyone who decided not to sleep inside. We finally settled the lawsuits, and the City agreed not to arrest or threaten arrest of those who are sitting, sleeping, standing, or eating on the sidewalk. This agreement has held for the last 10 years. In that time, the population of those living outside has decreased.

3. Project ACT: The homeless children and youth program at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District is over 20 years old and a model in the United States. They try to serve every child that becomes homeless in our City. They make sure that the child's school is not disrupted if the family becomes homeless during the school year. They serve thousands of children every year.

4. EDEN Inc./Shelter Plus Care: Cleveland is unlike most of other cities in that a private non-profit distributes the vouchers to the disabled. We have over 1,000 vouchers currently on the streets providing housing to homeless people with a disability. This is a great resource that the County has continued to put more funding every year into this program, and is a great supplement to the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

5. Coordinated Outreach: In both Columbus and Cincinnati, they have one or two teams out on the streets, and in both cities one of the outreach teams is a for-profit social worker employed by the downtown business district. Cleveland has five or six teams that go out on the streets to try to build a trusting relationship with homeless individuals. These teams have mapped out the entire city, and regularly meet with people as they struggle to stay alive. They have saved countless lives and moved hundreds into the shelters or housing.

There is plenty more, but this is a good list for now.

Brian
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Updates on Housing Choice Voucher Program

Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance

Every month housing advocates meet to discuss any threats to affordable housing. The December meeting featured representatives from the Housing Choice Voucher program who provided their periodic update on the success of this critical affordable housing program. Priscilla Pointer Hicks attended the meeting to give a report to the community on the voucher program. Currently, they have distributed 99.8% of all the vouchers available or over 14,000 vouchers on the streets. 35% of the vouchers are disabled, and they are hoping to be able to expand if the federal Section 8 reform bill passes.

One of the items that we hear all the time is that the Section 8/voucher holders are bad tenants and turn a neighborhood. There are bad section 8 tenants just as their are bad regular tenants, but what does not get enough attention are the bad landlords. But besides all that, there is a great deal of mythology associated with the Section 8 voucher program. What most people do not realize is how small an impact Section 8 tenants have on a community. Based on the report issued by CMHA here are the top communities based on the percentage of their total rental housing using a Section 8 voucher. These are based on 2000 Census figures of rental housing. A great deal has changed in the last 10 years. So, for example some markets have seen large numbers of houses become rental units because of foreclosures which increases the number of rental units and can alter the percentage of voucher holders.

Community (listed by %) Rental Units in 2000 Choice Vouchers 12/1/09 percent
1. Maple Hts. 1,697 541 31.9%
2. Garfield Hts. 2,460 482 19.6%
3. South Euclid 1,532 256 16.7%
4. Euclid 9,874 1,589 16.1%
5. Highland Hills 128 19 14.8%
6. Bedford Hts. 2,393 278 11.6%
7. Cleveland Hts. 7,960 837 10.5%
8. East Cleveland 7,229 687 9.5%
9. Warrensville Hts. 3,290 283 8.6%
10. Shaker Hts. 4,266 340 8.0%
10. Orange Village 50 4 8.0%

Other notable cities:
Lakewood 14,642 424 2.9%
Cleveland 98,135 7,555 7.7%
Parma 7,904 154 1.9%

It is interesting that the last mayoral election in Lakewood had a great deal of attention on Section 8 voucher holders. The victor in that race railed against voucher holders, and yet Lakewood has such a small number of the renters.

Next meeting is January 4, 2010 at 1:30 p.m. at 1350 Euclid Ave. in the basement of the US Bank building.

Brian Davis
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Housing Fair 2009

Housing Issues Service Fair 9/25/09

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and a number of other non-profits are coordinating a housing fair for homeless people. We intend to have actual landlords and apartment owners available to take applications. The goal is to get as many people as possible into housing or at least on a short waiting list.

If you would like to volunteer for this event, contact Randy Cunningham at the Cleveland Tenants Organization at 216/432-0616.

Brian Davis
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Grading the Administration 19

Weekly Grades for Administration on Poverty: B-

Have you noticed that when the CEO is in Europe or the Middle East, the Executive Branch does not accomplish much domestically? Obama was in Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt this week, and very little happened from the White House to address poverty. Here are a few things from 1800 Pennsylvania Ave. with the lead being the full court press on health care reform. Obama talked about it in the weekly video address. He sent a letter to Sen. Kennedy outlining his plans, and there was the release of information on the cost of not reforming health care to our economy. The administration is serious about reform, but please do not listen to the insurance companies and big pharma. They have lied to us for decades, and their only interest is staying in business. They force us to make health decisions based on costs and not the advice of doctors. They told us that HMOs would control costs for everyone. LIES, LIES, and more LIES. At NEOCH, our health care goes up 8 to 18% per year no matter if the economy is depressed or booming. They just lie to America, and they fear government funded health care more than swine flu in a TB isolation ward. Many fell for their propaganda in the 1990s, but we are a lot smarter about health care at this point.

America bought a car company last week. That has to be worth something toward ending poverty. If we could just buy a health care company and about 100 million apartment units, we would be set. VP Biden held another middle class task force meeting--still waiting for the "How do I get into the Middle Class Task Force" meeting. Points off for every meeting of the middle class task force. The Veterans Administration held a hearing on Capital Hill regarding ending homelessness among veterans. I don't know how I missed it, but the VA recently updated their website with an entire section of resources for homeless veterans. This is a very good upgrade, and it is maintained regularly. Senator Schumer of NY introduced the "Homes for Heroes Act of 2009" last week (S. 1160). The bill would provide $200 million to HUD for supportive housing for very low income veterans. The bill would also provide 20,000 new housing vouchers for homeless veterans. Senator Brown is already a co-sponsor.

There were a number of new initiatives announced to address the housing crisis in the Gulf region. There were additional vouchers, additional funds, and the selling of FEMA trailers to home owners. The problem is that there is just not enough affordable housing in the region. Until we get into the business of building large numbers of affordable housing developments (apartments, scattered site houses, mixed use owner/occupied complexes, and senior housing) there will not be enough space for all the low income people in the region.

I have to mention that Dr. Jill Biden did some volunteering last week to assist the troops. The big four will always get a few extra points if they are out volunteering. There was a great deal of discussion and tangible ideas presented to make government more transparent last week. There was a hearing in Congress to look at the reform of Section 8 housing program. Senators from the Banking committee urged support of the 2010 Federal budget and especially the "robust" appropriations for housing. Ohio's Senator Brown signed onto this letter urging his colleagues to support additional housing funds. Finally, there seems to be a new approach at HUD to enforce fair housing laws. HUD has refused to certify one county in New York's consolidated plan, which is the road map for a community accepting government dollars and planning to reduce housing disparities, discrimination, affordability issues. This is a huge step forward. Check out the National Low Income Housing Coalition's website under Memo to Members for last week for more details.

On Tuesday, we will go over the syllabus for the next semester of issues still lacking in the struggle to end poverty in America.

Brian
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