Public housing closes door on new applicants

Veronica Dolores, 65, grew up in the rural Tohono O'odham community of Covered Wells near Sells.

She moved to Tucson nine years ago. Now, diabetic and disabled, Dolores is no longer able to work.

On June 5, she signed a lease on a three-bedroom home owned by the city of Tucson.

Dolores moved from a two-bedroom rental in what she called a "dangerous" neighborhood to the larger home in a good neighborhood in midtown, thanks to the city's public housing program.

She is one of the lucky ones.

On June 1, the city stopped taking applications from families for public housing because the program is filled to capacity.

The program allows people who can't afford market-rate rents and who meet other requirements to apply for housing owned by the city.

Low-income families and individuals pay a minimum of $50 in rent up to 30 percent of their monthly gross income and may also qualify for assistance with utility bills.

Dolores is raising three school-age children. She depends on a Social Security disability check and food stamps but struggled with rising gas and food prices and rent of more than $600 a month. Her new rent was still being worked out with the city when she moved in, but it will be "substantially less," she said.

Families such as Dolores' are the kind the city is trying to help with its public housing program.

But the city has stopped taking applications indefinitely, except from elderly and disabled individuals who can be accommodated in a studio or one-bedroom rental.

"We only have 1,505 units (of public housing) and that's not nearly enough to meet the need in the community," said Emily Nottingham, who heads the city's Community Services Department, which oversees public housing and other services for low-income families.

"Whenever the waiting list builds up, at some point it doesn't make sense to keep adding to the waiting list. It's not fair to people," she said.

The city's first public housing was purchased in 1941. New housing stock was added until 1985, when federal money for the program dried up, Nottingham said.

"Since then, the population of Tucson has grown every year and we're serving them with about the same number of units," Nottingham said.

A niece persuaded Dolores to apply for public housing. The grandmother of six is now raising a relative's three children: a 10-year-old boy and two girls, ages 12 and 14.

"Their mother died last year," she said. "The court made me the guardian."

Dolores can't work because of complications from diabetes.

"I can't walk too far or stand too long," she said.

She was on the housing waiting list for a year and a half before she got good news from the city.

Nottingham also supervises the city's Section 8 "housing choice" rental voucher program. That program, also funded by federal money, subsidizes market-rate rents paid by long-term tenants for housing they select.

The city pays $20 million a year in subsidies to local landlords in the Section 8 program, making it an economic development tool for the city as well, she said.

The demand for Section 8 program vouchers is so great that applications have been closed for two years, Nottingham said.

However, those applications will be accepted again for just one week, in July. The date will be announced, she said.

In that week, "I expect we'll get 3,000 to 4,000 applications," she said.

The last time the Section 8 waiting list opened briefly, 4,000 people applied.

That is partly because a total of about 55 households leave the public housing and Section 8 programs each month, creating limited vacancies.

"The need is so much larger," Nottingham said.

Those who do leave are people who "get more income, get married, get divorced or move into the private (housing) market," she said.

"We are 100 percent occupied in Section 8 and 99 percent occupied in public housing," Nottingham said in a recent interview.

The average stay in either program is about three years.

Seniors and the disabled "tend to stay much longer" because they "tend not to be able to increase their income," she said.

The public housing program has a backlog of 5,000 applications representing at least 10,000 individuals, according to Pat Cutting, a supervisor in the Community Services Housing Management Division.

The staff processes about 200 applications each month for the public housing program alone, Cutting said.

More Tucson families are looking for public housing because "rents in the private sector have increased so much, families are having a hard time affording rent for those properties. Salaries are not keeping up with the cost of living and what rents are costing," Cutting said.

Families whose heads of household are employed or are disabled and collecting Social Security disability get priority, she said.

Cutting said that although applications from the elderly or disabled still are accepted, a backlog of 1,000 applications in that category will take eight months to a year to process.

The public housing program includes properties in neighborhoods throughout the city. The Section 8 program covers housing countywide.

Long waiting lists for these federally funded housing programs are common, according to information on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Web site, www.hud.gov/renting.

The Web site describes the housing programs available to low-income individuals and families, and to the disabled and elderly. Larry Bush, spokesman for HUD in San Francisco, said each HUD-funded program has its own guidelines, also explained on the Web site.

HUD is providing $5.55 million in rent subsidies to the city for the public housing program in 2008. That pays for 82 percent of the cost of the program, said Olga Osterhage, supervisor of the public housing program for the city.

Applicants for public housing must be able to show they are good tenants, Cutting said. Previous landlords are contacted.

An applicant's criminal history over the past five years is reviewed.

"Sex offenders are never housed with us," Cutting said. "They get a lifetime denial.

"People with DUI convictions are not automatically excluded. We'll look at (their applications) if they have proof they have completed a program and are rehabilitated.

"Lots of people on probation apply," Cutting said. "They have to complete probation and get treatment" before they will be considered.