First List of 80 MTW Agency Voucher and Public Housing Counts by State, Including This Years MTW Expansion Agencies.

In my prior post I provided counts of Public Housing and Voucher counts by HUD region with a breakout of those counts for the now 80 approved HUD MTW agencies. 

In the 3 page PDF HERE and embedded below I breakout those counts by state. 

The listing starts with Vouchers, then Public Housing, and then the combination of both. 

Columns show MTW subtotals and state MTW percentage rankings. 

I'm confident that this is the first public posting of these counts. I used unit counts from the PHA data found in the HUD Picture of Subsidized Housing annual publication HERE.   

Some observations: 

1. Oregon has the 6th highest percentage of PH units in MTW agencies, the 7th highest percentage of voucher units, and the 6th highest percentage of combined PH and voucher units. Oregon's  combined total of 15,331 MTW units is higher than Ohio's 11,555 combined MTW units AND North Carolina's combined 12,279 MTW units. 
2. Washington has the 2nd highest percentage of PH units in MTW agencies, the 3rd highest percentage of voucher units, and the 3rd highest percentage of combined PH and voucher units. Washington's 33,341 voucher MTW units are slightly higher than the 33,148 MTW voucher units in Texas.
3. California has the largest number of voucher units in MTW agencies at 72,299 units.
4. Pennsylvania has the largest number of public housing units in MTW agencies at 16,145 units.
5. New York, with a combined count of 461,790 public housing and voucher units, has ZERO MTW units. Ditto for Michigan with a combined count of 83,646 public housing and voucher units and ZERO MTW units. 

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Latest MTW Expansion Includes Washington County and Brings MTW Share of ALL US Vouchers to 16% and 10% of All Public Housing Units.

HUD has announced the latest 10 PHA's approved as Moving to Work agencies, bringing the MTW total to 80 PHA's. The latest limited scope MTW approvals test various rent variations as explained in the HUD PR HERE.  The HUD MTW landing page is HERE.

The Housing Authority of Washington County [HAWC] was one of the agencies approved for MTW participation; Home Forward is the only other MTW agency in Oregon. 

HAWC's approval for a tiered rent structure will extend regular income reviews to 3 years and band tenant rents by $2,500 income increments to simplify the rent setting process. The HAWC application, with many more details, is HERE. 

I compiled a count of public housing and HUD voucher units within the 80 MTW agencies and put together a summary by HUD region in a PDF file HERE and embedded below. [The unit count data source was the 2020 HUD picture of subsidized housing data found HERE].

Observations:

• Region 10 [which includes Oregon and Washington] has the highest regional percentage of both public housing (57.2%) and voucher units (46.7%) in MTW agencies. 
• In contrast Region 2 (think NYC), with 223,167 public housing units has only 394 of those units in MTW agencies. 
• There are now 98,525 public housing units in MTW agencies and 425,079 voucher units. 
• The latest 10 MTW agencies just added have a total of 59,556 units; 11,325 public housing units and 48,231 voucher units. 
• The two MTW 2021 expansions this year to date have added a total of 75,596 units; 15,875 public housing units and 59,721 voucher units 
• I count a total of 2,861 public housing agencies. The 80 MTW agencies are only 3.7% of total agencies, but have a substantially higher 10.3% of all public housing units and 16.2% of all voucher units.

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BIG Data: 10 Million Pieces of Data For 4 Years of HUD Voucher Data Now Available, Including Moving to Work Data.

It's hard for me to believe but July 4th marks the start of my 7th year in retirement. To celebrate the occasion I put together another BIG data post.

Last June I created and posted an Excel workbook with 3 years of HUD Voucher data from the Voucher Management System. (Prior post HERE).

I have now added CY 2012 data to the prior data to create a single Excel workbook with 4 calendar years of voucher data, HERE with a permanent link added to the right pane as Voucher VMS Data, US and Oregon: CY 2009-CY2012. 

(The Excel file is too large to embed in this post; the HUD source page for VMS data is HERE, and it includes links to a data dictionary as well as the source data).

The Excel file is LARGE at about 60 MB's because, for the US, the data file contains 89 data elements in 112,800+ rows for 2,300+ housing authorities; that's more than 10 million individual pieces of data.

Included in the workbook are pivot tables for both US and Oregon voucher data; the 89 different data fields included in each worksheet are listed vertically in the READ ME worksheet in the workbook.  

Oregon Monthly Summary for December 2009-2012
For Oregon for December of 2009,2010,2011,and 2012. there is also a summary by housing authority of:

• The count of vouchers in use.
• The total cost for housing assistance payments.
• My calculated per unit monthly cost for housing assistance payments.

At the VERY end of this post I have embedded a PDF version of this Oregon specific worksheet; a direct link is HERE.

MTW Field Added
The last worksheet in this workbook is a new worksheet I put together that lists all 35 HUD designated MTW agencies as of June 2013 and their HUD ID's. (4 additional MTW PHA's selected in December 2012 are not included). 

Using this list I added a data field to the four year voucher data showing the MTW status of each agency, so pivot tables can now used to see how MTW agency voucher use compares with other non MTW agencies. 

Note that because voucher funding is fungible with some MTW agencies, the count of vouchers shown in the VMS database may not include all families receiving voucher funded assistance being provided by that housing authority.

I believe this is by far the most extensive set of HUD voucher data that is available to the public. A look at the field names in the READ ME worksheet provides a good idea about the depth and wide variety of the data that can be retrieved using the included Pivot Table worksheets.

Examples of Data Retrievable with Pivot Tables (All comparisons are between December 2011 and December 2012 VMS data):

Oregon

1. Average per unit monthly HAP costs were reduced by 5.5%/$29 a month, from $492 to $463. [A likely cause of this could be a change in payment standards and/or a shift to smaller average bedroom sizes; changes in the quality of data reporting could also play a role].
2. Total reported vouchers in use (excluding mainstream)  increased by 3,344/10.5% from 31,922 to 35,266 .[See important note 3 under "US" below].

US

1. Total reported vouchers in use (excluding mainstream)  increased by 232,971 vouchers/11.1%  from 2,107,656 to 2,340,627 vouchers. 
2. 35 MTW agencies accounted for 12.1% of vouchers in use as of December 2012 (282,383 of 2,340,627 vouchers). [There are more than 2,300 housing authorities who report the use of HUD vouchers]. 
3. There was a substantial increase in vouchers in use reported from June to July 2012. The increase was 8.8%/187,000+ vouchers in one month. CLEARLY their was some unexplained change in reporting that occurred during that period. This was a fiscal year change for many PHA's, but the change in vouchers in use during the same periods during prior fiscal years was much smaller. It is possible that improved reporting from Moving to Work agencies may account for some of the change. (I have pointed out this unexplained significant increase to HUD HQS but did not receive a response by the time of this posting). 

Caveats

1. Changes in the quality of VMS reporting could account for some of the differences in costs and vouchers in use. (See comment 3 under "US" above).
2. The data worksheets are composed of 16 different worksheets I individually imported into one workbook; while I made every effort to avoid errors it is always possible that I made some transposition errors. IF you discover any please let me know and I will post a corrected version of the workbook.
3. Because of timing it is unlikely that this data  incorporates any direct results from sequestration. I would expect to see reductions in reported vouchers in use once sequestration begins to take hold. 

PDF embed of Oregon voucher worksheet, for December of 2009-2012, is below: 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog

MTW Hearing Video.

From House Financial Services Subcommittee yesterday, HERE, and also embedded below (File is large at 185 MB's; hearing was about 1 1/4 hours).


Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

MTW Hearing Testimony From US House Financial Services Subcommittee.

Combined written testimony I put together from PHA's at hearing of US House Financial Services Subcommittee today is HERE; GAO testimony is HERE. (Sigh; why does GAO insist on adding security to their PDF's so they can't be combined with other PDF files?).

Hearing page is HERE; video may appear after completion?

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

One Homeforward Amendment to FY 2013 Moving to Work Plan Would Provide One Time Incentive to Landlords Leasing Voucher Units in Low Poverty Census Tracts.

All Homeforward proposed amendments can be found HERE.

Among the proposed amendments is this one which eliminates some restrictions and changes the area of focus from zip codes to census tracts: 

 

Home Forward will implement a landlord incentive program to attract new landlords and units in low poverty areas to the Housing Choice Voucher program. In its initial year of testing, the program will offer a one time, $100 incentive payment for each eligible unit a landlord leases to a Housing Choice Voucher participant. A landlord will be eligible to receive up to ten incentive payments per multifamily complex. Eligible units must be located in zip codes census tracts considered low-poverty areas and not have had a Housing Choice
Voucher tenant in the prior 24 months.

• There will be a public hearing on the proposed amendment on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, at 6:15 p.m. at Humboldt Gardens, 5033 N Vancouver Ave, Portland, OR.
• You may send written comments before May 15, to Melissa.Sonsalla@homeforward.org or by mail to Home Forward, 135 SW Ash St., Portland, OR 97204, Attn: Melissa Sonsalla.

The full FY 2013 plan being amended can be found HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HAP Receives $500,000 Urban Institute Grant to Improve Family Services at New Columbia and Humboldt Gardens.

Important news from HAP in their latest HUD Unwrapped newsletter HERE:

With funding for the demonstration project provided by Open Society Foundation's Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation, the Urban Institute will work with HAP's New Columbia and Humboldt Gardens communities to enhance services that address the complex needs of residents and evaluate the results of the project. "We're eager to participate with the Urban Institute," said John Keating, HAP's program director of Strategic Partnerships. "This initiative will help us and housing agencies across the country be more innovative when helping families create a better life for themselves and their children. We are especially excited to connect young people with the many opportunities that can help them build a great future

A national press release naming other cities also receiving grants is HERE. PR notes that this effort is funded with $3 million in seed money from the Open Society Foundation's Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation (HERE). 

Readers may also recall my December post HERE with links to related background materials on Urban Institute evaluation of Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration, used as a model for this continuing effort.

Look for updates from HAP in coming months for more specifics on commitments from other local partners and outcome goals.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CBPP Doesn't Like Possible "Sharp" Expansion of HUD Moving to Work Program.

Their analysis is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HAP FY 2011 Draft Moving to Work Plan Posted; Opportunities to Hear Presentation to Board and Then Later to Comment.

The Housing Authority of Portland has posted a draft of their FY 2011 Moving to Work Plan HERE. This document lays out any planned changes in the administration and delivery of HUD funded public housing and Section 8 vouchers within Multnomah County in the coming fiscal year. I highly recommend reading this important plan.

Public Hearing Offers Opportunity to Comment
HAP has also scheduled a public hearing on the plan for Tuesday, January 19, 2010 @ 6:15 pm at the Multnomah County Building, 501 SE Hawthorne.

Work session THIS Wednesday Will Brief the HAP Board.
The MTW draft is also scheduled to be discussed at the HAP Board meeting work session on January 6th. That meeting is 4-5:30 PM at the HAP Office, in the Columbia Room on the 6th floor. (Doesn't appear that this meeting offers an opportunity for formal public comment).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.