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THE SECTION 8 PROGRAM—COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG)

PROGRAMS, AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING

IN OHIO

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 29, 2003

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 108–50

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio 

SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

DOUG OSE, California 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

KEN LUCAS, Kentucky 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

RAHM EMANUEL, Illinois 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director 

Page

III

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio, Chairman

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

PETER T. KING, New York 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

DOUG OSE, California 

PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BARBARA LEE, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

WILLIAM LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

July 29, 2003 ..................................................................................................... 1

Appendix: 

July 29, 2003 ..................................................................................................... 63

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2003

Baughn, Bambi, Deputy Director, Community Action Commission of Fayette 

County, Washington Court House, OH .............................................................. 35

Cates, Walter R. Sr., President, Main Street Business Association, Columbus 

OH ......................................................................................................................... 37

Coleman, Hon. Michael B., Mayor of Columbus, OH ........................................... 28

Faith, Bill, Executive Director, Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in 

Ohio (COHHIO), Columbus, OH ......................................................................... 6

Fisher, Latoya N., Resident, Columbus, OH ......................................................... 9

Garber, Roberta, Executive Director, Community Research Partners, Columbus, OH ................................................................................................................. 39

Gladman, Steven D., Governmental Affairs Coordinator, Ohio Apartment Association, Columbus, OH, appearing on behalf of Columbus Apartment Association and Midwest Affordable Housing Management Association ............ 11

Guest, Dennis S., Executive Director, Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, Columbus, OH ........................................................................................ 13

Hale, William, President, Portage Area Development Corp., Ravenna, OH ...... 48

Klaben, Amy, President and CEO, Columbus Housing Partnership, Columbus, 

OH ......................................................................................................................... 41

Kuhn, Amy, Deputy Director, Community Development Division, Ohio Department of Development, Columbus, OH ......................................................... 50

Lowenstein, Roy, Vice President, Development, Ohio Capital Corporation for 

Housing, Columbus, OH ...................................................................................... 51

Luken, Sally, Acting Director, Corporation for Supportive Housing, Columbus, 

OH ......................................................................................................................... 53

McCleary, Cornell H., Commander, PRO-Private Police Training Academy, 

Columbus, OH ...................................................................................................... 15

Ring, Cynthia K., Executive Director, Allen Metropolitan Housing Authority, 

Lima, OH .............................................................................................................. 43

Slemmer, Thomas W., President, National Church Residences, Columbus, 

OH, on behalf of the American Association of Homes and Services for 

the Aging ............................................................................................................... 16

Tavares, Charleta Bell, Member, Columbus City Council, Columbus, OH, 

Chair of Health, Housing and Human Services Committee ............................. 55

Weaver, April, Resident, Columbus, OH ............................................................... 42

Woda, Jeffrey J., President, The Woda Group LLC, Columbus, OH ................... 57

Zawilinski, Fred, Executive Director, Lake Metropolitan Housing Authority, 

Painesville, OH ..................................................................................................... 18

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Ney, Hon. Robert W. ........................................................................................ 64

LaTourette, Hon. Steven C. ............................................................................. 66

Tiberi, Hon. Patrick J. ..................................................................................... 68

Baughn, Bambi ................................................................................................. 75

Cates, Walter R. Sr. ......................................................................................... 84

Page

VI

Prepared statements—Continued

Coleman, Hon. Michael B. ............................................................................... 90

Faith, Bill .......................................................................................................... 93

Fisher, Latoya N. .............................................................................................. 100

Garber, Roberta ................................................................................................ 103

Gladman, Steven D. ......................................................................................... 108

Guest, Dennis S. ............................................................................................... 115

Hale, William .................................................................................................... 122

Klaben, Amy ..................................................................................................... 131

Kuhn, Amy ........................................................................................................ 136

Lowenstein, Roy ................................................................................................ 139

Luken, Sally ...................................................................................................... 143

McCleary, Cornell H. ........................................................................................ 167

Ring, Cynthia .................................................................................................... 173

Slemmer, Thomas W. ....................................................................................... 176

Tavares, Charleta Bell ..................................................................................... 182

Weaver, April .................................................................................................... 186

Woda, Jeffrey J. ................................................................................................ 187

Zawilinski, Fred ................................................................................................ 191

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Ring, Cynthia: 

Letter to Hon. James Walsh ............................................................................ 195

(1)

FIELD HEARING 

THE SECTION 8 PROGRAM—COMMUNITY 

DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) 

PROGRAMS, AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING 

IN OHIO 

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND

COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY, COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:35 p.m, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing & Cultural Arts Complex, Mount 

Vernon Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, Honorable Robert W. Ney, [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Jones, Tiberi, and LaTourette. 

Staff Present: Clinton Jones, Counsel; Cindy Chetti, Professional 

Staff; and Paula Johnson, Professional Staff. 

Chairman NEY. I want to—can you hear me? 

I want to welcome everyone here today for the Subcommittee on 

Housing and Community Opportunity. We’re going to meet this 

afternoon to discuss housing and community development policies 

in the State of Ohio. 

With us today are Clinton Jones, and Paula Johnson—where’s 

Cindy?—Cindy Chetti. Cindy, raise your hand. And these three are 

with the housing committee staff in Washington, D.C., who have 

come here for this—for this hearing. 

And I want to thank my colleagues who will speak in a second 

here, to my right, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones from 

Cleveland, Ohio, Cuyahoga County; and to my left here—missing, 

but he’ll be right back—Congressman Tiberi, everybody, I think, 

knows him, from Columbus, Ohio, we also share half of Licking 

County with Congressman Tiberi; and, also, to the far left is Congressman Steve LaTourette, who is also from Ohio, around the 

Cuyahoga County area. So I want to thank my colleagues for coming here today. 

This is our 17th hearing, and the housing committee actually 

started around January 21st of this year, so it’s been very busy. It 

has two bills out of the house and six bills out of the committee, 

all contributing to trying to help with the area of housing. 

As the housing subcommittee began a series of field hearings—

this is the second field hearing outside of the capitol, the other 

hearings we had with our ranking member, Maxine Waters, out in 

2

Los Angeles a couple weeks ago—I promised a series of field hearings, I promised to shift America’s housing debate outside the 

Washington beltway to different regions of this country. 

Today we focus especially on affordable housing availability in 

Ohio, the effectiveness of the Federal Government’s Community 

Development Block Grant program, and the Section 8 housing 

voucher program for low income families. 

Within the State of Ohio, affordable housing is essential for this 

State to continue to grow and for working families in order to prosper. The subcommittee and its members of the Ohio delegation, 

some of them are here today, are committed to working with State 

and local officials on this very, very important issue. 

Today the housing subcommittee continues the process of listening, learning, and then discussing the situation. 

I am certain my colleagues from Ohio would agree that the best 

economic development plan for any city or community consists of 

three factors: Effective public safety, good schools, and affordable 

housing. When one of these factors is lagging, the community will 

deteriorate. 

In the previous months we’ve heard a variety of opinions on 

causes and solutions to help build communities and prevent deterioration. While we may not all agree on the possible solutions, it’s 

important that this committee act prudently and provide an exhaustive review of all existing housing programs and determine 

how regulatory and legislative adjustments could provide additional housing across the United States. 

At the same time, it is fair that the committee consider new 

ideas, provided they are fiscally prudent, maximize the taxpayers’ 

investment, and provide accountability and results for the individuals that need assistance in this country. 

Among the forms that have been discussed is an administration 

proposal to replace Section 8 tenant-based housing vouchers with 

State-managed block grants. 

I introduced this bill at the administration’s request and the request of Secretary Martinez so it could be debated. And that’s, 

again, why we’re here specifically today, but also to discuss other 

housing issues. 

Rather than contracting with an estimated 2,600 separate public 

housing authorities, as HUD currently does, the department would 

like to allocate funds to the 50 States, which could then work with 

public housing agencies or other entities to administer the voucher 

program. 

As well as examining the merits of this proposal, the subcommittee continues to look at other crucial housing programs, 

such as HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, or 

CDBG, which is what we also discussed in Los Angeles. 

CDBG is one of the primary vehicles for local Mayors and officials to revitalize our nation’s neighborhoods and provide economic 

opportunity and hope for millions of lower income Americans to 

achieve self-efficiency. 

I look forward to hearing testimony from today’s panelists on 

how the Community Development Block Grant program operates in 

the greater Columbus area, and how local development groups contribute to the effectiveness of the program. 

3

And also we’ll be hearing from people throughout the entire 

State of Ohio. 

And at this point in time I want to thank and recognize the gentlewoman from Ohio, Ms. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. Good afternoon. I’m pleased to join Chairman Ney and my colleagues from around Ohio to discuss the issue 

of housing. 

Actually, I used to serve on this subcommittee for four years, and 

had a great opportunity to talk about the issues. Now that I’ve had 

an opportunity to move to the Ways and Means Committee, I still 

know housing is an important part of any fabric of any community. 

As we go through the upcoming years, specifically in Cuyahoga 

County, Ohio, we have a large number of foreclosures that come 

about as a result of lack of jobs et cetera, and we are going to need 

more and more affordable housing for people who traditionally may 

not have been looking for housing—or affordable housing, as well 

as the hundreds of people who are looking for affordable housing 

throughout Ohio. 

I’m pleased to be here. I look forward to the testimony, and look 

forward to asking some questions so we can get some responses on 

particularly the issue of the block grant for voucher—excuse me—

for Section 8 housing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

And next is Congressman Pat Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to commend Bob Ney, the chairman of the subcommittee, 

for scheduling today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Housing and Community 

Development Policies in the State of Ohio,’’ and scheduling it especially here in my Congressional district, in the city in which I’ve 

lived my entire life. But I also want to thank my colleagues, Steve 

LaTourette and Stephanie Tubbs Jones, for taking time out of their 

busy schedules from their districts to come down here and listen 

to the folks here in central Ohio about the issues impacting housing. 

The hearing will focus on three topics: The current operation and 

administration of Section 8 housing assistance to families program, 

Community Development Block Grant program, and housing production. 

I want to thank Chairman Ney for his attention and dedication 

to the many housing issues that impact our country. 

For this hearing today we hope to learn more about problems 

faced by many of our working families and determine how we 

might better address their housing needs. 

Housing is the number one consumer product in America. And 

while the homeownership rate in this country is an impressive alltime high at 68 percent, there are still some that are unable to 

share in this American dream. 

It is essential to restore confidence and accountability to our nation’s housing policies by reforming programs that are underused, 

duplicative, or hindered by vague objectives. 

Despite the fact that more and more people are sharing in the 

American dream of homeownership, many working families are 

finding it more difficult to find affordable housing. 

4

The nation’s lost more than 197,000 units of federally subsidized 

affordable housing over the last several years, including more than 

9,500 in Ohio. More than a third of those units housed poor seniors. 

It is essential that affordable housing be made available to people that need it. 

Clearly, we must take steps to encourage new production and 

preservation of existing housing stock. Many witnesses testifying 

today are working hard every day to provide affordable housing to 

those in need. We need to make sure that they have the tools necessary to enhance and define affordable housing. 

The Section 8 program serves more than 2 million people 

throughout the country. In Columbus alone there are 10,000 recipients of Section 8 assistance from the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority. 

Recent proposals have been made that I believe threaten to destabilize the Section 8 program. The current proposals focus on 

shifting Section 8 management responsibilities to the States by 

converting them into block grants. This idea will not be effective, 

in my opinion, because the States have only limited experience 

with such programs. The last thing that the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority needs is another layer of bureaucracy upon 

it, which is certainly the outcome if these proposals are to be put 

into place. 

Changes must be made to this program as it loses 2 billion annually to fraud and other factors nationally. However, I believe the 

best solution to Section 8 is to give more flexibility to local housing 

agencies. 

These local agencies, along with elected officials, landlords, and 

others, work together to assure Section 8 provides the proper assistance. It’s a simple idea: Local residents can better address local 

problems. 

Another important issue facing central Ohio is that of the Community Development Block Grants, CDBGs. While the criteria established by the Formula A of CDBGs in 1974 and Formula B in 

1976 may have been fair and equitable at that time, continued 

usage of these formulas, these old formulas, have led to a tremendously unfair situation in the 21st century. 

Case in point is the criteria that we deal with the age of housing 

stock in Formula B. Formula B establishes houses built prior to 

1940 as 50 percent of the funding formula. For cities such as Columbus, which saw the bulk of their growth occur after World War 

II, the failure to update this criteria means aging neighborhoods 

built in the ’40s and ’50s, such as the North Linden area, the 

Woodland and Joyce area, other areas, are ineligible for assistance 

under the CDBJ—BG grant program. 

While these neighborhoods were not in need of assistance in the 

early 1970s, now they are more than 50 years old. They are experiencing the same level of need as older cities showed in the 1970s. 

Comparing Columbus to cities whose main growth was prior to 

World War II, you can see the disparities that have arisen. 

Take, for example, Saint Louis, Missouri, with a population of 

just under 350,000 people, it is the 49th largest city in the United 

States. In fiscal year 2001, Saint Louis received over $28 million 

5

in CDBG funding. Columbus, the 15th largest city, with a population of 710,000 people, received approximately 8.8 million. Similar discrepancies can be found when comparing Columbus to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Boston, New Orleans, just to name a few. 

Yes, all these cities share one common theme, they’re smaller 

than Columbus. 

Clearly, the criteria used in the formula needs to be updated and 

changed. The age of housing should be indexed to maintain fairness and consistency across the country. 

Mr. Chairman, Ms. Tubbs Jones, Mr. LaTourette, thank you for 

coming to Columbus today to be part of this hearing. 

We look forward to hearing from our witnesses. 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio. 

Congressman LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the 

opportunity to be here today. Thank you for inviting us down here. 

I was going to begin my remarks by saying thank you for having 

this hearing in our back yard, but it’s not really our back yard. 

And, as a matter of fact, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones and I needed a green card to get across the border, being from the state of 

Cleveland; but we’re very happy—we’re very happy to be here. 

And I also want to commend our colleague, Congressman Tiberi, 

he was the fellow who approached me with your guidance a few 

months ago, indicated that this was an issue that would be vital 

to the constituents that he represented, and I’m happy to be here 

to aid in whatever questions come about today. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for your leadership. 

As you mentioned, this is the 17th hearing that the subcommittee 

has held, and your interest in this issue is not only known in the 

State, but nationally. 

The Section 8 housing voucher program, which was started in 

the 1970s, and there’s no doubt that countless Americans have benefited from this Federal assistance and have found a means to put 

a roof over their heads, over the years, though, this worthwhile 

program has fallen victim to the same plague that, in fact, many 

government-run programs, in some instances, inefficiency, a lack of 

managerial accountability, and, in some cases, a bloated bureaucracy. 

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that the founding principles 

the Section 8 program were built upon are still intact, and are 

probably more relevant and necessary today than they were even 

a decade ago. 

The proposal, however, to reform the Section 8 voucher program 

introduced by the Bush administration has certainly generated a 

tremendous amount of interest and controversy. It is unclear to me, 

for example, whether or not States like Ohio will manage to be successful if the State begins receiving funding for Section 8 vouchers 

in direct Federal block grants. 

One of the tensions that sometimes exists in Washington, as we 

all know, is: Who is better able to take care of problems, is it the 

Federal Government or the State government? In this particular 

instance, I differ from time to time with my party and believe that 

the Federal Government has a role to play and needs to be an acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
6

tive partner with the States, and we just simply can’t wash our 

hands and say: State, here, take this. 

And I’m looking very much forward to the testimony that we receive from all of the panelists today as they help guide not only 

this subcommittee, but also the full Financial Services Committee 

and then the Congress of the United States in grappling with these 

important issues. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for having this hearing today, and I look very much forward to hearing from everyone. 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank all three of my colleagues, all 

three members, for their time. 

I would note that this is the district work period for the Congress, and a lot of these members have given up their personal 

time and their items that they had scheduled to do to be here, so 

I want to thank all of them—all three of my colleagues for that. 

Chairman NEY. And could the witnesses please—please come forward, first panel. 

In the first panel is Bill Faith, Executive Director of Coalition on 

Homelessness and Housing in Ohio; LaToya N. Fisher, a resident, 

Columbus, Ohio—we’ll get the chair there—Steven Gladman, Governmental Affairs Coordinator, Ohio Apartment Association, Columbus, Ohio, appearing on behalf of the Columbus Apartment Association and the Midwest Affordable Housing Management Association; Dennis Guest, Executive Director, Columbus Metropolitan 

Housing Authority; and Cornell H. McCleary, Commander, PROPrivate Police Training Academy, Columbus, Ohio; Thomas W. 

Slemmer, President, National Church Residences, Columbus, Ohio, 

on behalf of the American Association of Homes and Services for 

the Aging; and Fred Zawilinski, Executive Director of the Lake 

Metropolitan Housing Authority in Painesville, Ohio. 

I want to welcome the first panel. This is an official hearing of 

the U.S. House, and it’s being transcribed. And also I would note 

that we’re going to operate by the five-minute rule; each of the witnesses will have five minutes in which to present their testimony. 

And, also, without objection, all members’ opening statements are 

made part of the record, any additional statements that they want 

to make, and each of the witnesses’ statements, without objection 

to the written language, your statements will be made part of the 

record. You’ll each be recognized again for five minutes, if there’s 

additional information, without objection, to be put into the record, 

and the members of the committee will have 30 days in which to 

ask additional questions without objection of particular witnesses 

of the panel. 

So when you hear the tone, you’ve got about a minute to wrap 

up, and so we’ll hold you to the rule so we can get all three panels. 

I want to thank all of you for being here today, we’ll start with 

Bill Faith. 

STATEMENT OF BILL FAITH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COALITION ON HOMELESSNESS AND HOUSING IN OHIO, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. FAITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

taking the time to come to Columbus for this field hearing. I also 

want to thank all the committee members for coming; particularly, 

7

Congressman Pat Tiberi, for allowing me to testify and to offer my 

comments and suggestions. 

I am here representing the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, better known as COHHIO. We’re a statewide organization with over 600 member groups throughout all of Ohio’s 88 counties. 

There are several issues that I want to bring up today. I have 

more extended written comments that I’ve submitted, but I want 

to make a few highlights. 

I know during this hearing you will be hearing from others who 

will talk more specifically about the housing needs here in Columbus. I wanted to bring to your attention a couple of more recent national studies. 

The reason is this—this crisis that we face in affordable housing 

is national in scope and does require a national response. 

The studies I want to point out to you is the most recent Stateof-the-Nation’s Housing Report published by the Joint Center on 

Housing Studies at Harvard University. One of the key points of 

their findings this year—and I included a graph which illustrates 

this—there is a 2-million-unit gap between the number of renter 

households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution and the 

number of physical units that they can afford to rent. 

Also, in that same report, many households working at lower 

wage jobs are struggling to keep up with the escalating rents. I’ll 

just illustrate a couple of these. Of the 2.1 million waiters, waitresses and cooks who rent, nearly half spend more than 30 percent 

of their incomes on housing; more than 40 percent of renter households with an earner employed in child care, home health care, 

cashiers, library assistants, maids, janitors, are similarly cost burdened. If they are the sole wage earner, renters in several other 

moderate paying occupations, like receptionists, carpenters, and 

electricians, also have a hard time affording their housing. And I 

included another graph which illustrates those dynamics. 

I also wanted to point out to you another study, which may not 

have come to your attention, but the President’s New Freedom Initiative Mental Health Commission, which was chaired by Dr. Mike 

Hogan of the Ohio Department of Mental Health, recently issued 

their report, in fact, on July 22nd, and I just want to provide in 

my written testimony a brief excerpt from that report, which I will 

summarize. 

‘‘The lack of decent, safe, affordable, and integrated housing is 

one of the most significant barriers to full participation in community life for people with serious mental illness. Today, millions of 

people with serious mental illnesses lack housing that meets their 

needs. 

‘‘The shortage of affordable housing and accompanying support 

services causes people with severe—serious mental illnesses to 

cycle among jails, institutions, shelters, and the streets; to remain 

unnecessarily in institutions; or to live in seriously substandard 

housing. People with serious mental illnesses also represent a large 

percentage of those who are repeatedly homeless, who are—or who 

are homeless for long periods of time.’’. 

All over the country, local and State governments have stepped 

forward to provide support for the affordable housing efforts by creVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
8

ating housing trust funds. In fact, today there are 282 State and 

local housing trust funds operating throughout the United States. 

In an effort to leverage other resources to better address the affordable housing crisis, local governments in Ohio, such as Summit 

County, Montgomery County, Toledo, here in Columbus, Franklin 

County, as well as the State of Ohio, have established trust funds 

and dedicated local and State revenues to provide permanent funding. 

In fact, as a result of the recently passed State budget bill, on August 1st the recording fees will be increased with the first $50 

million proceeds going to the housing trust fund. 

There’s a similar bill that’s been introduced at the national level, 

which would create a national version of a housing trust fund. This 

bill has very deep targeting, it would provide flexible resources——

Chairman NEY. That’s not our tone. 

Mr. FAITH. That’s a really fancy tone. 

Chairman NEY. That’s somebody else. 

Mr. FAITH. It would provide flexible resources to the State that 

are deeply targeted to those with the greatest housing needs. 

Chairman NEY. That’s not ours either. 

Mr. FAITH. This legislation has tremendous grassroot support. 

There are now over 4,300 endorsements from across the country, 

and I’ve submitted a copy, hopefully for the record, if you will, Mr. 

Chairman, of all those endorsers, including 232 from across Ohio. 

The national housing trust fund legislation has 204 cosponsors in 

the house, and I want to thank Congresswoman Tubbs Jones for 

being one of them, and encourage the rest of you cosponsoring this 

legislation. 

There is, I guess, tripartisan support for the bill. 11 republicans 

have joined. But—and I urge you, Chairman Ney, to hold a hearing 

on this legislation. Surely, a bill with this level of support deserves 

such a hearing. 

I want to add my voice—I know you’ll be hearing from other 

members of this panel—about the HANF proposal. We are very 

much opposed to this proposal. As Congressman Tiberi, I think, articulated the best, this is a ill-conceived proposal that would not 

add any value and simply put the State bureaucracy in the middle 

of an already burdensome process of distributing critically needed 

rental assistance. 

And I work a lot with the State of Ohio, and I know that they 

do a great job at many things. But administering a rental assistance program, I don’t believe is one of them. They are good at production, they are good at tax credit, the bond programs, the home 

program, but administering a rental assistance program, they are 

entirely ill equipped for. They would need a hire literally hundreds 

of new staff to take on that job. 

And, finally, my last comment, Mr. Chairman, is related to the 

Section 8 project-based. In the information I received, you’re open 

to comments on that program, as well. And we—we are involved 

in this. 

Ohio has 86,000 Section 8 project-based units, more than any 

other State outside of California and New York. As you know, we’re 

going through massive changes in that program because of all the 

expiring contracts. And my organization provides a small part, but 

9

an important part, in the average technical assistance grants that 

we receive from HUD. 

Now, HUD has held up distributing any new funds for this program, in spite of the fact that the Inspector General went through 

a very thorough audit, they moved into our offices for six weeks, 

went through all of our records, found no findings. I think the auditor almost came to tears when she realized they had no findings 

after six weeks. 

But in spite of no findings, this administration has failed to issue 

a NOFA for the past two years for any new funds for this program. 

And I encourage you to add an amendment to the bill which would 

require them to issue a NOFA to get this program back up and 

running. 

I know Ms. Jones has spent a fair amount of time—actually an 

unfair amount of time—trying to resolve this issue. And I think the 

only solution at this point is some additional legislation to require 

the administration to get back on the right track. 

So with that, I’ll close. 

Thank you for your patience, and I’ll be happy to respond to any 

questions. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Bill Faith can be found on page 93 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Fisher. 

STATEMENT OF LaTOYA N. FISHER, RESIDENT, COLUMBUS, 

OHIO 

Ms. FISHER. Testimony of LaToya N. Fisher before the House 

Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. 

Chairman Ney, Ranking Member Waters, and the distinguished 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to testify 

on the subject of the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the role 

of the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority and how it has 

been beneficial to me. 

My name is LaToya N. Fisher. I reside at 3035 Osgood Road 

West, Columbus, Ohio 43232. I am a 26-year-old single parent to 

four children, two of which I have adopted. I am currently employed at Ross Laboratories, and I attend Ohio State School of Cosmetology. My future goals are to complete the courses at this school 

to receive a certificate of completion in technology and further my 

education to obtain a degree in nursing. 

At this point, I do not have the knowledge to comment on the national implications of changing the Housing Choice Voucher Program; but I would like to share with you my experience about 

being a participant in CMHA’s Housing Choice Voucher Program. 

I applied for Section 8 assistance in 1996. At the time my son 

and I were living at home with my mother and father, and I wanted to live on my own. I received my voucher several months after 

completing my application, and I was successful in finding an 

apartment that could fulfill my living needs at that time. 

Two years later, I had another child and moved into a house. I 

enrolled in the Family Self-Sufficiency Program in February, 2003. 

I was able to obtain information about this program through my 

10

realtor. This program was the beginning of my becoming a firsttime homebuyer. 

I was able to achieve the goal May 23, 2003. Without CMHA’s 

homeownership program, I would not have been able to achieve 

this goal so soon in my life. Because of the benefits from this program, I was able to find a home in a nice neighborhood and a stable environment for my children. I am grateful to HUD and CMHA 

for the assistance provided for my family and myself. 

With the housing assistance, I am able to pay for school and afford the cost of everyday living for my family. 

Since I have started this program, I have built a strong relationship with the coordinators of the FSS program, Ms. Carol Winchester and Ms. Michelle Barthelemy. Throughout the process of 

finding my home, I have had to speak with either one or both of 

these ladies on a daily basis, so I would know which steps to take 

next. 

I am proud to say that I am very pleased with my relationship 

with CMHA staff—with the CMHA. The staff is friendly, courteous 

and professional. 

CMHA has provided a valuable resource to our community. I 

would not want any changes to the Housing Choice Voucher Program that would reduce its current impact upon the thousands of 

Housing Choice participants who reside in Columbus, Ohio. 

However, I would like to make a few suggestions on how to improve the program and weed out the people who don’t plan to better their lives with this—with the help of this program. 

One, require all able-body individuals to work or attend at least 

30 hours per week at school or work. With responsibility, these 

people can feel a sense of self-importance in their lives and not live 

by society’s standards, but want to achieve more in life. 

Number two, take more of an aggressive against participants and 

landlords that are not following the CMHA rules. 

Number 3, have the landlords attend the inspection with the inspectors so that they will understand clearly what needs to be fixed 

and for which reason. Hold payment on landlords that do not keep 

up on routine maintenance. 

Number 4, find a way to acknowledge the workers for their hard 

work. 

And Number 5, if possible, give more CMHA vouchers to assist 

families that are motivated to better their lives and current situation so that one day they can also live out the American dream and 

become a homeowner, also. 

I would like to thank you once again for your time and interest. 

And I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have 

about my comments and suggestions. 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank you for your fine testimony. 

[The prepared statement of LaToya N. Fisher can be found on 

page 100 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Let’s move on to Mr. Gladman. 

11

STATEMENT OF STEVEN D. GLADMAN, GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COORDINATOR, OHIO APARTMENT ASSOCIATION, COLUMBUS, OHIO, APPEARING ON BEHALF OF COLUMBUS 

APARTMENT ASSOCIATION AND MIDWEST AFFORDABLE 

HOUSING MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 

Mr. GLADMAN. Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman Ney and distinguished members, my name is Steve 

Gladman. I serve as the Executive Director of the Columbus Apartment Association as the Governmental Affairs Coordinator for the 

Ohio Apartment Association. Both organizations are affiliated with 

the National Apartment Association. 

I also am the Executive Director of the Midwest Affordable Housing Management Association, which is affiliated with the National 

Affordable Housing Management Association. 

All three of these organizations represent companies dedicated to 

provide quality rental housing. 

My involvement in these three associations provides me unique 

insight into the Section 8 rental assistance program. 

I believe it’s critical to meet the housing needs of low and moderate income families, and that improving the Section 8 program 

is a central part of meeting those needs. However, I urge Congress 

and HUD to enact reforms to the existing Section 8 program that 

will encourage apartment owner participation; and, in turn, increase housing availability to voucher holders. 

Although it is well intentioned, I think HANF will not reduce administrative costs to participating rental owners and will not maximize program benefits to—for residents. 

I support the Section 8 program as a means for private housing 

owners to provide affordable rental housing to families who need 

it. 

More apartment owners would participate if the costs of renting 

to voucher residents were more comparable to the costs of serving 

unsubsidized residents. Eliminating transactional barriers will encourage more owners to participate in the program. More owner 

participation will result in greater housing choice and increased 

voucher utilization rates. 

But do I think the Section 8 program needs to be improved? I 

think there are four simple things: 

First, fund the program adequately; second, ensure that the rental property owners are paid on time; set fair market rents so 

they’re truly fair; and, finally, eliminate inspections and replace 

them with a process that is helpful to the resident and owner alike. 

Funding: I urge continued funding for the existing program 

structure administered by HUD. Historically, many have criticized 

the Section 8 appropriation structure because too much funding remained unused each year. Effective this year, Congress enacted 

changes to minimize recaptures and national utilization rates have 

risen to nearly 96 percent. 

I believe that the existing successful appropriations structure 

should be supported. 

Timely payment: PHAs are required to make prompt subsidy 

payments to apartment owners. However, subsidy payments are 

sometimes untimely because of antiquated systems or processing 

delays. Just as owners would not regularly accept late rental payVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
12

ments from conventional residents, they should not be asked to accept late subsidy payments. 

Some PHAs already use automated systems, but it would be 

helpful if HUD would provide technical assistance, funding, and 

other support so all the PHAs have the capability to utilize automated payment systems. HUD should also establish some incentives to make sure that the owners are paid on time. 

Fair market rents: I urge that HUD enact a more efficient process for PHAs to apply for higher fair market rents that are more 

reflective of the submarket rents. I also propose changes that 

would allow PHAs to raise the payment standard to 120 percent of 

FMR without HUD approval and to afford PHAs increased flexibility in requesting higher payment standards when necessary. 

FMRs must be set high enough to encourage owner participation; 

and, in turn, create a sufficient supply of apartments and choices 

for voucher holders. 

I thank HUD for raising the current FMR level to the 50th percentile in 39 high-cost areas. But that level is insufficient in areas 

with outdated FMRs and in certain high-cost submarkets. In many 

areas of Ohio, FMRs have not been updated in years and are well 

below market rates in both high-cost and moderately priced areas. 

Inspections: Finally, I propose eliminating what many owners see 

as the greatest barrier to program participation, the inspection 

process. 

The current inspection requirement is a losing proposition for all 

involved. The owner doesn’t like the inspection because it delays 

resident move-in. The PHA struggles to keep up with the demand 

for inspections, and realizes that the inspection requirement discourages many rental owners from participating in the program. 

The resident has to wait to move in and has fewer housing options 

because of the limited owner participation. 

Rental housing is a competitive business, and housing quality is 

market driven. Local housing codes and State landlord-tenant law 

already provides adequate protections for residents. 

I urge that the inspection requirement be eliminated and the 

funds currently used for inspection be used to establish residentowner liaisons. These liaisons would be PHA staff that work with 

both the resident and the owner to ensure both parties are benefiting from the Section 8 rental assistance program. 

If a housing quality issue exists, the liaison could intervene on 

behalf of the resident; if appropriate, a housing quality inspection 

could be performed. If there’s a payment or resident relationship 

issue that exists, the liaison would work with the owner to resolve 

these problems. 

This process would focus on establishing a long-term relationship 

with owners and residents rather than focusing on a once-a-year 

inspection process. 

I believe the existing Section 8 program, with the improvements 

I’ve just noted, will make affordable housing available for more 

Americans. 

Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Steven D. Gladman can be found on 

page 108 in the appendix.] 

13

Chairman NEY. Mr. Guest. 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS S. GUEST, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF 

THE COLUMBUS METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. GUEST. Chairman Ney and other distinguished representatives of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. 

I’m Dennis Guest, I’m Executive Director of the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, which is responsible for the operation 

of 3,814 units of public housing and the administration 9,732 budgeted Section 8 vouchers throughout Columbus and Franklin County. 

I might also add, since one of our residents talked about the selfsufficiency program, that we currently have 500 residents registered in the program with over $480,000 in escrow accounts. 

There are three issues on which I will comment: 

A, the HANF block grant proposal; B, the potential improvements to the Section 8 program; and C, PHA selected project-based 

vouchers. 

First, let me state that CMHA is opposed to the current proposal 

to block grant the voucher program. 

And I dare say, most other State PHAs would be in the same 

boat. And there are three reasons for my opposition. 

Number one, the concept of the voucher program could or should 

be coordinated with the TANF program is weak. Specifically, of the 

10,000 vouchers currently under lease with CMHA, only 24 percent 

of households, heads of households with TANF, in Ohio called Ohio 

Works First, income, the majority, 76 percent, of our clients are 

seniors, the disabled, pensioners, and those working with modest 

incomes. 

Number two, it is proposed that the States could better administer the program because they are more aware of the local needs, 

and by allowing increased regulatory waivers could more adequately meet such needs. 

Members of the subcommittee, by passing the QWRA bill and by 

allowing the PHAs to utilize vouchers in a project-based manner, 

you have already encouraged the customization of the voucher program to the community level, an outstanding achievement. 

For example, CMHA has customized its program to meet the 

needs of the City of Columbus, Franklin County, the Alcohol Drug 

and Mental Health Board, MR/DD, Community Shelter Board, 

United Way, et cetera. In one instance specifically, The Ohio State 

University and CMHA have partnered to provide housing assistance to young mothers with children who are students at OSU. 

Special supportive services provided by the University will allow 

these mothers to pursue degrees and begin successful careers without the need for TANF. 

I have attached a list of our partnering agencies and nonprofits. 

I am hard pressed to understand how a State-administered program could function more effectively at our city/county level. Rather, this committee should consider allowing PHAs more flexibility 

provided there is local governmental and community and private 

sector support. 

14

Number three, it is difficult to comprehend the transition of the 

voucher program to a State block grant program being anything 

other than a time-consuming burden. If the State of Ohio alone 

were to administer the program, absorbing just our portfolio of 

housing would require inspecting 14,000 to 15,000 units a year, 

conducting 14,000 to 15,000 annual recertifications a year, processing 30,000 individual landlord checks, establishing relationships 

with over 2,200 owners of property, hearing a thousand grievances, 

and negotiating 12,000 unit rents. Plus, dealing with 27,000 residents currently in our program. 

I might add, if you let the State of Ohio take all of these numbers and multiply them by about eight, then you’ll find out what 

the volume of work would be at the State level. 

Of course, the State could elect to subcontract their work to the 

PHAs, or the State could even decide not to participate in the program. All three scenarios are possible. 

It is unlikely that this will create anything less than an administrative nightmare for HUD. 

B, if the goal is to improve this section, the voucher program, I 

suggest the following for your consideration, and Mr. Gladman and 

I are probably on the same page: 

We have variations of this, but we would allow PHAs to inspect 

units every two or three years, rather than yearly, based on unit 

history upkeep by landlords. 

At least 85 percent of the landlords here in Columbus, I would 

say, are diligent, professional and maintain quality units. Annual 

inspections of their property is wasteful of their time and the 

PHAs’ time and of the residents’ time. 

Fewer inspections should result in cost savings for both the public housing authorities and eventually to HUD, and result in more 

individual landlords participating in the program. 

Number two, rent recertifications for senior citizens could be 

done every two years instead of yearly. For most senior citizens, 

you’re seeing very little, if any, change in their annual income on 

a year-to-year basis. And rather than hauling them in on a yearly 

basis, money could also be spent and time saved, in terms of administrative savings in just doing that every two years. 

Number three, this is where we get into some real technical stuff 

that some people may or may not be interested at this hearing 

right now, establish a LOCCS system of funding for Section 8. 

LOCCS stands for Lines of Credit Control System, and it’s the 

method in which housing authorities draw down money. It could be 

set up on a yearly basis schedule. It’s very similar to the way we 

get subsidy and other funds right now, rather than individual requests for often only two months at a time, which are paperwork 

intensive. 

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the project-based program 

is tremendously successful locally. Because of the use of vouchers 

as financial backing, CMHA has been able to work with the Community Shelter Board and other nonprofit housing providers and 

support service agencies to develop over 200 units of housing for 

the homeless. Additionally, 48 new family units and 30 senior units 

are being developed with National Church Residences by utilizing 

project-based vouchers. 

15

Thank you very much for allowing me to make this presentation. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dennis S. Guest can be found on 

page 115 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Mr. McCleary. 

STATEMENT OF CORNELL H. McCLEARY, COMMANDER, PROPRIVATE, POLICE TRAINING ACADEMY, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. MCCLEARY. Honorable Members of the Subcommittee on 

Housing and Community Opportunity. 

I want to thank subcommittee chairperson, Bob Ney, committee 

members, and Congressman Pat Tiberi for bringing it to Columbus. 

Columbus, Ohio is a community under siege, and it’s quickly becoming the murder capital of America. Our children are getting 

shot while they play and while they sleep. During daylight hours, 

people’s homes are being broken into where they’re either raped, 

robbed or both. Just recently, three young people were tied up and 

shot in the head, for the lack of a better description, executed. 

In our war on terrorism, we are not as worried about Saddam 

Hussein as we are worried about the boys in the hood, little 

Jermaine and Booboo. 

Dead center of this horrific development in Columbus is the Section 8 low income housing communities. These communities have 

become unintended breeding grounds for violent and destructive 

criminals. 

The public housing program was designed to provide safe, decent 

and affordable housing to low income families. In reality, the program has evolved to become a multibillion-dollar growth industry 

for politically connected developers, an economic nightmare for 

small and emerging property owners, and pure hell for too many 

low income families. 

The Bush administration advocates shifting most of the management responsibility of the program from the Federal Government 

to the States by converting the program into block grants. Currently, the program loses billions of dollars to fraud and other factors. If Congress were to, in fact, reshift management of the program to inexperienced States, fraud and waste factors in the program would go through the roof. Not to mention the possibility of 

States, for budgetary reasons, never earnestly attempting to resolve community crime issues associated with the program. 

My formal written testimony that I have presented to the subcommittee for consideration in the matter of achieving to the community’s ability, making a factual argument that we must earnestly go after the boys in the suites, as well as the boys in the 

streets; the blood flow—and I must say, mostly the blood of African-Americans—must be stopped; the omissions of powerful and 

politically connected developers and property owners, quote, their 

respectability, must be reconciled in favor of safe and stable communities, and this reconciliation must be done by the Federal Government. If this challenge is left up to the States, God would have 

to be the Governor to get the job done. 

Thank you for your invitation to speak. 

And I will at this time entertain any questions that the subcommittee may have. 

16

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Cornell H. McCleary can be found on 

page 167 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Slemmer. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS W. SLEMMER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

CHURCH RESIDENCES, COLUMBUS, OHIO, ON BEHALF OF 

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF HOMES AND SERVICES 

FOR THE AGING 

Mr. SLEMMER. Chairman Ney, Members of the Subcommittee. 

Thank you for inviting me today. I’m President of the National 

Church Residences, but today I’ll be speaking on the American of 

Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. We think we have 

a unique voice as it relates to affordable housing and services for 

affordable housing for seniors. 

Also, as affiliate, is the Association of Ohio Philanthropic Homes 

and Services for Aging, and it represents 350 not-for-profit primarily faith-based organizations statewide. 

I want to call your attention, my original testimony where we address several issues, including the Section 202 production programs, social service coordination, affordable housing and preservation and production. But first let me echo some of the sentiments 

of the panelists here as it relates to concerns of the administration’s proposal to block—block grant Section 8 voucher programs as 

reflected in HR 1841. 

I have a couple of practical examples I thought you might be interested in, as relates to Columbus. In your district, Congressman 

Tiberi, under construction right now is a 300-unit affordable housing development on Waggoner Road, east of 270, in the eastern 

part of Columbus, in a recently annexed property. 

In that development we’ve established a partnership with the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority to develop 75 units of 

high-quality, affordable, service enrichment housing for senior citizens, and we’ve used HOPE VI funds, tax credits, tax exempt 

bonds, home funds from the city and State, as well as city TIF 

funds. Really, a complex development. 

We also have on that same location 55 units of senior housing 

that’s been developed under the Section 202 program, in cooperation with the local HUD office, and a 176-unit family affordable 

housing development, which includes 50 four-bedroom houses. And 

in that family development, we have worked very closely with the 

Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority to—and, Dennis, you 

said 48, but 50—53 Section 8 vouchers on that property to serve 

the poorest of the poor. 

And the emphasis I want to place on this was the close cooperation and working relationship with the Columbus housing authority, and their understanding of the local situation really brought 

that about, and especially as it relates to the need for four-bedroom 

housing industry for families. 

A second development in Westerville, Ohio, is starting construction as a 75-unit senior housing facility that was developed in partnership with CMHA. They’ve purchased the land and are leasing 

it back to us to help us with our targeted development costs. FurVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
17

thermore, they provide 30 project-based Section 8 vouchers so that 

we can serve the poorest of the poor in those developments. 

Both of these developments, I think, speak to the success of the 

current program. It’s operating well. Section 8 vouchers are being 

administered well. And the need for close local cooperation between 

the development community and the public housing authority has 

been met and really is working well. 

It’s our opinion that implementing HR 1841 will not improve the 

program. It is exactly the situation here in Columbus that really 

enables us to customize and meet the special local needs, which I 

think will be lost if this is administered at the State level. 

It’s hard to imagine that transitioning the voucher program to 

the States will be anything more than a time-consuming burden, 

as Mr. Guest mentioned. 

It’s really our experience that the existing program currently operated locally provides the flexibility and the partnership and the 

local coordination that you need. 

If I could speak just briefly about the Section 202 program that 

your committee oversees. Many not-for-profits, that’s their primary 

vehicle for developing affordable senior housing for services. And in 

our written testimony we have several specific suggestions on how 

to make the program work better. 

But one of them, I thought I would bring to your attention, HUD 

has still not implemented, after three years, your committee’s intent, which was passed in the legislation, which allows us to combine the 202 program with tax credits so we can expand affordable 

housing supply in this country. I would submit to you that that’s 

embarrassing. 

Furthermore, HUD needs to speed up the process of refinancing 

its older portfolio of Section 202 housing. Some of those loans are 

financed at 9-1/2 percent interest. Right now, I think today, you 

could refinance those at 4-1/2 percent interest, and that money 

could be used to expand services and improve those properties. To 

date, that program has not been implemented. There’s only been 

three applications approved so far in Washington. 

I submit that this committee ought to really look into that, and 

instead of HUD dragging its feet on those applications, they ought 

to be pushing sponsors to refinance and take advantage of that 

lower interest rate environment. 

Finally, we’re grateful for your support of the Social Service Coordination program. It is vital for senior housing. I know you know 

it. But on the written testimony, we express concerns that are also 

shared by the American Association of Service Coordinators, that 

the 203—2003 NOFA on service coordination we think adversely 

affects both the quality and the training program of service coordinators. We would urge you to take a look at that. 

Again, we want to thank you for your time. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Thomas W. Slemmer can be found on 

page 176 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Zawilinski. 

18

STATEMENT OF FRED ZAWILINSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

LAKE METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY, PAINESVILLE, 

OHIO 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. Thank you, Congressman Ney and Congressman 

LaTourette for the invitation to speak to the entire subcommittee 

this afternoon here in Columbus. 

My name is Fred Zawilinski, and I’m the Executive Director of 

the Lake Metropolitan Housing Authority headquartered in Painesville, Ohio. We are a suburban county to the east of Cleveland. 

The first point I’d like to make about the HANF proposal is that 

you’re not going to see the results that the TANF proposal and welfare reform did in the last several years. First of all, you’re not 

going to see the decrease in caseloads that has been celebrated as 

the success of TANF. The reason is, is that we’re not operating an 

entitlement program; we’re operating a program in the Housing 

Choice Voucher which has extensive waiting lists in most communities, if the housing authority’s, indeed, even taking applications 

at all. Successes will be replaced by other folks from that waiting 

list. And sanctions do not carry the same impact under the Section 

8 program that they would under welfare reform. 

Simply put, sanctioning a family for not fulfilling work requirements not only penalizes the family for that, but also jeopardizes 

the business relationships housing authorities and those tenants 

share with landlords dependent on that steady stream of income 

that is promised through the contract that we sign with them. 

The Housing Choice Voucher is not a failing program. It’s—its 

primary emphasis is not on families in the sense of TANF recipient 

cash assistance. There are approximately only 14 percent of our 

families that we assist that are receiving cash assistance, and a 

much higher percentage of our families are receiving Social Security and disability assistance. 

The Lending for Housing Commission has referred to the program as flexible, cost effective and successful under the commission. And the Housing Choice Vouchers’ already administered at 

the most local level possible here in Ohio. Flexibility offered to us 

in preferences, payment standards allow us to adapt to the local 

needs of our community. 

And our governance is local as well. Our boards are appointed by 

locally elected officials, they are responsive to their communities, 

and—and offer the opportunity to provide input to every individual 

in our community. 

Additionally, housing authorities uniquely have the opportunity 

to administer Section 8 because of our—of our experience in public 

housing. Simply put, landlords have a greater trust for us because 

we share many of the responsibilities of a landlord through our 

public housing program. 

I serve on the board of the National—or I’m sorry—the Lake 

County Apartment Owners Association, and that participation, 

from the landlord’s perspective, allows me to have greater input 

into apartment policies in our community; but also has provided 

the trust needed to develop the business relationships needed to expand our program over the last several years. 

One of the justifications for making the HANF program is that 

there are hundreds of pages of HUD regulation and guidance that 

19

would be pared down at the Federal level. Indeed, that probably 

would happen. However, some of that guidance is offered to us 

through the Housing Choice Voucher Guidebook, which was designed in the last year, and provides tremendous relief as far as 

guidance to offering the program on a national basis. 

If given to the States, the opportunities for technical assistance 

and guidance is diminished because we are now dependent upon 

Columbus for that same guidance as every housing authority or administrator of a Section 8 voucher program would be dependent 

upon their State capital. 

The myriad of regulations that housing authority and, more importantly, the families that receive our housing assistance would 

indeed grow. They would not—not only be responsive to the Federal guidelines established for the program, but the States and indeed local communities would be still designing implementation 

policies that would affect their lives as well. 

One of the other arguments that has been made is that by paring 

the number of HUD-administered Section 8 recipients from 2,600 

public housing authorities and nonprofit organizations to approximately 50 States and a few territories that we would be streamlining a program and that HUD would be better able to manage 

the program. I find this curious in an environment where they’ve 

established a very good indicator of Section 8 management through 

the SEMAP evaluation process, and more importantly in the development of information technology through PIC and the LOCCS system that Mr. Guest described where, indeed, management of 

26,000 housing—2,600 housing authorities should not be much 

more difficult than administering 50, and simply shifting that burden to the States does not provide for the program efficiency of the 

people—to the people that most need it, the families that are—are 

involved in our program. 

This is not to say that the Housing Choice Voucher Program is 

not in need of some changes and improvement. However, I would—

I would make the analogy that it’s more like taking your car in for 

a tune-up than buying a new car. The greater flexibility in setting 

H2S inspections to ensure that housing quality is maintained is indeed a good point that Mr. Guest made and others will make. 

Many of our landlords are very responsible, many are constructing new housing specifically for the program. And we have 

the opportunity to waive those inspection requirements. 

Rent calculations could also be simplified to—to allow families 

the opportunity to have less burden on them. 

And I’d also like to mention, in closing, that you’ve offered in the 

last five years the opportunity for housing authorities to explore 

deregulation to the Move Into Work program. You’ve created this 

demonstration for housing authorities to take essentially a block 

grant program, modify it, and design rules that will fit their local 

community. I urge you to take a look at those results and see what 

innovative housing authorities in our communities have already 

done. 

I thank you for your time this afternoon, and wish you well for 

the rest of this afternoon. 

[The prepared statement of Fred Zawilinski can be found on page 

191 in the appendix.] 

20

Chairman NEY. I want to thank all the witnesses. 

We’ll be in a series of questions. 

I just want to note to Bill Faith, in Los Angeles we had someone 

raise an issue about homelessness and Section 8 and something 

that HUD did not proceed with. And we have been in the process 

of finding out why that didn’t happen. I don’t know if you’re aware 

of that or not. But it was raised to our attention. 

So we’ll—because every hearing, somebody raises something that 

we don’t know that HUD hasn’t done. So homelessness was raised 

out there. Today you raised the—what we did three years ago 

about combining the 202 and the—and the tax credits, so we’ll follow back up on that as we’re following back up on homelessness. 

So I just wanted to assure you of that. 

Just a generic question, I guess I’d want to ask, of people that—

you know, when you look at the State of Ohio, and do you feel that 

the present piece of legislation that we presented for discussion, 

when it comes to—when it comes to HANF, do you think it’s locked 

tight enough to guarantee that the State couldn’t move monies? 

The only reason I mention that, the State acquired the TANF 

monies for Head Start—Mom and Dad used to call it stealing—but 

the State acquired those monies and moved those monies. 

So, you know, is there—do you think it’s—if we did this that 

there’s a foolproof way that State—the State would not be in a 

budget crunch if any money——

Mr. MCCLEARY. Can I respond, Mr. Chairman? 

I think that you have to look at it this way: Basically, any money 

that the State can steal, they will steal it if there’s a way to do it, 

it will be done. 

I mean, one of the problems of the program is a lot of independence, for a lot of people to get things done, and because we’ve never 

had the enforcement apparatus in place to stringently enforce the 

rules that we have. To give it to the State that’s not heretofore—

have no idea that bureaucracy, the money that they would need, 

just to get in place to take the program, it would be a nightmare. 

I think they would do it. They might not do it intentionally, but 

they probably would do it. 

Mr. FAITH. Mr. Chairman, I just experienced very close-up and 

personal the State budget process this year. And I have to tell you 

that they were some four-plus billion dollars in the hole when they 

started. They looked for money under every rock, and even uprooted a few trees to see if there was any money under there. They 

raided rotary funds, they looked—they raided unclaimed funds, 

they raided any funds they could find, raised taxes, raised fees, 

which—some of which were very positive, by the way. 

However, they looked for money everywhere they could find it. 

And I don’t—I don’t think it’s the administrators of the program 

that would shuffle money from here to there. But I think as States 

struggle with this very difficult economy and a lack of resources to 

simply fund basic State government services, you could bet there 

would be supplanting of—of funds. I mean, if they can get away 

with it, they would do it. Because they feel they’re forced to. They 

don’t have the resources that they need to manage their own affairs. 

So I think that’s a fear. 

21

But I think there’s a more fundamental problem, and that is the 

State is simply not in the ongoing rental assistance business. 

They—that’s not their expertise; they have no history with that. 

They administer production programs and do a decent job of that, 

because it’s basically a onetime commitment. They monitor for ongoing compliance, but they’re not involved in the manner that Mr. 

Guest described with that kind of hands-on year-to-year basis with 

these owners and tenants. 

And I don’t—and I just don’t think that’s their expertise, I don’t 

think they want to get into that business, and I think that’s one 

of the bigger problems with the proposal. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

On the comment Mr. Guest made, is everybody pretty well in 

agreement about the rent recertifications for seniors, we could do 

it for every two years? And also the PHAS to inspect the units 

every two to three years rather than yearly? Does everybody feel 

pretty comfortable with that? 

Mr. MCCLEARY. If there is a waiver where there is immediate inspection upon complaint. I think if there’s a process if there’s a 

problem, has to be well in place that the resident could ask for that 

at any rate. 

Chairman NEY. My final question, I did want to ask you——

I’m sorry. Yes? 

Mr. GLADMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I may just add to what Mr. 

McCleary said. I think that that process for inspection, in my testimony, I’m suggesting eliminating it and going with a liaison person 

to resolve problems, because I think that we become focused on this 

process of inspection and really we kind of lose sight of housing 

quality in general. There’s other issues besides the physical aspect 

of the properties. The point-in-time inspection, you could inspect it 

one day, it could deteriorate the next. There needs to be a process 

that’s ongoing that provides the resident some support as well as 

the owner to make this program really work. 

But right now we’re spending a lot of time and energy and frustrating a lot of people to do these point-in-time inspections. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

My time’s run out. But, Ms. Fisher, I did want to afterwards just 

get some of the ideas you had about—ideas of how we would reward people who have been hard workers, maybe later on we could. 

Ms. FISHER. I just think they should be acknowledged. I don’t 

have any ideas as far as how——

Chairman NEY. Acknowledge them. 

Ms. FISHER.——but I just think they should be acknowledged. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

My final question, Mr. McCleary, I noted in your testimony, you 

were talking about systematic—systemic, I’m sorry, problems relating to developers and private property owners having appropriate 

security-related budgets. So that would be—what would that be? 

Mr. MCCLEARY. Well, the current cap, I think, you have like a 

10-percent administrative cost that goes to the property managers. 

The problem with that, they have—most property owners have to 

choose between maintenance and security and other issues, so the 

end result, maintenance taking priority to security unless they 

22

have a total crises. Then, the traditional response is, once the crisis 

is over, go back to inadequate security. 

One of the biggest things that hurt expansion of the program and 

people welcoming this program into the community is both the fear 

and perception of crime that’s done in these communities. And putting different monies available to the property owners who do have 

security budgets and the legal—legal budgets to accommodate that, 

not only would it stabilize the community, but I think it would do 

a great job in changing the whole perception of this program in the 

broader community, and make more people welcoming in engaging 

the program. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

The gentlewoman. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to thank all of you for testifying here this afternoon. 

Mr. McCleary, I support many of the commentaries that you 

made. One of the things that we spoke out about last year was the 

fact that HUD reduced the drug elimination grant dollars going to 

public housing to address many of the various issues that you 

raised. And I guess our horses weren’t just quite loud enough, because they still eliminated some of the money anyway. 

But I want you to know that your comments are not falling on 

deaf ears. There are a lot of us who know of many of the issues 

that you raised with regard to that. 

Let me quickly, Mr. Guest, bring you greetings from Terry Hamilton Brown, who is now actually the head of University Circle, 

Inc., in Cleveland, but she told me—I told her I was coming, and 

she said, tell everybody she said hello. 

I want to talk briefly about this inspection piece. And I’ll talk to 

Mr. Guest about it or anyone else. 

The dilemma I have comes from a history of having been an attorney for landlords as well as an attorney for tenants back in the 

day, as my 20-year-old son says, and dealing with the landlord-tenant laws and dealing with the—in someone’s testimony, they said 

that the landlord-tenant laws were convenient or—adequate 

enough to address some of the issues that are raised by people in 

Section 8 settings. 

I would say, based on that—the background that I have that it 

would be very, very important that the housing authorities maintain as much control as possible over inspections because when you 

start going to the court system to resolve an issue that ought to 

have been resolved between you and the landlord and the tenant, 

it presents a problem. 

I don’t understand—and I need a short answer, because we don’t 

have very much time—what you’re saying that the—a person could 

do, or you were talking about having a tenant representative or 

something. 

Mr. Gladman? 

Mr. GLADMAN. My suggestion is to take the existing funding that 

you use for inspections and transfer that staff and make them really problem-solvers and resolvers. So if there is a housing quality 

issue, they can do a housing quality inspection. But there are a lot 

of issues that are unrelated, that affect the quality of life, whether 

23

it’s resident disputes or unfairly administered program rules as far 

as the owner. 

Ms. JONES. So you would be happy, then, if we put some money 

in for residents’ disputes and other quality-of-life instances——

Mr. GLADMAN. The purpose——

Ms. JONES.——not necessarily diminishing inspections, you just 

say there are other issues that ought to be addressed. 

Mr. GLADMAN. Yes. I think there are broader issues, and to 

focus—really, the inspection is the primary control, if you will, and 

it’s a point-in-time inspection. The market drives that—what happens now is——

Ms. JONES. Let me ask you this, Mr. Gladman: You know we’re 

coming on the end of the 20 years where—period where there were 

all these contracts with these different buildings to provide housing, and now they are not renewed because the market value far 

exceeds the dollars that people are getting. When you start going 

into some of those facilities and looking at how they’ve deteriorated 

over the years, how do you justify no inspection? 

Mr. GLADMAN. Well, from the project basis, there certainly is an 

inspection process, as you know, I think the react process. 

But what happens currently, because inspections are such a barrier—an example, in the Columbus market we have several companies that have project-based properties all over the country and operate a variety of subsidized programs, but will not accept any 

vouchers in their market-rate programs because of all the transactional barriers because of inspections. 

My argument is if you eliminate the inspections or at least 

streamline, as Mr. Guest said, you will get more property owners 

that are providing a quality product, and there will be greater 

choice for voucher holders. That’s one of the issues now is the 

choice. 

Ms. JONES. I hate to cut you off, but I want to go to a couple of 

issues before the day is gone. 

Talk to me, Mr. Slemmer, about what barriers there are to the 

construction of additional affordable housing across the country. A 

real short answer, if you could. 

Mr. SLEMMER. In talking about senior housing, the barriers are 

basically the limitation of funds. To develop affordable housing, you 

have to have subsidies on the construction, the debt service side, 

or subsidies on the operations side. Both of them are very limited. 

One of the things that I’ve mentioned before to this committee 

is that the preservation of housing is, therefore, even more important, because you could preserve the affordable housing stock that 

we have at much less cost than we have—we have for new construction. So I would really urge you to consider that as we look 

at ways of—of expanding or continuing to supply affordable housing. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

My time is up. 

I just want to go on the record in opposition to the proposal for 

block granting Section 8. I’m opposed to block granting Head Start. 

I’m opposed to block granting everything that we can block grant. 

Because there are so many issues that the Federal Government has 

24

requirements that will not be imposed by the State of Ohio. And 

I won’t—I won’t get partisan up here today, so I’ll leave that alone. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

On a bipartisan basis, I have to let you know, the good Congressman Tiberi, I introduced his proposal at 7:00 in the evening, and 

he opposed it at 6:30. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me—let me continue down the road that Ms. Tubbs Jones 

talked about that was mentioned in several of your testimony, and 

that is this issue of inspections again from Ms. Fisher to Mr. 

Gladman to Mr. Guest. 

One of the issues that I’ve heard a little bit about from those who 

may be proponents of this block granting is the frustration with 

this particular issue, the inspection issue. 

Mr. Guest, can you give me a—give the panel an idea of the 

breakdown in the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority of the 

Section 8 program of residents in private landlord facilities versus 

public facilities? Do you know that breakdown? 

Mr. GUEST. Well, we have—if you’re looking at the size of programs, we have 10,000 vouchers right now. We’re a little overleased over what we’re allotted. So we’re—we’re past that hundred 

percent category here. 

We have 27,000 residents in the Section 8 program. In the public 

housing program, we have about 8,000. So there is no doubt that 

it is a predominant program in Franklin County. And it’s critical 

that it work well. 

And in Congress we get going about the—we talk about the inspections and how all of this works. I’ve not seen the answers in 

two or three years. Obviously, Steve and I have variations. I think 

there is general agreement that it doesn’t work the way it does 

now. And I think the key thing is that—I would propose, maybe on 

an experimental basis, maybe far more conversation, as to what 

are the alternatives to the current system of inspections? Are there 

criteria that could be set up where provided—you know, I would 

guess every two to three years somebody does a really good job, 

every time we’ve been out there, it’s up-to-date, bang, bang, bang, 

bang, all right, it’s three years before we have to go back out. 

Others who have been more problematical, maybe it’s every six 

months you need to go back out. Or maybe you need to have a liaison system. 

But right now it does frustrate very good owners to say, well, I’d 

rather have—I mean, I hear from the other side of it, you know, 

every once in a while, you know, I don’t want to have to go deal 

with somebody and spend time on an inspection when I’ve been 

leasing my units to other people, and they have the common sense 

to determine themselves whether that’s a good unit or a bad unit. 

So I think we make great leaps and set up cumbersome procedures that may only affect a small number of people, we need to 

focus more on them. So what we can do to generate a more localized version of that, or at the national level, if you can just give 

more flexibility and say, come up with something at the local level 

that makes sense, that most everybody can agree on, I think would 

be really helpful. 

25

Mr. TIBERI. Mr. Zawilinski, have you heard some of the same, 

similar issues up in Lake County? 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. I agree that we have actually much different inspection needs than—than inner city Cleveland and Cuyahoga 

County faces in the sense that our housing stock is much newer. 

We get the reports, for example, on children that we receive, elevated blood levels for lead poisoning, and we may have one a year 

in our county for all houses, not subsidized housing. And certainly 

in many of the cities that is a much greater issue. 

If we could grant to owners the opportunity to—to be waived 

from inspections for two or three years, the safeguard to that is 

that the tenants or an owner can request an inspection at any time 

to verify that our inspection standards are still being met. 

Mr. TIBERI. You don’t believe you have authority today to do 

that? 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. To waive the annual inspection? I know we don’t 

have the authority to do that. We have to do it every 12 months. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

Mr. MCCLEARY. Congressman Tiberi, may I make a comment——

Mr. TIBERI. Yes. 

Mr. MCCLEARY.——listening to them? 

Can I suggest we can put in place a sworn affidavit process, that 

the property owner signs an affidavit the unit meets the criteria 

set by CMHA, or whatever, with substantial penalties to anybody 

that perjured on the affidavit? 

I think that would accomplish the objective and save a whole lot 

of money and time. That way you only focus on getting the bad people. So if a complaint is validated that they lied, then there would 

be a heavy penalty for them for doing that. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

One last question because I know my time is about ready to expire. 

The issue that Mr. Gladman brought up of timely payments and 

fair market rents, and an issue that we’ve heard about today with 

respect to the number of housing units that are available in a marketplace, whether that marketplace be Columbus, Cincinnati, 

Cleveland, whatever city, is that an issue that you and Mr. Guest 

have heard about in terms of a national issue? Or do you guys have 

some flexibility in your local housing authority with respect to that 

issue with private owners? 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. I would say for our housing authority, we’ve 

been timely based on the HUD-established timeliness standard. 

Mr. TIBERI. What does that mean? 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. Well, it means that we get our checks out to our 

landlords within five days, business days, of when we get the 

money from HUD. And if the 1st happens to fall on Saturday, on 

Labor Day weekend, we don’t get our checks out at best until the 

4th. Landlords are typically expecting those checks out on the 1st. 

To us, we’ve been timely; to a landlord, they may not think so. 

Mr. TIBERI. Very good point. 

Mr. GUEST. I was going to say, that’s a very similar problem that 

all of us have. 

Another issue that you may hear about is the whole projectbased issue of payments on that. Now, that has been very slow. 

26

Like I said, we’ve got a lot of project-based developments we deal 

with, and there is a case—we’re only doing two-month renewals oftentimes, the dollars—it’s paperwork intensive. I know we’ve had 

some owners within the last four or five months, it’s been as much 

as 20, 30 and 45 days before we have gotten the money from HUD. 

And we’re not talking about a thousand dollars. We’re talking 

about in some cases over $100,000. These are large developments. 

That is particularly—we can all imagine what that means. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you all. Thank you all for coming. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Fred, for both—

thanks, Fred, for driving all the way from Lake County, and thank 

you more for describing why we call Lake County God’s country in 

that part of Ohio. 

I—you would come to see me with a couple other fellows earlier 

in the year, and I’d like to just ask you to comment—I’ll go ahead 

and turn the spotlight on you, and then maybe ask Mr. Guest to 

make an observation from Columbus’s point of view—but on the 

omnibus appropriations bill at the beginning of this year had a provision that indicated that there was a cap placed upon the amount 

of administrative fees to be placed in an agency’s reserve fund and 

in general reserve funds that could be maintained by a housing authority. If I remember—and you can certainly, in your answer, tell 

me if I remember it right—indicated—and then we’ll go to Mr. 

Gladman and other folks’ comments about timely payments to the 

landlord—but when you get to the end of the year, and you have 

to roll out the checks for the first of January of 2003 or 2004, it 

was—many times that those reserve funds made the difference between whether or not you were able to make the bills and the payments for the—for the landlords, particularly when—and I’ll take 

a slap at the republicans and democrats—we didn’t get our work 

done, and don’t have an appropriations bill in place in a timely 

fashion on September the 30th of whatever year we’re dealing with. 

Could you make an observation about the impact that you think 

that provision of the omnibus appropriations bill had? 

And, Mr. Guest, then I’d like you to share any thoughts that you 

have as well. 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. The issue that you referred to is the recapture 

of administrative fee reserves that we had as the housing authority 

during that bill. And for us it provided a buffer so that were HUD 

to be late in releasing functions, or were Congress, in appropriating 

funds, that we have the ability to at least meet a month, perhaps 

two, if it broke down to that—that level of payments to our landlords on a timely basis. By recapturing those funds, we’ve lost a 

tremendous amount of flexibility in not only working our program, 

Section 8 program, but it also alleviated us of the opportunity of 

being able to use those funds for other housing-related purposes in 

our community. 

It also has created an atmosphere and attitude that we have very 

little incentive to make equipment and programs stretch because 

the risk of recapturing those funds means that there’s no reward 

for getting an extra year out of our inspector’s car or computer. 

27

And so replacement of equipment on a much more quick basis, 

you know, will be more of an emphasis, because we have no incentive to save. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And so basically if I—we’ve run into this problem with a number of programs on Capitol Hill. So basically the 

effect of the recapture provision was you might as well spend it if 

you’ve got it, because they’re just going to take it back at the end 

of the year anyway. 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. Well, and in our case, not only was it a recapture of funds from the previous year, but it was a buildup of surplus of funds over many years. And so the rewards of frugality and 

responsible administration were—were punished. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Guest, do you have a similar situation here in Columbus? 

Mr. GUEST. Yes, we’re in a similar situation. Obviously, it cuts 

down on your flexibility to run into this situation where the funds 

aren’t coming on time. 

But there’s other issues that came up. For example, Mr. Slemmer 

mentioned that we help—that we’re helping on developing a senior 

community up in Westerville. Over the years, we have accumulated 

money from being efficient. That land was purchased with the Section 8 funds in order to make that program work. 

So there is an incentive to make other programs come about because of it. And if that incentive, as Mr. Zawilinski pointed out, is 

removed, it is—gets to be, let’s just spend it all this year. It’s a terrible attitude, but that’s what inevitably will happen. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And to both of you, too, a question: In your experience, have either of your authorities returned Section 8 vouchers unused? Have you not been able to completely subscribe those? 

Mr. ZAWILINSKI. We have not used the number of vouchers 

issued; but we’ve more than used the number of dollars issued, attached to those vouchers. Because of the rising cost in utilities and 

rental charges, we’ve always been able to use our dollars. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And, Mr. Guest. 

Mr. GUEST. We haven’t returned any. Like I said, we’re overleased right now, so there won’t be any coming back. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

I want to thank a very good panel. I appreciate your input. It’s 

important to the process. And appreciate your participation here at 

the U.S. House field hearing. 

And I want to thank the members for their time, also. 

And with that, we’ll move on to Panel II. 

Thank you. 

We’re going to move on immediately to the second panel. So if 

you don’t want to stay for the second panel, move on. 

The subcommittee will come to order for Panel II. 

We’ll begin Panel II, and introduce the Mayor. 

We welcome you, Mayor. 

Mayor Coleman of Columbus, Ohio, meet Congressman Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It’s a pleasure and honor for me to introduce my Mayor, the 

Mayor of the City of Columbus, Michael Coleman, who was elected 

28

to City Council in the early 1990s, and really doesn’t need to be 

introduced to anybody in the audience, but at least to the panel, 

was later elected council President, in 1999 was elected Mayor of 

the City of Columbus, and will be reelected to a second term in November. 

Most importantly from my perspective, though, he is a constituent and a friend. Thank you for testifying today. 

Mayor. 

STATEMENT OF HONORABLE MICHAEL B. COLEMAN, MAYOR 

OF COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. COLEMAN. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Chairman—Chairman Ney. Congressman Tiberi, who is my Congressman, and is doing a great job for his district and the City of 

Columbus and central Ohio. Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs 

Jones, who’s also my friend, welcome back to the City of Columbus. 

Congressman Steve LaTourette, thank you very much for being in 

the great City of Columbus. 

And I want to also thank all of you for bringing this hearing to 

our city and choosing the City of Columbus to talk about such an 

important issue as we are presented with here today. 

Housing. Housing has been a very important part of my administration, because in this city we view housing and residential opportunities as a way to build strong neighborhoods, strong families, 

and a better quality of life. In our neighborhoods we view them as 

key to the survival of our city. They’re the lifeblood of our city. 

That is where we live, where we work, and where—and where we 

play and raise families. 

In Columbus we’re doing a great deal to address many of our 

needs locally. The City of Columbus has helped finance or participated in approximately 6,000 residential units during my first four 

years as Mayor. And when we first took office, we felt that housing 

was so important, working with Columbus City Council, and 

Charleta Tavares, who is here today, that we pulled together 

what’s called—what we called the Affordable Housing Task Force 

of members of the community who are involved in housing to address many of the issues in our city, in a city where only 49 percent 

of our residents own a home when the national average is about 

68, 69 percent. There is a great disparity there. 

We looked at things such as tax incentive for housing, land banking, streamlining the development process, driving down the cost of 

buying a home, and, very importantly, the establishment of a local 

housing trust fund and corporation. 

The Franklin County/Columbus Affordable Housing Trust Corporation was subsequently put together. It’s a collaboration between the county commissioners and the City of Columbus where 

we utilize a dedicated resource of funding, that being the hotelmotel tax of about $1 million annually, to revitalize neighborhoods, 

increase homeownership, and make housing more affordable for 

people in our city. 

Presently, the affordable housing trust corporation has some 800 

units through this trust fund. 

In addition, we’ve created five neighborhood investment districts, 

we call them NIDs. And these investment districts are areas of our 

29

city where there has been a disinvestment of—of businesses, people 

moving out of the area, fewer students in our schools, a proliferation of vacant lots. And in these five areas we indicated and designed a program where if someone were to move into the area, 

build a home on one of these vacant lots, or substantially rehab a 

home, they will receive a 15-year tax abatement and live there taxfree for 15 years. We have $3.4 million commitment of HOME funds for supportive housing as well. And in 2002 through 2003 we committed $6.3 million in HOME funds, upgrading three large Section 8 projects, to 

preserve affordable housing and enhance their contribution to our 

neighborhoods. 

Let me just touch on remedying the concentration of Section 8 

projects in Columbus neighborhoods. 

One of our major efforts is to renovate and upgrade Section 8 

housing, and that is being led by Community Properties of Ohio. 

They now own one of the largest scattered site Section 8 projects 

in the entire nation, more than 1,100 apartments and 249 buildings located in the central city. Through new homeownership 

agreement, we are now—we are not only helping leverage the rehabilitation of the housing stock, but also ensuring that these residents can continue to receive the affordable housing that they 

need. 

Decentralization of these affordable units must also occur in 

order to improve the quality of life of the neighborhoods. Community Properties is currently working with members of Congress to 

design a solution that would allow Section 8 subsidies and use restrictions to be transferred to properties in areas of the city where 

such properties are not heavily concentrated. 

In other words, share the burden among everybody in the City 

of Columbus, not just in one area or two areas of our city. We all 

have that responsibility and obligation. 

This will help ease the concentration of poverty and allow new 

investments to flow into neighborhoods. I look forward to working 

with the legislature in this regard. 

Let me just touch on Section 8 vouchers. I believe that the proposal to block grant the Section 8 voucher program to States should 

not be enacted in this country. The Section 8 voucher program administered through our local public housing authority is the most 

effective way to assure local families’ housing needs are addressed 

by a local community and not by the State of Ohio or any State, 

for that matter. 

Let me touch on the need for greater Federal commitment for 

housing and community development. 

In Columbus the combination of Federal home resources and 

local funds are still not enough to meet the housing needs of the 

very low income households. Those earning less than 30 percent of 

the area median income in the City of Columbus. That’s why it is 

important that additional Federal resources be considered for increasing and preserving the supply of affordable housing in the 

City of Columbus. 

One option is the creation of a national housing trust fund, something that Congress is—has recently introduced and is entertaining. By leveraging additional Federal funds with the efforts of 

30

our local housing trust corporation that was established in 2001, 

we can increase the production of affordable housing and better address the housing needs of low income households in the City of 

Columbus. 

I also ask that you consider the creation of a homeownership tax 

credit. An initiative that can have as great an impact on homeownership rate in Columbus as the low income housing tax credit 

has had for affordable rental housing. 

Columbus needs to increase the percentage of homeownership 

rate, which is, as you know, 49 percent. 

We believe that a homeownership tax credit can significantly increase the homeownership rate by attracting needed investment in 

new home development and complementing local efforts to stimulate owner-occupied housing in our older neighborhoods. 

Let me just touch on Community Development Block Grants. 

As in so many cities, parts of Columbus’s urban core are still experiencing high levels of poverty, declining populations, and low 

homeownership rates. Columbus has received about $8 million in 

CDBG entitlement in the year 2003 to directly serve such areas. 

Yet, this amount is significantly below other cities of similar size 

and demographics in the country. 

The population of the older City of Columbus approximates that 

of several other—other urban areas, such as Baltimore, Memphis, 

Seattle and Honolulu. But Columbus receives less CDBG funds 

than any of these cities. 

The need for revitalization in Columbus is just as great as in 

those other cities. 

HUD should look at their current allocation formulas and update 

the criteria so that cities like Columbus, which experienced major 

growth after 1940, can get a balanced amount of CDBG funds. 

I urge you to partner with us to take a look at how the CDBG 

formula works and make recommendations on the distribution of 

these funds to reflect the community development and housing 

needs of our city and in other cities. 

In summary, let me just touch basically again on the four—four 

or five areas that we’re asking that you take a look at. 

Number one, transferring of Section 8 subsidies and use restrictions on the—one of the largest Section 8 projects in the nation, 

Community Properties, in order to reduce the concentration of subsidized housing in one area of the city, so they can be shared in 

all areas of the city. 

Number two is the proposed Housing Assistance to Needy Families should not be enacted. Local administration of Section 8 voucher program is the best way to address local housing needs. 

Number three, we need additional Federal resources, and they 

should be considered for increasing and preserving the supply for 

affordable housing. And one option is the creation of a national 

housing trust fund. We think that could go a long way when you 

partner with local communities around the country, particularly 

those communities that have trust fund incorporations like the City 

of Columbus. 

And number four, the creation of a homeownership tax credit to 

increase homeownership. 

31

And number five, take a new look at how the CDBG formula 

works, and make recommendations on the distribution of these 

funds to achieve a balanced allocation of CDBG funds to reflect the 

community development and housing needs of our city and other 

cities. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify. Thanks for holding this 

hearing in Columbus. 

And I also want to thank those who have come out today to testify from all over the State of Ohio. 

Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Michael B. Coleman can be 

found on page 90 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Mayor, for your testimony and your 

office’s participation in helping us with this hearing. 

I really don’t have any questions. Just a couple observations, 

though. 

I have supported the bill by Rob Portman, which would be of interest to you, with the tax credit. 

And then the issue of the CDBG was raised in California, too. 

They’re looking at 1950-some statistics, is what they’re looking at. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Yeah. 

Chairman NEY. Which opens it—that back up to be a huge food 

fight, because some cities are going to get less. We’re probably all 

on the same page here, but other cities and other States that 

wouldn’t be so happy with this. But it’s an issue that keeps cropping up. 

And I’ll move on to the gentlelady. 

But one—one statistic that you said shocks me. Columbus is 48 

percent housing ownership? 

Mr. COLEMAN. About 49 percent. It was less than that a few 

years ago. 

Chairman NEY. This was my second home for 22 years between 

Belmont County and here going to Ohio State and also the legislature, and I’ve seen amazing growth in this city. And it’s just shocking, I guess, with that growth not everybody has bought places to 

live. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Yes. And it’s something that I saw back in ’99, ’98, 

that we felt was important to deal with because in my view—and 

the reason why homeownership is so important in our city, and the 

rest of America, not only for the American dream, but when people 

have ownership in their neighborhoods, they have a vested interest 

in the success of their neighborhoods. 

And our rate is far too low. And it’s going to take a lot of help 

from the Federal Government to increase homeownership rates in 

our community and all neighborhoods of our city. 

Chairman NEY. Gentlelady. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor Coleman, good afternoon. I’m so pleased to be in Columbus once again. 

I have not had an opportunity to say this publicly, I’m so very 

proud of the work that you do. It just makes my chest stick out. 

When I grow up, I want to be like you, run unopposed. 

But I—and your words are loud and clear, and I support many 

of the things that you’ve said. 

32

I am interested in talking for a moment in your testimony about 

the disbursement of low income housing so that it’s not all concentrated in one area. Tell me what that will do for the City of Columbus. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Well, first of all, I think there’s an obligation for 

everybody to be of help in this area, and every neighborhood, and 

not just one or two neighborhoods in the City of Columbus. Because 

we all have an obligation. 

Number two is that I believe it’s important, for example, downtown—I call downtown everybody’s neighborhood—but I believe 

like for our downtown that there has to be every income level represented in our downtown. Historically, we haven’t had very much 

housing in our downtown. We’ve developed a plan, a policy, and 

now we’re actually building units in our downtown now. But it is 

representative of the entire economic spectrum, the entire market 

within our community, the high income, the low income, and everywhere in between. 

And, in fact, the very first project we were involved in the City 

of Columbus was a low income housing effort and homeless effort 

downtown called Commons at Grant. That is now constructed on 

Grant, where there are a hundred units, and it took a great partnership between a lot of people, a lot of entities to make it happen. 

But I think it makes stronger neighborhoods, a better quality of 

life, and spreads the opportunity among all neighborhoods in our 

city. 

Ms. JONES. Do you have a large network of community development corporations in the City of Columbus? 

Mr. COLEMAN. Well, it depends on what you compare it to. We’ve 

been actively—in fact, I’ve created a community development corporation, a couple of them now, and about to create a third one for 

this area you’re in right now called the King-Lincoln Development 

Corporation. 

We have community development corporations. They need 

strengthening in the City of Columbus. They need tools. They need 

financing. They need capacities. And that’s something that we 

could use some help on as well. 

Ms. JONES. I asked that question because in Cleveland we’ve had 

great success with community development corporations with a lot 

of the housing development that has occurred, and I am sponsoring 

a piece of legislation called the Seed Act, which provides capacity 

for community development corporations to train the members of 

the board because they’re traditionally neighborhood folk, to offer 

them economists, architects, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

That’s my only paid political announcement. So anybody out 

there who would be interested in that, please call your 

Congressperson. 

And I will close with that, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, Mayor Coleman, it’s so good to be with you this afternoon, 

and always good to see you. And I promise I’ll be in touch. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. 

Chairman NEY. Thanks, gentlelady. 

Mr. Pat Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

33

I’m going to put an ad in for Ms. Jones, as well, for the legislation, I’m a cosponsor of that legislation. 

And I’d make one request of you, Mayor, is before you leave, if 

you could put in—a word in for Ms. Jones, and make sure that she 

spends a lot of money here in Columbus before she goes back to 

Cleveland. 

Mr. COLEMAN. That’s my Congressman right there. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you and your staff for your work on these 

issues, and for communicating with me and my staff, I truly appreciate that, Director Barbash as well and his staff on these issues 

and other issues. 

In fact, I was at the Homeless Families Foundation this morning, 

and both of your names came up, and your working with them on 

trying to partner with the Federal Government and the city on trying to improve their situation on the near west side. 

I really appreciate your relationship on the CDBG issue and look 

forward to working with you, and maybe not just with you, with 

other Mayors who face similar problems in their cities, who are 

being shortchanged because of the formula, and working with those 

Mayors and their members of Congress, maybe we can win that 

food fight, because it will be a food fight, with other members of 

Congress and those Mayors who now benefit from that formula. 

So thank you for your leadership. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Congressman LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor, it’s a pleasure to be in your company. Although you’re the 

Mayor of Columbus, your reputation certainly goes up to the part 

of the State that I’m from, and you are clearly an example of a 

chief executive of a city and how it should be run, and I congratulate you on that. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You don’t have to worry about Ms. Tubbs 

Jones, Mr. Tiberi, she’s cut the wide slot through many malls. And 

I’m sure—I am sure she’ll do her part in the Columbus area as 

well. 

Mayor, my question, I was intrigued with—Mr. Faith was here 

on the first panel, and he talked a little bit about the same issue, 

being that of the national trust fund. One of the difficulties that 

I have with it, not being a cosponsor, even though it’s tripartisan, 

as he indicated, it has the only independent, Mr. Sanders of 

Vermont, who is the lead sponsor, is how he proposes to fund it. 

So I was interested in your idea. Do you devote all of the hotelmotel tax to that purpose? 

Mr. COLEMAN. No. We have set aside a specific percentage of the 

hotel-motel tax collections towards providing for affordable housing 

in the City of Columbus. So that if you spend the night here in the 

City of Columbus——

Are you spending the night here? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I am. 

Mr. COLEMAN.——a percent of your bill that you will pay will go 

directly to providing housing for somebody in our city. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. 

Is it possible to get the Tiberi discount while I’m here, too? 

34

Mr. COLEMAN. As long as—as long as you use the word ‘‘Tiberi.’’. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Can I ask you what is the rate that your 

hotel—what is the percentage? 

Mr. COLEMAN. Oh, let’s see here. 

You’ve got me on that one. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Can I ask you and, maybe you can get back 

to it, but what percentage of whatever your rate is, is set aside 

for——

Mr. COLEMAN. It’s set aside by a council act, set aside, every year 

it goes into a fund, and the Housing Trust Corporation uses that 

to leverage private financing for affordable housing. 

It’s about 20 percent of the bed tax. What’s the bed tax? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. 80 percent more. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And that generates about a million dollars, 

you’re saying? 

Mr. COLEMAN. Well, yes. The good thing about setting aside a 

percentage is that as that fund grows, as the—more people come 

to Columbus, and that’s why we’re glad that you’re here, the more 

people that come to Columbus, they pay more for hotel rooms, and 

the bed tax goes up, and, therefore, they’re supporting some of our 

neediest people in our city in the process. 

Our bed tax also pays for emergency human services, part of it 

goes to the general fund, part of it goes to the arts and the visitors 

bureau as well. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I think that’s—where I’m from, the bulk of it 

goes to the visitors bureau, if I have it right. And your idea of sort 

of separating it, or trifurcating it, or whatever the word for splitting it in fives is, is probably an idea that’s worthy of studying in 

other areas of the State. And I’ve learned something today. 

And, again, I appreciate the opportunity to hear you testify, I appreciate the benefit of your insight. 

And, Mr. Chairman, the last question, this has nothing to do 

with housing: Mr. Mayor, is it Jerry Springer or Eric Fingerhut 

that gets your——

Mr. COLEMAN. I guess we’ll just have to see. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. I can see why you’re unopposed, and now I understand why our colleague, Steve LaTourette, keeps winning. 

Any further questions of the Mayor? 

Mr. COLEMAN. If I might, I might want to add on to the discussion with—about the community development corporations. Because what I have found as Mayor of this city is that community 

development corporations, if they have the capacity, are very, very 

successful in providing economic development opportunities and 

housing opportunities in this city. 

And we need to hold them up, we need to give them additional 

tools and additional capacity. 

And I can see many ways where the Federal Government can be 

of assistance. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Mayor. 

Appreciate your time. 

Mr. COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. And we’ll move on to Panel III. Panel III: 

35

Mr. TIBERI. While the chairman makes his way up here, I would 

like us all to give our thanks to Barbara Nicholson, the Executive 

Director—Barbara, can you wave?—of the King Arts Center and 

her staff for doing a wonderful job in accommodating us today in 

this wonderful facility. 

Thank you, Barbara. 

Chairman NEY. I want to welcome our third panel. 

And we—first, we have Bambi Baughn, the Deputy Director of 

the Community Action Commission of Fayette County, Washington 

Court House, Ohio; Walter Cates, Sr., President, Main Street Business Association, Columbus, Ohio; Roberta Garber, Executive Director, Community Research Partners, Columbus, Ohio; Amy 

Klaben, President and CEO, Columbus Housing Partnership, Columbus, Ohio; Cynthia K. Ring, Executive Director, Allen Metropolitan Housing Authority, Lima, Ohio; and April Weaver, a resident of Columbus, Ohio. 

And with that, we’ll begin with Bambi. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF BAMBI BAUGHN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY ACTION COMMISSION OF FAYETTE, COUNTY, WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, OHIO 

Ms. BAUGHN. Well, thanks for the opportunity to submit testimony on housing policy in Ohio to this subcommittee. 

Thank you, Chairman Ney, for convening this hearing. 

I’m the deputy director of Community Action Agency in Washington Court House, Ohio. We are not part of Columbus. We are 

45 miles south of Columbus. We are contiguous to Ross County. 

My written testimony addresses the subcommittee’s questions 

concerning affordable housing production. And it includes a description of the housing programs and activities of our agency and 

a rural perspective of the housing needs and activities in the State 

of Ohio, especially the difficulties in developing housing in rural 

areas compared to developing them in an urban area. 

So in this brief oral presentation, I’m just going to focus on what 

we’re doing in our agency in Fayette County, I’m going to emphasize on homeownership programs. Because in the rural counties we 

have access to USDA rural developments, or as we always call it 

back home, the Farmers Home Administration, and we’ve found 

that homeownership under USDA is a good option for affordable 

housing. 

The Community Action Commission of Fayette County is a multipurpose organization. We’ve been in Fayette County for over 35 

years. Fayette County is a rural county. We have 28,000 people 

total. And our agency is just one of a few social services in agencies 

in the county. 

And besides the housing program, we operate two Head Start 

centers, we have the public transit system, we offer home winterization, emergency assistance, we have health clinics and a dental 

clinic. We have numerous programs for the elderly and services to 

the families with children. 

The housing programs created by our agency cover the entire 

continuum of housing services. We have prevention programs for 

persons facing impending homelessness. We operate an emergency 

shelter and transitional housing for the homeless. 

36

Our agency owns and operates a single-room occupancy facility 

for the homeless that provides permanent supportive housing for 

17 single adults. That particular facility does have Section 8 

project-based vouchers with it. So that’s my experience with Section 8. 

And we’re also involved in several rental communities, and we’ve 

used a variety of funding for that, which is tax credits, USDA 515, 

we’ve done some housing trust fund money from the State, and 

we’ve also used the HOME money from HUD, mainly as gap funding for tax credits. 

Our most successful housing activity, however, is our homeownership program, which we operate almost exclusively through 

USDA funding. 

Our program’s called Self-Help Housing, and we have the only 

mutual Self-Help Housing program in the State of Ohio, although 

I do think there is one getting ready to start operating in Athens. 

Our program’s funded through a USDA 523 grant. We began operating this program in 1995, after nearly five years of planning 

and predevelopment. 

Since it began, our agency has received five USDA 523 grants 

and four Self-Help Housing Opportunity Program or SHOP awards 

from HUD, totaling $1.75 million at leveraging additional funds for 

a total economic impact to Fayette County of 8.9 million. 

133 homes have been built through our Self-Help Housing program. 

Under this unique program, the agency organizes families in 

groups of six to five to eight, and we assist them in applying for 

USDA Section 502 single-family mortgages. We work with them as 

they put in over 1,000 hours of sweat equity in the building of their 

own and their neighbors’ homes. No one moves into their homes 

until all the houses in the group are finished. 

A skilled construction supervisor from our staff works with the 

families, providing training and technical assistance during construction. A family worker is on-site to monitor the family’s schedules. 

After the families complete the homes, they have done 65 percent 

of the construction labor themselves, the families have approximately $10,000 of true equity in their homes. These are not soft 

second mortgages that need to be forgiven over a period of time. 

This is true, honest equity. 

In our Self-Help Housing program, we’ve used the housing assistance council’s HUD-funded Self-Help Housing Opportunity Program. We received $850,000 in SHOP funds from HAC, and another $800,000 in loans from HAC’s Rural Housing Loan Fund. 

The SHOP funding helps us buy land and put in infrastructure 

for our Self-Help Homes. Without this SHOP money, we would 

have a very difficult time doing Self-Help in a subdivision as we’re 

doing now, because the cost of getting the land, putting in the infrastructure is high. 

For many rural families, homeownership through the USDA programs is another option in affordable housing. In our Self-Help program, a very low income family of 50 percent of the area median 

income can qualify for as low an interest rate as 1 percent on a 502 

loan. The Self-Help Homes generally appraise for over $90,000; 

37

with the sweat equity, the mortgage amount is usually around 

$82,000. For an actual family in our program, their 502 mortgage 

is $80,588.76. The family’s payment over a 33-year period is 

$245.77 per month for their mortgage, and with tax and insurance 

added to the mortgage, the total payment is between 350 and $400. 

This is equal to or less than rent prices in our area. 

And in spite of the benefits, homeownership is not an option for 

all families. A family’s tenure limit in an area is short, renting may 

make more financial sense. And many of the families that come to 

our agency have very poor credit, making it impossible for them to 

qualify for a mortgage at that time. We do spend time with them 

to get their credit improved. 

Another program I wanted to discuss with this committee, because it’s growing in Ohio, is Youthbuild. The program provides 

academic and job training services to low income dropouts between 

the ages of 16 and 24. 

Chairman NEY. I’m sorry. I just wanted to note the time has expired. If you could please just sum it up. 

Ms. BAUGHN. Okay. 

The 13 Youthbuild——

Chairman NEY. We will accept the rest of the record. 

Ms. BAUGHN. Okay. 

There are 13 Youthbuild sites in Ohio for rural, non-urban. I 

have the list of towns that they’re in, if you are interested. And it’s 

going to become very important in Ohio because we’re the third 

highest State with Youthbuild centers. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Bambi Baughn can be found on page 

75 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Cates. 

STATEMENT OF WALTER R. CATES, SR., PRESIDENT, MAIN 

STREET BUSINESS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. CATES. My name is Walter Cates. I am Founder and President, CEO, of Main Street Business Association. And I would like 

to thank the members of this committee, Mr. Ney, chair; Mr. 

Tiberi, my Congressman from Columbus; and Mr. LaTourette, and 

Ms. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Appreciate your being able to be here. 

I’m just very glad to be at this hearing, this table of individuals. 

I asked them to take a picture so I can show it to my 89-year-old 

mother to let her know I’m still functioning. I’m the only guy sitting here, and I feel proud of that. 

But out of all of the talk that we’ve been doing this afternoon, 

I’ve been listening, everybody’s talking about the housing market, 

the problems with housing, affordability, and the need. I have my 

statement already presented in writing, so I will not talk from that. 

But when we have these needs for housing, does anybody think 

about the impact of the economic development in our community? 

Because if we just pack people in affordable housing in the central city, which is where they have gone, because I started out with 

this process with getting a first HUD-funded recreation center by 

Chalmers P. Wylie, the Congressman from our community, on 

Main Street, called the Blackburn Recreation at South 18th and 

Main Street. That was when I couldn’t swim at the YMCA or anyVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
38

thing else. So Congressman Wylie saw the benefit of that, and he 

provided a HUD grant in 1968. I was with the East Central Citizens Organization, first federally funded program in the nation 

from the Office of Economic Opportunity. 

The second opportunity I had to work with Congressman Wylie 

was to secure the funding for the Urbancrest—Urbancrest Hollow 

under the first black elected Mayor, lady Mayor, Mrs. Ellen Walker 

Craig, and Homewood Builders was sponsoring that, and he has always stood firm to do what he could to help develop our community. 

We haven’t talked about the problem that has hurt us greatly in 

being able to deconcentrate housing; and that’s exactly what we’re 

going to have to do with this huge portfolio purchase by Broad 

Street Management. 

We have not talked about the fact that the 49-percent homeownership of housing in the central city has been sort of sidetracked due to redlining from the banks and from the insurance 

companies. Now, that’s a reality. We’ve got predatory lenders running around throughout our State, and the State would not allow 

the local communities to deal with predatory lending, which goes 

after our senior citizens, people who sometimes have a house that’s 

cash rich but unable to pay for the kind of flipping that they do 

of those mortgages. So that’s another thing. 

In Columbus we’ve got an issue called Win-Win and annexation. 

Win-Win protects the major suburban communities, like New Albany and other kinds of communities that are bumped up against 

Columbus, who want our water but don’t want our children in their 

school districts. So you can locate next to New Albany and have a 

Columbus address but send your kids to the New Albany schools, 

those who can afford to buy close at hand. 

Now, those are the facts that we’ve got to deal with. Some part 

of it is just because of our local zoning laws, we understand that, 

so we’re not going to flip everything over and blame the Federal 

Government for our local problems, because we don’t have the guts 

to take on this type of things that are happening in our community. 

How should I know? 

Because I was born and raised in Columbus, and I was pastPresident of NAACP in 1973, and I filed a lawsuit against the police and the fire and the Columbus Board of Education, Penick U.S. 

College Board of Education. 

The police and the fire because two friends of mine, Vietnam era 

veterans, couldn’t get a job who had returned home and applied for 

the police department. My one brother applied for the fire department. 

And the school systems were horrendous. So I filed suit about the 

desegregation because all the central city schools did not have air 

conditioning, nor carpet. The one on Main Street that elementary 

school has now been totally rebuilt, in the wintertime the coal furnaces that they had, had the kids—they couldn’t heat the building, 

so the kids had to wear their gloves and their hats and coats in 

school. In the summertime they would have to open the top floors 

on third and use these big, heavy-duty fans to blow air and cirVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
39

culate around in there, and had bats and bugs and all kinds of 

things. 

When I filed that lawsuit, one of the settlements was is that they 

demolished all the central city schools that were falling down as a 

means of sort of placating the citizens. 

So we’ve got problems on both sides. 

One strength that I would like for our Federal Government to 

look at is letting the local HUD office have the strength to do the 

job they should do. These folk here at the HUD office are like a 

bunch of high-paid secretaries. They basically just send everything 

to Chicago, send everything to Washington, and it can’t get dealt 

with because there’s no decision-making authority. 

So if anything that you can do, hold the local folk into account, 

but give them the authority to make decisions so that they can 

help the community. Because those of us who have been at this 35 

or 40 years, we know what’s needed in the community, we just 

can’t get nothing done about it. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Walter R. Cates can be found on 

page 84 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Garber. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERTA GARBER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

COMMUNITY RESEARCH PARTNERS, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. GARBER. Thank you, Chairman Ney and Members of the 

Committee. 

My name is Roberta Garber, and I’m Executive Director of Community Research Partners. We are a nonprofit partnership of 

United Way of Central Ohio, the City of Columbus, and the John 

Glenn Institute at OSU. 

I would like to briefly touch on two areas today: One is to talk 

about research we have done on housing needs in central Ohio; and 

to talk just briefly about a topic that has already been mentioned 

a couple of times, the allocation of Community Development Block 

Grant resources to urban areas in Ohio. 

There are three areas of housing needs that we’ve looked at: One 

is affordable rental housing needs; the other deals with housing 

condition needs and the third is homeownership needs. 

The testimony that I’ve presented to you in writing has data and 

sources on these topics, but I’d like to just touch on them briefly. 

Since renter households typically have lower incomes than homeowners, they comprise the largest group in central Ohio with housing needs. We’ve found that 75 percent of low income renters are 

cost burdened. That is, they pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing. And in 2002 a household had to earn more than 

$25,000 a year to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market 

rent in Franklin County. 

We’ve identified a large deficit of rental housing affordable to the 

lowest income renters, those at or below poverty level. That deficit 

is estimated at 22,000 units. 

There are few affordable rental units in central Ohio near the 

suburban areas where job creation is happening. 

Since 1996 we’ve lost over 1,200 privately owned HUD-assisted 

units from the affordable housing stock through opt-outs and preVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
40

payments; and with those that are expected to opt out in the near 

future, that represents 12 percent of that housing stock that will 

no longer be in the affordable stock. 

It all adds up to persons still being homeless in the community 

and over 7,500 persons a year experiencing homelessness. 

If we look at housing condition, we know that lower income renters and owners are more likely to live in housing that is in poor 

condition. The new American Housing Survey that was just released last week shows 29,000 housing units in Franklin County 

with severe or moderate physical problems, and two-thirds of these 

are rental units. 

There are over 12,000 vacant housing units in the older part of 

Columbus, and the city has over 1,600 active vacant housing cases 

that they’re following. 

We know that there are over 12,000 low and moderate income 

homeowners who may be able to—may not be able to afford home 

maintenance because these owners are paying more than 50 percent of their income for mortgage and utilities. 

Finally, there are homeownership needs. I know that there was 

some surprise at the fact that the homeownership rate in Columbus is only 49 percent. But homeownership rates are even lower for 

minority households. There’s a huge gap in homeownership rates 

in Franklin County between white households and minority households. The gap ranges from 23 to 35 percentage points difference, 

depending on the groups you’re looking at. 

There are few new single-family homes being built that are affordable even to moderate income households, those that may be 

making $45,000 a year. In 1999 only 10 percent of the new singlefamily homes built were affordable to that group. 

So, obviously, with those needs, the Community Development 

Block Grant and other HUD funds are very important to be able 

to address housing needs. 

As has been mentioned, there is a significant disparity between 

Columbus and other communities in Ohio only in CDBG allocation. 

We looked at per capita allocation for the total population of the 

largest cities in Ohio and found a huge disparity. 

If you look at per capita CDBG allocation only by poverty population of Columbus and the other big Ohio communities, there is 

still a significant disparity. 

But then we took it one step further, and pretended that Columbus only consists of the area within the 1950 boundaries of the city, 

before there was all this annexation. This area is much more like 

the other urban communities. We still found that Columbus ranks 

last among the large Ohio cities in allocation per capita of persons 

living in poverty. 

In this case, the annual grant to Columbus would need to be increased by 50 percent to nearly one hundred percent to be equivalent to the funds received by Cincinnati or Cleveland. 

I want to close by saying that this formula issue has implications 

not just for Community Development Block Grant, because this formula forms the foundation of other HUD programs, such as the 

HOME program, the Emergency Shelter Grant program, and even 

some of the continuing care of allocations. 

Thank you. 

41

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Roberta Garber can be found on page 

103 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Amy Klaben. 

STATEMENT OF AMY KLABEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

COLUMBUS HOUSING PARTNERS, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. KLABEN. Thank you, Chairman Ney. 

Thank you, Chairman Ney and Members of the Committee, and 

Mrs. Jones, for allowing me to provide you with comments this 

afternoon. Thank you for coming to Columbus, Ohio. 

I’m Amy Klaben the President, CEO, of Columbus Housing Partnership. We are a nonprofit housing development corporation, and 

we were formed 16 years ago. 

Access to safe, affordable housing is one of the most important 

issues we face in our nation. People cannot retain their jobs, stay 

in school, and live a decent life without an affordable home to go 

home to every day. 

We see in our community, without affordable homes, people continually change schools. We have mobility problems within the 

school system. 

And people cannot go to their jobs every day unless they have a 

home that is safe, decent and affordable. 

To enable people to purchase affordable homes, we provide both 

a housing counseling program and we build affordable homes. Our 

housing counseling program is supported financially through the 

CDBG program, and we thank you very much for that support. 

People need economic literacy training and people need to know 

how to buy a home. Without such programs, people cannot become 

successful long-term homeowners. 

So far this year we’ve had 324 people complete an eight-hour 

homebuyer education program. We are HUD certified, and our 

numbers this year are twice what they were last year. We attribute 

that to a marketing program that we started this year. The marketing program needs to continue. I’m explaining this to you because part of the HUD funding that we received does not cover 

marketing, and it’s so important for nonprofit organizations to be 

able to market their programs so people know what’s available. 

Many people who currently rent don’t know that they can one day 

become a homeowner, and we need to help them know that they 

can achieve the American dream of homeownership. 

We provide not only prepurchase counseling, but postpurchase 

counseling, default counseling, and other programs. All of these 

programs together are important to helping people remain successful homeowners. 

In the past 16 years, we’ve built over 3,200 homes in our community—homes and apartments. Most of our homes are built through 

the low-income housing tax credit program and are rental units. 

We currently have 70 units under construction, 70 will start in the 

next couple of months, and approximately that many next year. 

We have a pipeline for development, and that pipeline is very important for the continued development of affordable housing. 

We also have an AmeriCorps Community Safety Program, which 

I know you’re not involved with, but it’s a very important program 

42

to Mr. Tiberi. This program has been very important to dealing 

with community safety issues that must be addressed as we look 

at revitalizing our central city. This program works in conjunction 

with the HUD programs that we’re involved with. 

As I said, we receive CDBG funds for our housing counseling programs. And I just want to say that there’s not enough funds in Columbus to support the need for these programs. 

We would be happy to participate in counseling participants in 

HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program. This is a very important 

program to help Section 8 participants become and remain successful homeowners. 

CDBG funds and HOME dollars are also used for down payment 

assistance. We administer down payment assistance programs, and 

it’s needed in conjunction with counseling. Not everybody’s able to 

save funds necessary for a down payment. To enable people to become homeowners, down payment assistance is necessary, and I 

would like you to consider increasing the current cap of 80 percent 

area median income to 100 percent. 

If you look at revitalizing central city neighborhoods, we need to 

attract higher income people into those neighborhoods. One way to 

do that is by providing down payment assistance to incentivize people to come into the central city. 

There’s currently limits on the amount of funds that we’re able 

to use through the HOME and CDBG programs, for development 

of rental housing and homeownership opportunities. Those 

amounts need to be increased, as well. We find that the cost of 

building new homes is much higher than the amount we can sell 

the houses for in many areas of the central city. It’s called an appraisal gap. 

To attract people to buy in these areas, we need to provide incentives. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

[The prepared statement of Amy Klaben can be found on page 

131 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Before we move on, is Ruth McNeil still in the 

audience? 

Ruth, do you want to stand up? She is with Congresswoman 

Deborah Pryce’s office, so I wanted to make sure everybody saw 

her. 

And we can move on to April Weaver then. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF APRIL WEAVER, RESIDENT, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. WEAVER. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to be 

here today. I’m really excited to be here to sort of reiterate what 

Ms. Klaben was talking about with Columbus Housing Partnership. 

I began working with Columbus Housing Partnership, I would 

say, about a year ago, last July, I found out about one of the homeownership classes they were offering, found out about it through 

the newspaper, and I called and got enrolled in one of the classes. 

And I really think it’s important what Ms. Klaben was talking 

about with—we all know it’s one thing to buy a home, but it’s probably another to maintain the home. I think that’s what I really 

43

learned from the homeownership classes, a lot about budgeting, 

and a lot about home maintenance, and just all sorts of things. 

I also appreciate how well-organized the classes were. I didn’t 

have a lot of time, because I’m a single parent, I have a 3-1/2-yearold little girl, so it’s like time is money, I pay the babysitter by the 

hour. So it was nice to get into a class, have my itinerary, and to 

stick with that and get it finished. And I really learned a lot 

through those classes. 

Not only did I learn a lot through the classes, but I learned a 

lot through working with Ms. Klaben and her colleagues with Columbus Housing Partnership. They kept in touch with me through 

the whole process of buying a home. One of the representatives 

came with me to close on the home. And I’ve kept in touch with 

Columbus Housing Partnership through e-mails and phone calls. 

And any questions that I have and concerns there, they’re there to 

help me out. 

Oh, yeah, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m April Weaver. I teach 

second grade here in Columbus. And I love Columbus, I’m so happy 

to be here. I moved here from Akron two years ago. And two years 

ago, I was living in Section 8 housing in Akron and on food stamps. 

And it’s just so great to be at this point in my life, I’m really excited about that. 

I don’t know what else to tell you. I guess—I just—I really feel 

like Columbus Housing Partnership has helped a lot of people. I 

recommended it to some of my schoolteacher friends, and they’re 

very excited about it, they’ve called and are really interested in it. 

And I guess that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know what else. 

So thank you very much. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of April Weaver can be found on page 

186 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. And we’ll move on to Cynthia K. Ring, who Congressman Oxley had requested you to be here. And I think he said 

you won an award or something. 

STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA K. RING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

ALLEN METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY, LIMA, OHIO 

Ms. RING. We did. 

Actually, he asked me to be here, and I want to thank Chairman 

Ney and the other Members of the Committee for allowing me to 

testify. 

Actually, I was gone last week, so I didn’t get my written testimony to you in advance. 

I am the Executive Director of the Allen Metropolitan Housing 

Authority located in Lima, Allen County, Ohio. 

And I had to explain to Ms. Weaver where that was. For those 

of you who don’t know, it’s in northwest Ohio between—kind of 

halfway between Toledo and Dayton. 

I’m also past-President and a current member of the Ohio Housing Authority’s Conference, called OHAC, that represents 75 housing authorities in the State of Ohio. Many of my colleagues are 

here today, as is our current President, Terry Meese. 

These public housing authorities administer assistance to approximately 85,000 families under what you call—or what you 

44

know as the Section 8 tenant-based assistance program, called the 

Housing Choice Voucher Program. 

And AMHA proudly has served our community for 30 years. 

We’re a high performer under the public housing assessment, or 

PHAS, and a standard performer under SEMAP. And recently, just 

last week, we received an award from NAHRO, which is the National Housing and Redevelopment Officials, at their summer conference, for innovation. 

We have a landlord training program that we have implemented 

in Lima. It’s a cooperative effort between our city, our local law enforcement, and housing consortium. And it’s provided free of charge 

to any landlord or property manager in our community. 

And we believe because of the flexibility we have as a local housing authority, we’re able to have programs in our area that really 

meet our needs. 

Lima, of course—and I put approximately 50 percent of the housing stock is rental housing, and that’s being kind, because there’s 

a great deal more than 50 percent of our housing stock that’s rental housing. So it’s important for us to have landlords who are 

knowledgeable about State law and how to be integrated into the 

neighborhoods. 

We have a highly trained staff of 29. We provide housing services 

to the most needy populations. And I think sometimes we tend to 

forget about that. You see only the negative things in the media 

about PHAs and you don’t hear about the positive things. 

We deal with our senior citizens, our handicapped and disabled 

individuals, and the homeless and families with children. 

And the families we serve are someone’s grandparents, their 

mother or father, sister or brother, child, or perhaps grandchild, 

and we know what type of services they need, because we live and 

work in the community. 

And we give them something very special. I think somewhere 

that’s—a decent home can sometimes be the first decent place that 

they’ve lived. 

AMHA has sold 16 of our homes to public housing residents, and 

we continue to prepare others to accomplish the same goals. 

And last month HUD recognized our PHA during National 

Homeownership Month because we had another resident who was 

successful in purchasing her home through the 5(h) program. 

We also are preparing a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program that will enable many of our other families to also realize the 

American dream. 

And we also have the Family Self-Sufficiency Program, which 

you may know about, that also will enable families to become free 

of any type of public assistance. 

We serve over 1,600 families in our community on a monthly 

basis through some sort of Section 8 rental subsidy. And we are 

surrounded by a lot of rural counties, and oftentimes families are 

able to have some sort of choice, and our housing authority is the 

place that they come to, to get that assistance. 

There is a portability issue, a feature with a voucher that they 

are allowed to use. And I know that Assistant Secretary of HUD, 

Michael Liu, has said that that is very complicated. And in our 

45

community, it is not. It’s fairly simple to do, and we encourage the 

mobility. 

I want to tell you that the PHAs in Ohio need many more additional resources. We currently have had our waiting list closed for 

over a year. And we have about half the number of families waiting 

as we do spots available for housing. And it’s not unusual to have 

your waiting list close when you anticipate the need being over one 

year. 

Last year we were 15 percent overleased, and that caused quite 

a bit of funding issues and concerns that we had until just recently. 

But one of the reasons that we were overleased is because of the 

great need that we have in our community; also, to meet HUD’s 

program requirements; and because of our declining economy. 

And lastly, I guess, I just want to mention to you that I would 

like seriously for you to look at the Section 8 administrative fee 

issue and the fee reserve issues very closely before agreeing to 

those. 

I have some additional information, and a letter that one of your 

colleagues sent that I would like to introduce into testimony. 

Chairman NEY. Without objection, the letter will be introduced 

for the record. 

Ms. RING. Okay. 

[The following information can be found on page 195 in the appendix.] 

[The prepared statement of Cynthia K. Ring can be found on 

page 173 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank all the witnesses. 

There is the American Dream Down Payment, we were talking 

about the down payments. I think a lot of people go out and they 

struggle with work, or work a second job, but they have a terrible 

time trying to get that down payment. And in my family, it took—

my father was 45, I think he was, before he could get a down payment on a house. So I think that’s a difficult thing. The American 

Dream Down Payment is going to help 44,000-some people. In fact, 

the committee has got tremendous bipartisan support. 

We’ve got to get this law and get it to the floor. If anybody can 

make a phone call, American Dream Down Payment, to a member 

of Congress, please—please do that. It’s American Dream Down 

Payment, has tremendous bipartisan support, so I thought I would 

want to mention it. 

I wanted to ask April Weaver, you said—you read first about the 

housing opportunity in the newspaper, did you? 

Ms. WEAVER. Yes. 

Chairman NEY. In the Columbus Dispatch? 

Ms. WEAVER. Yes. 

Chairman NEY. You saw it in the newspaper. 

What kind of ad was it? Do you know who sponsored it? 

I’m just always curious how people get all the information. 

Ms. WEAVER. It wasn’t a very big ad. I just remembered looking 

through, I was actually looking for rental property, and I looked 

over in the homeownership, they had Homes for Families, and I 

called. And I think that class was actually closed. And so when I 

went to look at my house in the Hilltop area, the gentleman who 

showed me the home said, well, have you tried calling CHP and 

46

getting into one of their classes. I said, no, I hadn’t tried calling 

again. He said, try again, and see if they’re going to be doing that. 

So he was—sort of backed that up and encouraged me to call back. 

Chairman NEY. That’s great. 

I’m a secondary ed degreed teacher. 

Ms. WEAVER. Oh, really. 

Chairman NEY. I think you’ve got a rougher job in elementary, 

by the way. Nice little kids, but kind of squirmy, running around, 

kind of like herding cats. 

Congratulations on that. 

Ms. WEAVER. Thanks. 

Chairman NEY. I want to ask Ms. Ring, were you talking about 

the portability of the voucher was a problem—the portability? 

Ms. RING. It is not a problem in our community, because we have 

a lot of rural counties surrounding Allen County, where there are 

no housing authorities; besides, they’re able to use the vouchers to 

move elsewhere. 

Chairman NEY. And one point about the HUD——

Mr. CATES. Yes, sir. 

Chairman NEY.——we have had discussion on that, and at some 

point in time we’ll talk to you about some discussions we’ve had 

about a better flexibility at local levels. 

Mr. CATES. No question. 

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady. 

Ms. JONES. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I’m going to 

bypass my questions and let my colleagues ask questions. 

I want to thank all of the panel for coming here this afternoon 

and participating. And it’s not that I don’t want to ask you questions, but I want to try——

You want to ask me a question, Mr. Cates? 

Mr. CATES. I would. 

I do appreciate your CDC’s in Cleveland. 

Ms. JONES. Oh, yes. 

Mr. CATES. They are powerful. We have not yet began to make 

that happen in Columbus. And I can tell you a lot of reasons. The 

main thing is we’ve got a serious food chain operation: The sharks 

who’ve got installed stay at the top. That’s just the best way to say 

that. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Cates, for the compliments. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Just a question regarding homeownership in rural 

areas that kind of caught my attention on your testimony. 

You said Fayette County operates the only USDA Self-Help 

Housing program in the State. 

And also in your testimony, just to put that in perspective, you 

mentioned that while many people don’t consider Ohio as a rural 

State, Ohio’s the fourth largest rural population. 

Why in the world aren’t there more of you? In Ohio. 

Ms. BAUGHN. I don’t know. 

We have had lots of interest from other counties, they have come 

and looked at our site. Our housing director is right behind me. We 

have talked the program up. We think it’s wonderful. I mean, it’s 

not just for housing development, it’s an antipoverty program, it’s 

no risk to the housing developer. 

47

We do think that we’ve got two counties on either side of us are 

in the predevelopment phase, Clinton County and Highland County. And there is a program, I believe, in—Athens?—Athens, there’s 

a Rural Alliance or—Rural Alliance, I think. 

It’s a hard program to start because it’s not like a grant program 

where you write a grant and you fund activities. You have to actually have your families’ loans approved, your lots secured, your 

home plans approved by your local—your localities. And basically 

the day you close the grant, the next day you build. 

So we were able to get predevelopment money from USDA and 

from the State of Ohio to hire Mrs. Griffiths to come in and actually do all of the predevelopment activities that needed to be done. 

But it is a wonderful program. I wish more people did that. 

Mr. TIBERI. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would—I would encourage—

I would encourage you to look to see what they have, and it is in 

Washington Court House, it is a wonderful program. And if there’s 

a way that maybe we or this committee can encourage others in 

the State to utilize it, I think it’s a great program. 

Thank you all for coming. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. 

And like Congresswoman Tubbs Jones, I don’t have any questions other than to indicate to you, Mr. Cates, that the committee 

was sad when Congresswoman Tubbs Jones was elevated to the 

Ways and Means Committee because no one—there wasn’t a bigger 

champion on predatory lending in Congress than Stephanie Tubbs 

Jones. All of us have horror stories from our districts where folks 

come in and use a variety of unscrupulous techniques, not only 

against the elderly but the poor and overleverage the value of 

homes. And so the Ways and Means Committee, now with the rest 

of the people is a so much more violent place, it was their gain, but 

it was our loss on the Financial Services Committee. And I know 

that I very much miss Stephanie—Congresswoman Tubbs Jones’ 

leadership on that issue. And we’re lucky to have such a leader in 

the Congress. 

And I do just want to make a comment to Ms. Garber, in your 

observations, CDBG and how Columbus is being treated not fairly 

has come up as sort of a theme here, I’m getting—I’m in Columbus, 

I’ve got a theme. And I would suggest that it’s going to be more 

than a food fight. Because the answer to these questions—we have 

a similar thing with the highway trust fund, for instance, where 

it’s not based on anything reasonable other than who’s got the biggest delegation of how many miles of interstate highway system 

you have, and so, as a result, while we get about 90 cents back on 

the dollar that we send to Washington here in Ohio, Massachusetts 

gets $2.25, and Pennsylvania gets $1.16. And I can tell you, as 

we’re in negotiations on that as well, the guys from Massachusetts 

aren’t saying, oh, we’re sorry, it’s not fair, here’s some of your 

money back. 

And so the only way that we solve those problems is to grow the 

pot of money. And it’s not a problem in the house to fix it, because 

usually there’s more of us from those States, and we can beat up 

the other guys and take it back. But in the senate everybody gets 

two votes, and the senators aren’t anxious to give it back. 

48

So I really think that the solution to the CDBG dilemma in Columbus is find yourself, and, Mr. Chairman, that we have to find 

a way to grow the pot, make more money available so that we can 

all benefit and perhaps rectify some of the situations that Columbus finds itself in. 

I thank you and yield my time. 

Ms. JONES. Real quickly, Mr. LaTourette, you’ve made up for 

your shopping comment. 

Chairman NEY. I also want to thank Fayette County for participation in Washington that you all have done to help us out there. 

A fine panel. And with that, we’ll move on to Panel III. Thank 

you very much. Panel IV. 

Move on with Panel IV. 

We have William Hale, President, Portage Area Development 

Corporation of Ravenna, Ohio; Amy Kuhn, Deputy Director of Community Development Division, Ohio Department of Development, 

Columbus, Ohio; Roy Lowenstein, Vice President, Development, 

Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing, Columbus; Sally Luken, Acting Director, Corporation for Supportive Housing in Columbus, 

Ohio; Charleta Bell Tavares, Columbus City Council, Columbus, 

Ohio; and Jeffrey Woda, President of The Woda Group, which is located in Columbus, Ohio. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM HALE, PRESIDENT, PORTAGE AREA 

DEVELOPMENT CORP., RAVENNA, OHIO 

Mr. HALE. Good afternoon. Thanks. I’m glad to see everybody’s 

awake, and I’m surprised I—I’m awake, it’s been an interesting 

afternoon. 

And the encouragements I have for you this afternoon, I don’t 

think are new from the other testimony, but since I have five minutes, I’ll go through it. 

It’s exciting that you take this interest in housing. It’s a critical 

needs——

Ms. JONES. Why don’t you move the microphone over. 

Mr. HALE. How about this? 

Chairman NEY. There you go. 

Mr. HALE. It’s exciting because in the deficit era that we’re in, 

both Federal and State, you know, we need to go ahead and concentrate on the lowest third income group in Ohio, those making 

under 80 percent. 

A little bit about PADCorp., we’re a rural CBC nonprofit, covering all of northeast Ohio, rural being for us those populations 

under—under 50,000. We touch a number of Congressional areas, 

pretty much a mirror image of Congressman LaTourette’s area. 

And by the way, we have found your office knowledgeable, helpful 

and responsive. And we thank you for this partnership. 

We go ahead—we produce both affordable rental properties, preservation, as well as creation, as well as homeownership. Nothing 

that I say today should decrease the importance of the rental property. But I want to go ahead and focus on homeownership, because 

I find that the most dynamic tool in neighborhood revitalization, as 

well as family self-sufficiency and self-determination. 

49

We’ve been doing this since we started in 1985. In 2001 we went 

ahead and adopted NeighborWorks, a full cycle lending model. If 

you’re not familiar with it, I have a section in my written testimony. It deals with intensive pre- and postpurchase counseling and 

homeownership education, and we feel it’s a superior system, not 

that there aren’t others that are also good, but we have found that 

by implementing it we’ve been able to go ahead and in two years 

double what we’ve done over the last 15. 

And so my first encouragement would be to go ahead and take 

a look at programs that are working for homeownership and support them, increase that pool that Congressman LaTourette was 

talking about. 

The second area that I would like to talk about deals with the 

Section 8 to homeownership program. I think this is a slick program. It goes ahead and takes those families that are on Section 

8, that are working, that are productive members in their community, and it goes ahead and gives them the opportunity to make the 

Section 8 program what it was originally designed to be, and that’s 

temporary. 

And so what we’ve done now is we have a memorandum of understanding with three different housing authorities. And it represents about 10 percent of what we have done to date—I mean, 

10 percent of what we’ve done in the last couple of years. Those 

counties are very, very different, they include Lake County, Portage County, and Columbiana County, and, of course, as Congressman Ney knows, we’re in discussions in—in Zanesville. All four of 

those areas are uniquely different. All four of those housing authorities are dealing with a different—a different population, with 

different market need. 

I would encourage not to consider—or your result would be not 

to go ahead and have block grant—block granting Section 8 program because of those unique needs. 

The State of Ohio has some excellent service delivery systems, 

one’s sitting next to me, and it’s not so much that, but the unique 

need to respond to the communities can only be done on a local 

level with the local housing authorities. In some States they’re not 

as fortunate as Ohio, and I think the product would suffer. 

The other two encouragements that I have for you—and then I’ll 

quit—is, again, like my first encouragement, take a look at those 

programs that are working partnerships with housing authorities 

and nonprofits and go ahead and assure that they have adequate 

funding both in operation capital as well as financing capital. 

Last, but not least, there’s been some discussion as to housing 

trust fund, and I encourage you to move forward on that. The State 

of Ohio, the legislature, and the Governor’s office, went ahead I 

think and took a very bold step and its programs were stripped out 

of the Ohio budget. The housing trust fund is still there to go 

ahead and give positive force so that they can be a partner in affordable housing. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of William Hale can be found on page 

122 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Kuhn. 

50

STATEMENT OF AMY KUHN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY 

DEVELOPMENT DIVISION, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. KUHN. Thank you, Chairman Ney. 

My name is Amy Kuhn, and I’m Deputy Director of the Community Development Division of the Ohio Department of Development. 

This division, among its many programs, is responsible for the 

distribution of Federal community development programs, including Community Development Block Grant, the HOME Investment 

Partnerships, Emergency Shelter Grants, and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS. 

Before I begin, I would like to thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak here today, and I’ll try to keep 

it brief. 

The State of Ohio and Ohio Department of Development have a 

long and successful history of working with its local communities 

and nonprofit organizations to maintain Ohio’s great quality of life. 

Today I would like to address some changes related to the State’s 

ability to continue to successfully administer the U.S. Department 

of Housing and Urban Development’s CDBG program. 

The Department of Development requests your support of the following three minor but very important revisions to the CDBG program. None of the revisions would require an increase in funding 

or allocation levels, but would provide flexibility for the changing 

environment as I think we’ve heard about here today. 

The first issue is to increase flexibility at the discretion of the 

States to allocate technical assistance and administrative funds between the two activities without financial limitations and without 

a match requirement being applied to the technical assistant funds. 

Currently, States may allocate 1 percent of the annual CDBG allocations to technical assistance activities and 2 percent plus 

$100,000 to administration. As an example, in fiscal year 2002, 

Ohio allocated approximately $437,000 of CDBG funds to technical 

assistance, and $1,236,000 to administration. 

If the percentage requirements were eliminated, Ohio would 

have the flexibility to expend these funds based on the needs of the 

communities. 

For example, in order for Ohio’s rural areas to make the best use 

of limited resources, ODOD is encouraging Ohio Small Cities 

CDBG Program eligible communities to develop a community assessment strategy. 

Now, this is a planning document designed to encourage communities to match local needs with available resources; facilitate a holistic approach to addressing housing, economic, and community development needs, identify the type and degree of community development needs; identify the type and degree of community development needs within areas of low and moderate income concentration 

or distressed areas; and provide information that will serve as a resource for State planning efforts. 

In order for communities to develop a credible strategy, it is imperative that we be able to supply direct technical assistance. As 

with most initiatives, the initial training costs could be higher but 

will decrease as the communities build administrative capacity and 

experience. 

51

And I think you’ve heard from several folks today, from some of 

our rural counties and communities, which are very capable and 

provide very good services. 

If States were permitted the flexibility to allocate funds between 

technical assistance and administrative activities it would be much 

easier for these Ohio associations. 

The second issue is an increase in the State match threshold 

from 2 percent of the State allocation plus $100,000 to 2 percent 

of the State allocation plus $500,000. 

Basically, the States receive CDBG funds through a formula allocation. The allocation includes funding for administration of the 

program. The amount of funds available to States for administration is 2 percent of each state’s formula allocation plus a hundred 

thousand dollars. 

However, States are required to provide a 50-percent match for 

any administrative funds received greater than $100,000. 

As you heard, the latest biennium budget process, it was determined that the availability of the State funds as matching funds 

has been decreasing at an alarming rate. Until the economy improves, this trend is expected to continue. Although the threshold 

requirement has not been revised since the program’s inception in 

1982, the cost of administering the program continues to increase 

due to the many things we’ve discussed here today. 

If the State administrative threshold for the CDBG program 

were increased to 2 percent plus $500,000 of the State allocation, 

the States would have additional revenue to dedicate to administration. 

Without adequate administrative funding, ODOD will be unable 

to continue to effectively administer approximately 280 CDBG program grants every year. 

The final issue I would like to address is the dedicated source of 

funding for training and technical assistance activities. 

States would benefit greatly from a dedicated source of funding 

for training. If such an initiative were funded, the national organizations could access the funds needed to keep States abreast of new 

CDBG program rules and regulations, proper program administration, and tips for innovatively implementing projects and activities. 

In the past, HUD provided funds to these organizations and this 

has no longer been possible. 

Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Amy Kuhn can be found on page 136 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Lowenstein. 

STATEMENT OF ROY LOWENSTEIN, VICE PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT, OHIO CAPITAL CORPORATION FOR HOUSING, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. LOWENSTEIN. Thank you, Chairman Ney and distinguished 

Members of the Committee. 

I’m Roy Lowenstein, the Vice President for Development, Ohio 

Capital Corporation for Housing here in Columbus. 

52

Ohio Capital assists developers around the State to secure low 

income housing tax credits, and we operate an equity fund which 

purchases the credits. 

We have, since 1989, raised about half a billion dollars for investment in Ohio. We put it into about 200 different affordable housing 

developments with about 10,000 units. 

Recently we acquired a portfolio of more than 1,300 Section 8 

units, primarily in Columbus, as well as a management company, 

renamed Community Properties of Ohio, which you’ve heard 

about—a little bit about earlier. 

Along with local partners, we will be rehabilitating and preserving a great majority of those units over the next few years. 

So we have a variety of roles, consultant, developer, investor, 

asset manager, and property manager, and those provide many insights into the rental housing and finance operation areas. 

You’ve heard already today from many of the other speakers 

today about housing needs in Ohio, so I don’t need to comment further on that. 

What I would like to do is comment on some of the housing tools 

that we need in our toolbox. 

Ohio’s a microcosm of the whole country, so it’s not surprising 

that many different housing tools are needed. For example, fair 

market rents in some rural counties are so low that no new construction is incentivized. Some cities in Ohio have been losing population for 20 or 30 years, but they still need more affordable housing. Why? Because many of the people most in need are still there, 

and because people—other people are leaving, you don’t see new 

construction going on, you need replacement housing just to maintain the housing stock. 

Some neighborhoods in decline or that have declined and then 

stabilized, provide very little economic incentive for reinvestment 

without public dollars to lead the way to help recreate a market in 

some of our neighborhoods. 

The message here is that great flexibility is needed to craft solutions to these distortions to what’s normally a market. 

Sometimes the biggest problem is housing supply; other times it’s 

the gap between the income that the people have and what it costs 

to actually operate housing. 

Other times it’s the appraised value being too low to allow for 

new development. 

So what programmatic tools do we need? Some of them are going 

to cost money, and actually some of them won’t. 

Poor families need both rental subsidies and production subsidies 

to target to extremely low income households. However, rental subsidies are in very short supply as we’ve heard from other speakers. 

This is particularly a shame when we have a fair amount of vacancy in the market, and it’s just a shame that we’re not able to 

house more extremely low income households from our vouchers. 

Why? Because there aren’t enough vouchers to go around, but there 

is a housing supply in some markets. 

It’s particularly a concern here in Columbus where we have an 

exemplary program known as Rebuilding Lives to house long-term 

homeless individuals, using a range of Section 8 and McKinney 

funds as operating subsidies. Halfway to the goal of 800 permanent 

53

housing units for the homeless, we sure hope that the Section 8 

subsidies will again materialize to provide an operating base for 

some of those most severely—or for people most severely in need. 

Secondly, we do need a larger Federal source of gap financing. 

Gap is the—what it costs to—the difference between what folks can 

pay and what it costs to develop housing. We’ve really been starving these production programs for the last 15 or 20 years compared 

to the amount of need there is in this country. 

And basically what happens is that a project—given Ohio’s relatively low rent structure, those rental properties cannot support 

such a high level of debt. And even in the case of Federal tax credits, a gap exists between what it costs to deliver new housing and 

what folks can afford to pay. 

And the tax credit program serves those who have enough in- come to maybe pay 400 or $500 a month in rent. But those people 

who can’t pay that, basically the minimum wage or a little bit 

above minimum wage workers, they cannot afford enough in rent 

to support any permanent debt on the housing unit. And so that 

provides no incentive for folks to develop new housing for that population. 

We need a Federal targeted source that’s going to help support 

production for people, for example, under 30 percent of the median 

income, along with providing operating support. 

Finally, we need greater flexibility in the Section 8 program to 

allow the portability of—for project-based rental assistance. That’s 

a big issue in Cincinnati, and it’s a big issue with our portfolio in 

Columbus, as well. 

[The prepared statement of Roy Lowenstein can be found on page 

139 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

Mr. LOWENSTEIN. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Luken. 

STATEMENT OF SALLY LUKEN, ACTING DIRECTOR, 

CORPORATION FOR SUPPORTIVE HOUSING, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. LUKEN. Mr. Chairman, Representative Tiberi, and other 

Members of the Subcommittee. 

On behalf of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, thank you 

for the opportunity to testify. 

CSH has a long-standing and productive relationship with this 

subcommittee and its excellent staff throughout the tenures of your 

predecessors, Mr. Lazio and Ms. Roukema. 

I appear before you today to draw on CSH’s experience nationally, including Ohio, and my recommendations to the subcommittee 

are based on our experience with housing production, targeting the 

lowest income individuals and families, those that have been homeless repeatedly, for long periods, and those who are at risk of homelessness. 

In a moment I’m going to present some evidence about the supportive housing solution. But now I’d like to let you know what 

we’re seeking from you today. 

CSH encourages the subcommittee to act to ensure that the HUD 

McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs continue to sustain 

and produce new supportive housing. 

54

You can do this by establishing a homeless housing permanence 

account for renewals of expiring rent and operating subsidies under 

the Shelter Plus Care and the Supportive Housing Programs. 

And you can also do it by enacting authorizing legislation targeting 30 percent of those grants to permanent supportive housing. 

In addition, we recommend that the subcommittee enact legislation that will close the affordability gap for households earning less 

than 30 percent of area median income. Specifically, CSH endorses 

the creation of a national housing trust fund. 

Now to the evidence. 

In addition to grinding poverty and high housing costs, tens of 

thousands of Americans are homeless and struggle with mental illness, substance addiction, and other health problems that are creating barriers to their stability. 

Research from around the country and right here in Columbus 

and Franklin County show that as a consequence of this double 

whammy these folks are cycling repeatedly in and out of shelters 

and institutions and the streets, for months and even years. 

Supportive housing ends this vicious cycle. It combines permanent affordable housing with flexible voluntary services that many 

people need to achieve stability. This includes mental health and 

substance abuse services, employment services, and other services 

that keep people housed, but also help them participate in their 

communities. 

Supportive housing is cost-effective as well as humane. Research 

has shown that it costs little more to permanently house and support these folks than just to leave them homeless. 

And Columbus and Franklin County was one of the first in the 

nation to overhaul its approach to homelessness in recognition of 

this research. Led by the Community Shelter Board and Franklin 

County and the City of Columbus, they launched, as Roy has mentioned, Rebuilding Lives. This initiative to address long-term homelessness is to create 800 units of permanent supportive housing. 

And what’s great about it is it’s working. Over 93 percent of Rebuilding Lives’ tenants have retained their housing for one year or 

more. They are not going back to the shelter. 

In addition, the cost to operate a unit of supportive housing here 

in Franklin County is 36 to $38 a day. That’s quite a bit less than 

the public systems that traditionally have served and taken care of 

these folks; namely, prisons and mental health hospitals. 

Policy makers at every level are taking a new look at homelessness, and a consensus is emerging. We can and must plan to end 

homelessness, not manage it. 

Recognizing that we face a significant but solvable problem, the 

Bush administration, Congress, and two blue ribbon commissions 

have adopted the goal of ending chronic homelessness. 

Most recently, as Bill Faith has mentioned, the President’s new 

Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recommended that, 

quote, in partnership with the interagency council on homelessness, HUD develop and implement a comprehensive plan designed 

to facilitate access to 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing for people who are chronically homeless. 

To speed the progress to that goal, the policy strategies that this 

committee should implement are amplified in my written report. 

55

But to reiterate them simply: Ensure McKinney-Vento homeless 

programs continue to generate new permanent supportive housing, 

and work to close the affordability gap for those lowest income 

Americans. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Sally Luken can be found on page 

143 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Tavares, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLETA BELL TAVARES, MEMBER, 

COLUMBUS CITY COUNCIL, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Ms. TAVARES. Thank you. 

Thank you Chairman Ney and Members of the Committee. 

I am Charleta Tavares, on I’m the chair of the Health, Housing 

and Human Services Committee on Columbus City Council. I want 

to welcome you to my city and to thank not only Chairman Ney, 

but also my friend, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, my 

Congressman, as well, Pat Tiberi, and Congressperson LaTourette 

for coming to Columbus. 

We’re proud of what we’re doing in this city. As chair of the committee, I work with our Mayor, Mayor Coleman, to focus attention 

on developing more affordable housing, increasing homeownership 

in our community, and revitalizing our older neighborhoods. 

We have developed a toolbox to help us in accomplishing these 

three goals. And we have created partnerships to strengthen and 

sustain our efforts. One of our tools was to create the Columbus/

Franklin County Affordable Housing Trust Corporation with the 

city and the county, which enabled us to look at where affordable 

housing units were needed in our community, the community of 

Franklin, and to determine what kinds of units were needed, apartment, single-family, senior housing, et cetera. 

In addition, we were able to pool our resources in order to better 

leverage our dollars and expand our partnerships to the public and 

private sectors. 

The housing trust corporation has three—has a three-part goal: 

To increase the number of affordable housing units as was expressed by another witness, we need at least 22,000 units; increase 

homeownership opportunities; and, three, to strengthen and revitalize our older neighborhoods. 

Increasing the number of affordable housing units is critical if we 

are going to provide opportunity and present—and prevent homelessness amongst our individual and family residents. 

Ensuring that we have safe, decent, and affordable housing for 

all families in our community has largely depended upon the partnerships we have had with the Federal Government through the 

Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Columbus 

Metropolitan Housing Authority. 

I’m going to touch on the Community Development Block Grant 

program. The CDBG program has been effectively used to increase 

our supply of affordable housing, to revitalize central city neighborhoods, strengthen our neighborhood and commercial strips, provide 

loans to create and expand small businesses, and help low income 

families maintain their homes. All of these issues are critical to 

central cities and rural communities who are attempting to rehaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:12 Mar 15, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\92234.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
56

bilitate older housing stock, attract business development, and 

eliminate blight and flight from the core city. 

The CDBG program has allowed communities to target the dollars where they are needed, to leverage the dollars with the private 

and other public investments, such as our housing trust and 

HOME funds. 

The next area that I want to touch on deals a little bit with the 

city and the county again and our work with the CDBG program. 

I believe the key to this program is to keep it local, not to pass 

it on to the State, and not to pass it into any kind of a regional 

plan. The key has been that it’s been a local program with the Federal Government. That has enabled us to develop the needs—meet 

the needs of our city and to develop the programs and services that 

best meet those needs. 

A State or regional administration would add another level or 

layer of administrative expenses, monitoring, and interpretation of 

regulations. Regional or State administration of the entitlement 

CDBG would add negative dimensions of competition between rural 

and suburban, small city, large city, et cetera. 

Unfortunately, there is nowhere in America that a family or an 

individual working a minimum wage job can afford a two-bedroom 

apartment. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, as you 

know, far too many of our children are growing up in single-parent 

households, many working minimum wage or low wage jobs, who 

are one crisis, one paycheck away from homelessness. 

We are fortunate in Columbus, Ohio, that our cost of living is 

well below our sister cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, San 

Francisco, and Chicago. However, we cannot forget that we have 

thousands of families in our community living below the poverty 

line who are responsible, who are working, and who cannot afford 

a clean, safe, and decent place to call home. 

We have to do more. Our children and families are depending on 

us to ensure that their basic needs of food, clothing, housing, and 

health care are met. 

We have a need in our great city for more housing units that are 

affordable. It is both a cost and production issue in our community. 

Columbus is working hard to produce and decentralize our affordable housing units throughout the city. Many of our job centers are 

on the fringe areas of Columbus. And we believe, in order to make 

any affordable housing program work, we have to be able to locate 

the housing where the jobs are located, in the fringe areas of Columbus and suburban communities throughout this county. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, and 

more than happy to respond to any questions. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Ms. Tavares. 

[The prepared statement of Charleta Bell Tavares can be found 

on page 182 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. And Mr. Woda, although he has a Columbus office, he’s a River Rat. And I’ll let you explain that. 

57

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY J. WODA, PRESIDENT, THE WODA 

GROUP, LLC, COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Mr. WODA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Congressman 

Tiberi and the rest of the committee for allowing me to testify before you today. 

I am the last person to testify, so I will try to keep it as brief 

as possible. 

My name is Jeff Woda, I’m a member of The Woda Group. I grew 

up in rural Ohio, in Belmont County, and the last few years I have 

relocated to the Columbus area. 

Our expertise is developing, constructing, and managing housing 

in the rural area, and specifically affordable housing. And that’s 

what I would like to concentrate my testimony on here today. 

In my written testimony, I’ve listed various programs that we 

have used to create such housing. And I’ve also gone on to talk 

about some of the challenges that we have encountered when working in programs that combine funds from HUD, tax credits with 

IRS regulations, funds from the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, and different State programs. So I won’t bore you 

with reading some of the horror stories that I’ve noted there. 

But we have found that a lot of times these programs have inconsistent policies that don’t help us in either preserving or creating 

affordable housing in the rural areas. 

I’d like to just cut right to the chase and talk to you about some 

recommendations and what we see that could be done in the rural 

areas to help us increase the affordable rental housing. 

The United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development 

Section 515 funds have been greatly cut over the years. That was 

probably the main producer of affordable multifamily housing in 

the rural areas. Those funds need to be either increased or looked 

at so we can best leverage what is already allocated. 

For instance, there are RD 515 funds allocated, a lot of times 

they’re coupled with tax credits, but currently you’re only allowed 

to use a 4-percent tax credit, which is less than half of the available 9-percent credit that’s out there. In other words, one small 

change, we could double, if not triple, the amount of housing produced with the same funds already available. 

The rental assistance contracts that go with those funds don’t 

have any minimum payment that a tenant has to pay. If that was 

somewhat modeled after the Welfare to Work program or where 

there were minimum payments, we could stretch those dollars a lot 

further. 

A new program that has really caught a lot of interest in the private sector is the USDA Section 538 guaranteed rural rental program. This program leverages private sector dollars, as the United 

States only provides a 90-percent guarantee to the lender. We’ve 

had some administrative rules that you’ve—that members of your 

committee have helped us change to make that more usable. Some 

other things that we see is that we provide interest credit up to 20 

percent of your annual allocation. And what that interest credit 

does is you buy the interest rate down to the applicable Federal 

rate, which is around the 10- to 30-year treasury amount. Although 

it’s not very expensive, that really helps the rural areas reduce our 

rents. 

58

And if you could look at expanding that 20 percent to a larger 

portion of the pool, again, not near as costly as the direct program 

that you’ve had in the past. 

Also, you should offer flexibility to your State RD offices. If they 

have interest credit available, why not link it to those guaranteed 

loans that you have there. The program’s already in place, dollars 

that are already there, with slight administrative changes could be 

much more leveraged and provide much more affordable housing in 

the rural area. 

The national housing trust fund may be another avenue if enacted to assist the rural areas. Our groups believe that a portion 

of that, 30, 40 percent, should be designated for the rural areas, 

but not only to provide support on the development of housing, but 

also the continuing support, such as the rental assistance program 

noted earlier. 

Another area that we see a problem is that currently county median incomes for the tax cutter program use the greater of the 

county AMGI, area median gross income, or the State non-metro 

average. Again, a slight change in using the State average would 

certainly widen the band of rural households that would now be eligible for this program. 

An example, a rural household consisting of a single parent, one 

child in Ohio, earning in excess of $24,300 is not eligible in most 

of our average counties. That’s certainly a low number. With one 

change of how we calculate what the AMGI is, we could really 

broaden that band and make a lot more households eligible. 

Finally, I would like to express the support that we have for the 

homeownership tax credit. It’s an excellent concept in rural areas, 

especially where you’ve been told by other people testifying about 

the gap in the rural areas, trying to get enough dollars to entice 

a developer to go out and build homes where the prices that you 

can charge can’t generate enough dollars. The tax credit’s an excellent avenue, if it could be modeled after the housing credit rental 

program that’s there, that’s been extremely successful, we see that 

that’s another avenue that could greatly benefit all areas of Ohio. 

Please keep in mind, not all households, though, are meant to be 

homeowners. There is still a great demand out there for affordable 

rental housing. And I encourage you to keep that in mind as you 

look at these pieces of legislation. 

Again, thank you very much for your time. I would be more than 

happy to answer any questions. 

Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you for your testimony. I explained to my 

colleagues, if you live on the Ohio River, you’re a River Rat. So it’s 

not an insult; it’s a compliment. 

Mr. WODA. That was the nickname of our high school, actually. 

Chairman NEY. In Congress we call our Congressional softball 

team the Ohio River Rats, too. 

[The prepared statement of Jeffrey J. Woda can be found on page 

187 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Ms. Luken, I thought 30 percent was dedicated 

in the McKinney-Vento language to permanent housing. Are you 

worried that that will change? 

59

Ms. LUKEN. Well, it’s something that is happening on a yearly 

basis. And we’re encouraging you to authorize legislation to make 

it permanent. 

Chairman NEY. Make it permanent. I see. So you’re worried 

about future——

Ms. LUKEN. Yes. 

Chairman NEY.——future terms. 

Okay. The—Mr. Woda, we had that Amendment 515, I think 

we’re going to try to redo that. But it just does what was done for 

the urban program, you know, a long time ago. And I think that 

was a good idea, if we could do it. 

I have one question I want to ask, and I don’t know if you can 

answer this, but I’m going to ask it, Mrs. Kuhn. Would the State 

of Ohio want the Section 8 block grant? It’s a joint question. It’s 

a bipartisan group. Would the State of Ohio want to do—if this 

piece of legislation passed, would the State take it, has it developed 

a position? 

We do invoke the fifth amendment here in the subcommittee formally. 

Ms. KUHN. I don’t have the official answer to that. But I do know 

that it’s a very complicated issue. I think a lot of the points that 

have been brought up here today about our staffing levels, the ability of the State to do these additional duties, are something we 

would take very much into consideration. 

I think we have a very talented group of people that could do it, 

but it would take resources and whatever. 

So I don’t know that we’re really ready to answer that question. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

Ms. JONES. Real short. 

I want to thank everyone for testifying this afternoon. The information you provided us was very useful. 

Mr. Woda, I just want to ask you one question: Remember back 

earlier in the year when we were debating tax cuts, there was a 

whole—and the dividend tax cut, there was a whole discussion 

about the impact dividend tax cuts had on low income housing tax 

credits. Can you briefly discuss that, if you could—if you would, or 

could. 

Mr. WODA. Sure. It was certainly a big scare to our industry, as 

we looked at it, the assumption was most of the investors would 

lose a lot of the benefit they have in investing in those credits because of the tax treatment of dividends. 

I’d just like to thank all of you for the way you worked it out, 

and that that scare has now passed. And I think whenever looking 

at an issue like that the unintended consequence of hurting probably our best producer of affordable housing in this country would 

not have been what any of us wanted. But you worked with the investors out there in the private sector to make sure that we had 

legislation that didn’t do that. 

So, yeah, it was a big scare. A lot of our investors really pulled 

back until they saw what you ended up doing. And, again, I’d like 

to thank you for that. 

Ms. JONES. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

60

Ms. Tavares, thank you for coming to testify today. From where 

you sit in the council chambers and from your experience with this 

State, what—what can we do up here—what can the Federal Government do and the State government do to help you all? And I 

should have asked this of the Mayor, but I’ll ask it of you: What 

can we do to help you increase that homeownership from 49 to 55 

or 60? 

Obviously, knowing we’re not going to get to a hundred percent. 

But getting it closer to the national average. 

Ms. TAVARES. I think a couple of things that have been mentioned about some of my other colleagues on this panel and other 

panels. Certainly the homebuyer education is critically important. 

We’ve got to make sure that people understand what it is they’re 

venturing into, and to make sure that they have the assets, so to 

speak, or at least some cushion money set aside for whatever might 

happen when you own a home. All of us know that there are major 

expenses. And maybe we haven’t educated individuals enough 

about how to get into homeownership and how to stay in homeownership. Because that’s one of my other concerns, it’s maintaining homeownership. It’s one thing to get into a house. But to stay 

there, we have to make sure that people have the tools not only 

to fix the house, but also the assets or a pool of money to maintain 

that home. 

I think the other thing that the Federal Government can do is 

to continue work with us to keep the program as flexible as possible, the CDBG program, the HOME program, so that as we see 

there are other tools that we can develop locally, that we’ll have 

the money to help us implement those programs. 

It’s education. I think critically important is the education of our 

electorate that you can get into a home in many cases more easily 

than you can pay the rent that’s being commanded today in the 

market. 

Mr. TIBERI. Did you want to comment on that, too? 

Mr. LOWENSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Tiberi. 

I think that the homeownership tax credit would be a critical tool 

to add to that. Because, for example, our company, you know, kind 

of in a small way got into trying to develop some new units in a 

relatively depressed neighborhood of the city, and the problem that 

we have in trying to sell new houses—and believe me even in an 

area that is, you know—isn’t the best neighborhood in the city, 

they don’t want to see little boxes built. People want to see nice 

houses put in. Well, it costs $120,000 or $130,000 to put in a fairly 

nice house. But the problem that you have in some of these areas 

is that the appraised value of houses in the existing neighborhood 

may be 60,000 or $70,000. 

So you need some vehicle to cover the gap between the mortgage 

that could be supported. Maybe you can get an appraisal at 

$100,000 or $90,000, but it costs another 30,000 or $40,000 to put 

in a new house. But that’s what you need to help turn the neighborhood around. 

The same thing would be true if it’s a rehabilitated house, with 

the cost of what rehab are, you still have that gap, and that’s 

where you—a financing vehicle like the credit would be critical. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

61

Chairman NEY. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Folks, it’s been a long afternoon, so I won’t drag it out much 

longer. Thank you for coming. 

And for the record, Mr. Chairman, the tax board is a new constituency of mine, since the geniuses down here in Columbus did 

the redistricting. And I’ve been more than impressed with the work 

that you do, Mr. Hale, and your group. 

And, Ms. Tavares, I know you by reputation, and you certainly 

represent yourself well not only on behalf of your city but and 

party and the people that you represent and the issues you advocate, and it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. 

And, Ms. Kuhn, I’m going to try to be charitable to your organization, not you personally, but I think one of the reasons we put 

caps on various programs is that we haven’t just made it up, it was 

subject to abuses, and not to say anything bad went on in Ohio relative to abuses, but that’s why we have caps on technical assistance and also administration costs, we found that in some areas 

some States short of cash were siphoning off all the dough in administration costs, and that the money wasn’t getting to where it 

needed to be. 

And I would say that if—if the issue that you brought to our attention, and that is the 2 percent plus 100,000 proposal were to 

come to me to take it to 2 percent plus 500,000, I don’t think that 

I’d be favorable. Again, no criticism of you or your organization, but 

I, as an Ohioan, have been horrified, and as a republican, by this 

budget process, and the idea that our legislators would give back—

it’s not free money, but money back is like penalizing the taxpayers 

of Ohio twice. And not to have the political courage to come up 

with matching funds where assistance is offered from the Federal 

Government, I think is sinful, and I’m not proud of anybody that 

participated in that process. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman NEY. And we’re not redistricting for ten years, so I’m 

agreeing with everything he said about the legislature. 

With that—they already did damage to me—I want to thank the 

panel. I want to thank our members. And we think this is the first 

housing hearing in Ohio that we’ve had in the history on the housing subcommittee on the books. Black caucus met two years ago, 

I believe, you chaired it up in Cleveland. And I think this is the 

first housing subcommittee, so we appreciate the staff coming in, 

the members spending their time, and all of you, it gives us good 

insight. Believe me, it was very helpful. 

We appreciate the Martin Luther King Center—Jr. Center and 

the director of that. 

And with that, that concludes—I would note for the record, if 

members have additional questions they might want to ask the 

panel, if they want to ask them in writing without objection, the 

hearing record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit 

written questions and witnesses to place their response in the 

record. 

And I want to thank all of you again, and this concludes the 

hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 4:52 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(63)

A P P E N D I X

July 29, 2003

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