Cambridge Housing Authority director hopeful Obama will deregulate housing funding

PUBLISHED by The Cambridge Chronicle

Cambridge —The Cambridge Housing Authority hopes the Obama administration will be receptive to stripping the red tape around public housing funding, the organization’s executive director told an audience at Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston lecture Monday afternoon.



Gregory Russ discussed new opportunities for public housing at “Housing Policy and the Post-Bush Era: The View from Cambridge.” The talk, co-sponsored by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, was part of the Kennedy School of Government’s spring Boston 101 Lecture Series on local institutions.

Russ said that while the financial sector was heavily deregulated under the Bush administration, public housing programs have been regulated to the point of being “stifled” during Bush’s terms in office.

“A sad, sad thing of the prior administration is the complete depreciation of the value of the housing department, of knowledgeable staff and the idea that public housing is a good thing,” Russ said.

Nationally and in Cambridge, public housing needs funding to update old buildings that were constructed as early as the 1940s with outdated electrical systems, Russ said. Housing authorities also need money to develop new types of energy and to enhance services available to seniors and the disabled, he said.

“In terms of capital, this is what the administration must do to preserve units and keep them viable in the long-term,” Russ said.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development needs restructuring and reform overall, he said, to reverse the “foot-dragging” and “under-funding” of the agency under Bush.

In 1996, HUD developed the Moving to Work Demonstration Deregulation program, which allowed the Cambridge Housing Authority to design its public housing program according to the city’s specific needs, Russ said. In an agreement signed in 1999, CHA agreed to follow a few basic national regulations, such as how to define income qualifications, while forming their own local policies.

According to Russ, the CHA’s flexibility has allowed the organization to keep its current units in good condition and invest surpluses into buying new buildings, including a unit that CHA is expected to purchase at a board meeting on Wednesday.

Russ said the federal stimulus package has designated $3 million for each housing authority, and Massachusetts may also pass on stimulus money to CHA. He said CHA has identified $40 million in projects, but the agency does not know how much they will receive.
Eric Belsky, executive director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, said Cambridge has “taken full advantage” of the Move to Work program by competing for funds, such as tax credits, that other housing authorities usually do not have the opportunity to get.

“They take much more of a leadership role,” Belsky said. “It has much more of a public purpose … tied to a local and political scene.”

Belsky said he hopes Move to Work can be expanded under the new administration, because although Congress approved its renewal under Bush for ten additional years, the program became more limited.

“It suffered from benign neglect,” Russ said. “They made changes we don’t like, but we wanted the extension.”