logo

HOUSING RIGHTS COMMITTEE'S
 CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT PUBLIC HOUSING CUTS

ross mirkarimi
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi speaks at Sept. 18, 2006 press conference in San Francisco to protest
public housing cuts


This is a brief history of the campaign in San Francisco to fight the extreme cutbacks to public housing that will take a serious toll on San Francisco's public housing residents in 2007 and beyond, if left unchecked.  It is meant to inspire and provide examples for residents and advocates of public housing across the country who want to take up the charge of fighting housing cuts in their communities.  We encourage you to make use of the attached materials as you organize your own efforts. We also urge you to join together with us nationally to continue to push public housing up on the priority list for our incoming Congress.  We would be glad to answer questions and provide tips for groups organizing to increase public housing funding in other areas. Just email sara@hrcsf.org.

BACKGROUND:
FEDS CUT PUBLIC HOUSING

In June of 2006, HUD announced that, due to unanticipated increases in utility costs, they would be funding all Housing Authorities across the country at only 86% of the need for public housing.  This was after cuts had already been made which left cities expecting only 92% of their needed funding.  Overall, $600 million was cut from the public housing budget in 2006.  Housing advocates and Housing Authorities both were stunned to hear this devastating news, especially since they were already bracing for extreme cuts in the 2007 budget (anticipated at 78%).   Read the National Low Income Housing Coalition's "Call to Action" to see the national advocate's response. Also, for more background on the issue click here.

SF HIT HARD!
As we learned about the latest round of HUD cuts, it soon became clear that San Francisco was in a unique position.  We were hit really hard by the funding shortfall because, on top of the HUD pro-ration, a new funding formula was being used which disadvantaged some cities more than others.  SF was one of the cities hurt by this. The new formula, which was developed at Harvard, was based on things like geography, population, size and not at actual need.  San Francisco was on the list of top 15 "decliner" agencies that lost even more money on top of the cuts all cities received. We were in line to lose $7.2 million dollars!

TAKING ACTION:
FORGING ALLIANCES
After realizing how truly devastating the cuts would be for our residents, we joined with the National Housing Law Project to meet with our local Housing Authority to discuss the impact of the cuts and how we could join together to advocate to increase funding.  This was the start of a joint effort to educate residents and elected officials about the seriousness of the problem.

ADVOCACY BEGINS
We also sent letters to our members of Congress to make them aware of the crisis and how it would impact San Francisco. We got a local online political action group called Local Impact to post our issue so that people could send letters to Congressmembers online. 630 letters from constituents were sent.  Click here to use the site to send a letter.

OUTREACHING RESIDENTS
We went to tenant meetings at our PHA developments where we passed out flyers to tenants and gathered 650 postcards in English, Spanish, Russian and Cantonese to Congressmembers. This is over 10% of public housing residents.


  Tenants meet with the Housing Authority and the Housing Rights Committee at 255 Woodside

WORKING WITH CONGRESSMEMBERS
We delivered the postcards by hand when we met with staff of Congressmembers Lantos and Pelosi and Senators Boxer and Feinstein.  We brought representatives to show that we had a broad coalition which included residents, legal aid and the SFHA when we briefed the staffers on the urgent issue of public housing cuts.  We explained the potentially disastrous impact on San Francisco's public housing residents and asked our representatives to work towards passage of a 2006 budget supplemental in congress and to increase funding in the  appropriations bills for 2007.  Click here to see a memo we prepared to brief Congressmembers on the issue.

ENLISTING ALLIES
We knew that one of the biggest consequences of the budget cuts would be staff layoffs at the Housing Authority which would not only mean less services for tenants but also loss of jobs for union employees.  At the SFHA, all of the 11 bargaining units had contracts expiring in 2006.  We contacted labor unions who represent the Housing Authority workers to enlist their support.  From this, the San Francisco Labor Council passed a resolution urging Congress to restore funds to public housing.  Also, some individual unions passed their own resolutions and wrote letters of support .

INVOLVING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

We worked to make sure that our Mayor and Board of Supervisors were aware of this pressing issue and to enlist them in our efforts.  Through our Mayor's Office of Housing, we helped get the issue on the Mayor's radar screen.  He was then able to communicate his concern's to Senator Feinstein.  Click here to see the letter he wrote to the Senator and her response.  The Mayor has since continued to lobby congressmembers in conjunction with our campaign and has committed to organizing within the US Conference of Mayors, and to work with Mayors of other impacted cities to produce a letter to Congress from the Conference. 

We asked our Board of Supervisors to hold a hearing to examine the impact of the current and anticipated budget cuts on San Francisco.  Supervisor Tom Ammiano sponsored the hearing on September 18th where Mayor's Office of Housing, SFHA and the National Housing Law Project were invited to testify and dozens of tenants and advocacy groups provided public comment.  Here's a flyer for the event. 

GETTING THE WORD OUT
We held a press conference beforehand to publicize the issue where we had residents, advocates and City officials speak.  Representatives of Senior Action Network, the Coalition on Homelessness, Chinatown Tenant's Association, SEIU, Local 790, Housing Rights Committee and Board Members Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Sophie Maxwell as well as the Mayor's Office of Housing  urged action to restore funding for public housing.  Other supporters included Housing Justice, Central City SRO Collaborative, ACORN, the CLAER project, Mental Health Association, Independent Living Resource Center, The San Francisco Labor Council, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center,  SF State Urban Institute and the Gray Panthers. Here's our press release.



San Francisco residents say no to public housing cuts!

We got a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle and stories in the San Francisco Examiner, on KPFA (listen at 48 minutes  in to hear story) radio, KCBS news and the Sing Tao Daily. Click here to view articles about San Francisco's public housing cuts.

WE GET SUPPORT FROM POLITICAL OFFICIALS
At the next board meeting, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors passed a resolution asking Congress to increase public housing funds. 

Our Congressmembers Pelosi and Lantos responded to our efforts by producing a joint letter to House Appropriations Committee members explaining how important this issue is to San Francisco and asking for support when considering Appropriations decisions.  National organizing around this issue also led to a letter from House members asking for more time before Housing Authorities were required to convert to "asset managment", a new HUD mandate that will cause some Housing Authorities to lose even more funds. 

GOING NATIONAL
We than took our "show on the road" and went national.  We went to DC where we again met with Congressional staff with a broad representation of national groups including the National Housing Law Project (NHLP), National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), Center for Budget and Policy Priorities(CBPP), National Association of Housing Authority and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and the Housing Rights Committee and the City of San Francisco.  Our communications with electeds was strengthened by a newly published report from CBPP entitled "Public housing Squeezed Between Higher Utility Costs and Stagnant Funding" which explores the potential impact of continuing public housing cuts across the nation. 

San Francisco's campaign to stop public housing budget cuts was also documented in the National Housing Law Project's October issue of the Housing Law Bulletin.

HELP STOP THE CUTBACKS!
The battle for adequate operating subsidies is not over.  For Fiscal Year 2007, the Administration requested only $3.564 billion, which it admitted was only 85% of the formula need and $1 billion below what is necessary.  Advocates and the PHAs have concluded that funding at the same level as 2006, would result in funding the operating subsidies at 75-78% of the operating subsidy formula need.  PHAs cannot withstand back-to-back years of substantial under-funding of the operating subsidy.  In prior years, Congress has funded PHAs at less than 100% of need, but never has it funded PHAs at the 2006 and projected 2007 levels. (View operating subsidy levels on the HUD website here).

There is still time to raise the issue of under-funding of the operating subsidies with Congress!  Currently, funding for HUD for 2007 is pursuant to a continuing resolution.  The appropriation for fiscal year 2007 should be taken up with the new Congress in the beginning of 2007. 
 
WHAT ADVOCATES NEED TO DO:
 1.  Engage partners in your community, such as the local PHA, the unions, other housing advocates
 2.  Determine the impact of the under funding, such as reduced services, lack of maintenance, pressure to get rid of public housing  units, etc.
 3.  Educate public housing residents about the issue and encourage them to contact their elected officials (use postcards or petitions and set up meetings with public housing leaders and congressmembers). 
 4.  Raise the issue of the under funding of operating subsidies with your congressional delegation. Ask them to write a dear colleague letter explaining the problem and requesting support for additional funding
 5.  Raise the issue with local politicians so that they are aware of the problem and will support more funding from Congress or  perhaps out of local resources for public housing.