Mayor Hardberger Appoints New SAHA Board

      On January 4, 2008, Mayor Phil Hardberger appointed four new members to the San Antonio Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners.  Ramiro Cavazos, Rebecca L. Galvan, Richard Gambitta and Lisa Tatum will be joining current members, Yolanda Hotman, Stella Burciaga Molina, and Board Chairman Phil Nelson.  The new Board, along with future board member Noah Garcia (Chairman Nelson will be stepping down from the board at the end of February, and Mr. Garcia will be his replacement) sat together, for the first time on January 23 for a new commissioner orientation/special board meeting, and proved they are up to the challenge by asking detailed questions and offering insightful comments.

      SAHA is grateful for the efforts of previous commissioners Maricela Cavazos, Fred Gonzalez, Danielle Hargrove and Reba Malone for the last few years.  Under their leadership, SAHA continued its progress and made substantial gains, by being recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as a leader in the assisted housing industry.  While we have come a long way since the dormitory-style housing of the past, the SAHA is leading the charge in Site-Based Management, as well as continuing to create Mixed-Income Communities.  With the leadership of President and CEO Henry Alvarez, and through direction from our Board of Commissioners, we have greatly increased the quality of life for our residents. 

     We look forward to working with our new commissioners, and are excited to have the guidance of our Board of Commissioners helping SAHA to face our challenges and make headway into the future.  Our next Board meeting will be held on February 07, 2008.

HOPE VI Revitalization
 House Approves HOPE VI Housing Bill, 271-130       

By: Charlene Carter

CongressNow Staff
Thursday, January 17, 2008   2:54 PM

      By a 271-130 vote, the House today approved a public housing revitalization bill, rejecting Republican efforts to relax mandatory one-for-one unit replacement and energy-efficient building standards required by the bill.

      The HOPE VI Improvement and Reauthorization Act (www.govtrack), sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, would authorize $800 million annually between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2015 for Housing and Urban Development programs to fund efforts that would revamp distressed public housing. It also would overhaul the program’s administration.

      Under the bill, proposed revitalization plans would need to prove that the public housing project is severely distressed. The bill would require that those plans also include temporary relocation plans and one-for-one replacement of units, as well as resident involvement before any grants are made.

      The House voted, 388-20, to adopt a manager’s amendment by Waters and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would make several technical and substantive changes to the bill. Among those changes is a modified provision that would clarify that all units in existence as of Jan. 1, 2005 must be replaced and offers a limited waiver for the requirement. The clarification ensures that public housing destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 would be included. Their amendment also would extend the timeline to replace those units to four and a half years.

      “For all the good, we are concerned about this bill,” House Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said.

      Republicans have expressed concern about mandating one-for-one unit replacement, arguing that the program should be flexible enough to provide support for projects that have less density but offer more of a neighborhood feel.

      Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) offered an amendment that would only mandate the replacement of units occupied before demolition. His proposal was defeated, 181-227, but Frank said that he might be able to work out a deal to exclude units that were not habitable from the one-for-one replacement requirement.

As amended, the bill also mandates that developers seeking a HOPE VI grant present plans that reflect Green Communities building standards or a “substantially equivalent” alternative designated by the HUD Secretary.

      Republicans argued that mandating that developers’ revitalization plans reflect green building standards would drive up construction costs and lead to production of fewer affordable housing units.

      Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, offered an amendment that would replace the mandatory green building standard with a provision that would call for developers to be graded on their green building standards rather than mandating it. It also would require the HUD secretary to select a rating system for green building standards for plans to compared to. Her amendment was rejected 169-240.

      “We should take care that we don’t make the program so prescriptive that developers find that they can’t participate in the program,” Capito said.

     Frank insisted that the bill without Capito’s amendment would provide flexibility for developers to comply with the mandatory energy efficiency requirements.

      “Everything we do with our money should be energy efficient,” Frank said. He added that there should be flexibility in how to reach energy efficiency standards, not how energy efficient projects the projects should be.

      The also House voted, 186-221 to reject an amendment by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) that would have allowed HUD to issue demolition-only grants under the program.

      “If you tear down and build zero, then you’ve exacerbated the housing crisis,” Frank said.

      Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.) said that HUD has not used its demolition-only grant authority since 2003, but previous use netted a loss of 30,000 public housing units.

      The House voted down an amendment by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) that would have prohibited appropriations authorized under the bill to pay Davis-Bacon wages — prevailing wage rates to be paid on federally funded or assisted construction projects. It failed on a vote of 136-268.

      By 372-28, the House approved a motion to recommit by Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) to add language to the bill that would give veterans priority consideration for housing created with HOPE VI grants. By voice vote the House approved an amendment by Frank to include that language in the bill.

      The House gave voice vote approval to amendments by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.).

      Lee’s amendment would prohibit the eviction of elderly or disabled HOPE VI housing tenants based on criminal activities of others. Mahoney’s amendment would restore the set aside for the Main Street grant program, which provides grants up to $1 million to smaller communities in the development of affordable housing that is undertaken in connection with a Main Street revitalization effort. The amendment would restore the five percent set-aside in the HOPE VI annual appropriations.

      The White House, which in its Statement on Administration Policy released Wednesday called the program “less cost-effective and efficient” than other housing programs has proposed terminating HOPE VI funding for the past five years. President Bush stopped short of issuing an explicit veto threat against the measure.  

      The Senate has not yet acted on similar legislation, but Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) introduced legislation (www.opencongress.org) last March that would reauthorize the program through 2012 at $600 million annually. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing on the bill last June but no timeline for further action has been announced. input in how to best utilize these federal funds.