Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Philadelphia PHA Scattered Site Homes: 6,900 Total Homes; PHA Is Selling 1,800, Leaving 1,500 Still Vacant.

This is is an amazing story.

Philadelphia Inquirer story HERE says:
"Of the agency's 6,900 scattered-site houses - separate from its big developments - about a third are boarded up and considered unfit for tenants"........."Although the 1,800 properties that PHA wants to sell are all over the city, most are in North and Southwest Philadelphia. The agency still would be left with 1,500 empty scattered houses that it hopes to repair and rent. Stimulus aid from the federal government is to be used to upgrade 300 of them. PHA also has 4,400 occupied scattered sites, plus 7,200 homes and apartments in its developments."
"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds most of PHA's budget, had to approve the sale. But the request got so bogged down in a bureaucratic quagmire that, in February, HUD shelved it. This month, HUD officials met with PHA executive director Carl Greene in an attempt to move the sale forward. Edward Warwick, a PHA spokesman, said the two agencies had reached "an understanding" on how to dispose of the properties. No start date has been set, but the sales would be "staggered" over three to five years, he said, adding, "It's really a function of where the marketplace is."

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