Comments to the Resident Advisory Board Re:
The San Francisco Housing Authority 2006 Annual Plan
(Submitted June 9th, 2006)
I. General SFHA Policies and Practices
A. Customer Service/ Resident Relations
1. General Client Treatment
SFHA staff should treat clients in a professional manner with common courtesy. This includes being on time to appointments, calling ahead to re-schedule if an appointment with a client cannot be kept, taking the necessary amount of time to meet with clients, providing accurate and detailed answers to client questions, maintaining a courteous demeanor, providing proper forms, paperwork and copies of written policies when requested, efficiently maintaining client’s files and promptly processing and adjusting clients’ files.
2. Complaint Procedure
Tenants often encounter problems with the SFHA that are outside the scope of the grievance process, that need a more timely response or that they are not entitled to formally grieve. Incidents of tenants’ grievances include such things as: lost paperwork resulting in detrimental impact on a client’s housing situation; unfair treatment by caseworkers; lack of response by SFHA staff; failure of SFHA staff to make timely adjustments, etc.
The SFHA should institute a formal complaint procedure that addresses problematic interactions with SFHA staff. This would enable tenants to voice their concerns about treatment by SFHA staff. The procedure should allow for documentation of incidences so that patterns can be identified and rectified. The procedure should require a written response by appropriate SFHA supervisors to demonstrate that the problem has been adequately reviewed and addressed.
In Public Housing, The SFHA should also separate the grievance procedure from the property management in different housing developments. Tenants currently, are told to obtain a copy of the grievance procedures from their property management and to staff submit them through management as well. However, often tenant complaints may involve that person (s). Therefore, a tenant grievance procedure should be established that is separate from SFHA staff that have direct contact with tenants, ( Grievance procedures should be available and submissions should be accepted at 440 Turk St offices as an alternative) and to ensure an independent and unbiased response.
A comprehensive and centralized tracking system for tenant complaints should be developed and monitored. This system should include data on frequency of complaints, most common developments, landlords or properties or SFHA staff generating complaints, amount of time taken to resolve complaints, etc and should be easily accessed by clients and their advocates.
The SFHA should ensure that all tenants are aware of the right to ask for reasonable accommodations in getting assistance from SFHA staff with filling out grievance forms or following the grievance procedure.
The SFHA should consider establishing a resident “quality of service” committee to provide ongoing input regarding customer service issues.
3. Phone/ Voicemail Systems
It is essential that clients are able to contact and communicate with SFHA staff whenever necessary. Unfortunately, clients commonly have difficulties contacting and receiving communication from staff. Client representatives have also reported having such difficulties. A staff directory, that includes the chain of command, should be updated and made more readily available. We also suggest that the SFHA allow more “voice mailbox” space so that clients can always leave messages for staff and have a required turn-around time on returning phone calls to clients (we suggest 3 working days).
The main switchboard should also be made more “user-friendly”. It should always be answered or a recorded directory with transfer capacity should be in place. Information and referral should be provided at the main switchboard. Clients should be provided with email addresses as an alternate means of communication.
4. Correspondence
Letters sent to clients from the SFHA should have consistent date stamp, postmark and letter date information. Letters to clients should be sent promptly and at the appropriate time. Clients should never receive critical communication from the SFHA after the relevant date (i.e, notification of an appointment after the appointment date has already passed). Notification of an appointment must be received at least 7 days prior to the appointment date. The SFHA should take aggressive measures to ensure that all correspondence from clients is adequately, received, processed and archived. A beginning step could be to have important client correspondence delivered via certified mail, in order to ensure client receipt.
5. Access to Information
Clients should have easy and swift access to their files, including copies of correspondence, inspection reports, re-certification documentation, rent calculation forms and other relevant paperwork. Clients should also be able to easily find information about SFHA policies, regulations and procedures, including the administrative plan and the tenant's lease, and be able to submit questions regarding the aforementioned.
An organizational chart that includes contact information for caseworkers, inspectors, supervisors and other staff should be made available to clients. Clients should be able to easily determine by phone and online who their caseworker and inspector is and who the respective supervisors are. Description of services and contact information about other SFHA departments such as fair housing, eligibility, maintenance should be also accessible.
We suggest the information be made available online, over the phone, or at an on-site “kiosk”, as well is in hard copy form, so as not to create additional work for caseworkers. The SFHA website should be made more user friendly and include answers to frequently asked questions, commonly used forms (downloadable), online brochures and links to community resources. The information located at each of these locations should be frequently updated so as to provide current information for clients and the community.
6. Grievance procedure
Clients should be fully and accurately informed of their rights to grievance hearings. A clear, concise handout should be developed (in the five major languages), outlining when clients have the right to bring a grievance, the steps in the process and how to request a grievance hearing. Grievance procedure information should be made available to all clients, as an attachment to the lease. Additionally, a verbal process should be instituted to accommodate tenants with low literacy proficiency. This verbal orientation to the grievance process should occur at least one time per year, beginning with the signing of the lease and continuing each year during the annual inspection process.
7. Resident Involvement:
Tenants should have clear and substantial involvement in the recruiting, screening, hiring and termination of SFHA Commissioners as well as a clear format for providing performance feedback. Tenants should be able to review the attendance record of each Commissioner each year. Additionally, more tenant representation on the SFHA Board of Commissioners should be encouraged and facilitated.
B. Eligibility
Eligibility needs to develop a simple form (similar to Bay Area Legal Aid’s info sheet) outlining preferences for the public housing waiting list. Any public housing applicant meeting with an eligibility worker should get this form filled out and dated, stating the preferences claimed by the applicant and the documentation needed for them.
1. Criminal Warrants and Eligibility:
Criminal warrants or citations related to clients' homeless status should not prevent them from being eligible for housing. Many people receive criminal citations solely because they are homeless, for violations such as public lodging, camping, and trespassing. Because homeless people cannot afford to pay the large fines associated with these citations, they often go to warrant. No one should be denied housing because of a "quality of life" charge or warrant.
In addition, clients should be given a reasonable time to clear up any outstanding warrants or charges against them. The criminal justice system moves slowly, and it usually takes months to get resolution of a warrant, a criminal case, or an expungement. No denial should be issued if the client is actively working to clear her record or resolve a pending criminal matter.
Clients who are denied housing because they have found to be on the state registered sex offender list should be allowed an opportunity to dispute and be provided with a copy of registration information found before any adverse action is taken as consistent with QHWRA (Sec. 578(d)).
2. Lost Eligibility for Subsidy:
The SFHA should work with tenants to help them comply with any re-certification, inspection or other ongoing eligibility requirements. It is especially important to make it known to all tenants that tenants with disabilities have a right to request reasonable accommodations. Such accommodation may sometimes require providing additional assistance with eligibility or providing additional time to comply with such requirements. For example, a tenant may ask for assistance in filling out a form because of a physical disability. Or, a tenant may need a rule or policy to be put in writing that usually is not put in writing, because of a mental health disability such as dementia.
An effective way to make tenants aware of the right to request reasonable accommodations is to provide a Reasonable Accommodation Request Form with every application or with every lease agreement (remember that the SFHA staff cannot target only tenants they perceive as having disabilities or needing reasonable accommodations, but can and should make the right to such accommodations known to all tenants).
C. Fair Housing
1. Language Issues
Clients should be able to request and receive correspondence from the SFHA in their native language. All standard forms should be available in the five major languages. Translation services should be available for both phone and face-to-face appointments with SFHA staff. Public hearings should be translated in a manner that allows for equal participation from all populations and is most efficient. We suggest that separate meetings be held for different language speakers or simultaneous electronic translation devices be used. The SFHA should develop a Limited English Proficiency (LEP) plan.
The SFHA should consider language access to be an important priority and factor that determines a tenant’s satisfaction with SFHA’s services. Therefore, language access services should not be dependent upon funding access or sources. SFHA should make all reasonable attempts, either through translators already employed through SFHA or through contract agreements, to provide translation services that include both interpretation and translation services. SFHA responsibilities regarding Limited English Proficiency tenants should be clearly detailed and included as an attachment to tenant leases.
2. Disability Issues
SFHA staff should proactively inform clients of their rights to reasonable accommodation, whether or not they have actual knowledge of a client’s disability status. SFHA line staff should be provided with enhanced support and training around disability and reasonable accommodations issues so as to develop a greater awareness and sensitivity to disability issues among SFHA staff. The SFHA should consider assigning a key staff person to overseeing reasonable accommodations requests and educating staff and clients about disability issues and the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. The SFHA should commit to regularly training its entire staff on Fair Housing law.
All persons in senior/disabled buildings should receive information about the rules involving non-tenant household members (persons living in the household as personal care attendants). It should be made clear to both the tenant(s) and to the PCA that the PCA has no tenant rights and is not “on the voucher,”including the right to continued occupancy after the tenant vacates, the right to a transfer within the system, and the right to be at the top of the waiting list. All PCAs should sign a form annually stating that they understand these rules.
SFHA should assess the cost of upgrading current public housing units to be accessible by persons with disabilities, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and present a proposal to the Commission to assess how to upgrade those units. SFHA should also place tenants on the priority transfer waiting list if they have disability accommodations issues that cannot be fulfilled by their current housing situation.
D. Domestic Violence Issues:
The SFHA should modify its plans so as to proactively recognize and address the epidemic of domestic violence in Section 8 and Public Housing. The SFHA should modify its policies to provide domestic violence survivors with waivers of any requirements that put them at increased risk of abuse, make it more difficult for them to escape the abuse, or unfairly penalize them as abuse survivors.The SFHA should excuse domestic violence survivors from damage debts incurred by abusers. SFHA should seek repayment from a perpetrator of domestic violence only not the household victim of domestic violence for damages to a public housing unit or private Section 8 unit when a perpetrator of domestic violence caused the damages.
The SFHA should maintain an updated list of referral agencies and counseling support services for both survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence. Regular communication about these services should be provided by the SFHA to tenants. Additionally, the SFHA should look into the possibility of contracting with an outside community agency to be able to adequately address domestic violence issues. The staff person who is responsible for providing this information and resources to tenants should not be a tenant’s case manager or other staff person, in the event that a conflict of interest occurs with overlapping relationships between the perpetrator, survivor, and SFHA staff.
E. Community Relations
1. Community:
A Community Advisory Board comprised of community organizations and other stakeholders should be developed to allow for ongoing communication between the SFHA and the larger San Francisco community. SFHA commissioners should be representative of constituents and stakeholders and accountable to community and resident needs
2. Local Government:
There should be a mechanism for regular reporting on critical issues, such as vacancies, code violations, evictions, admissions and transfers from the SFHA to City departments and officials.
Key city departments and officials should be made aware of any major policy changes or potentially damaging funding shortfalls that will have a negative bearing on the City’s subsidized housing renters or its affordable housing stock and those departments and officials should hold public hearings and forward recommendations to the SFHA when appropriate.
There should be a designated SFHA point person who maintains relations with City government, provides information upon request and investigates concerns voiced by City departments and officials. A City/ SFHA/ Community task force should be developed to address issues that consistently arise.
II. Section 8 Program
A. Resident Involvement:
There should be an ongoing, Section 8 resident advisory body, similar to the Public Housing Residents Association (or the Resident Advisory Board) which maintains regular communication with the SFHA senior staff and commission and provides feedback about performance and policy. There should be at least one Section 8 tenant representative on the SFHA Board of Commissioners.
B. Rents
The SFHA should continue to advocate to HUD to grant an exception to the FMRs for San Francisco. The SFHA should outreach and educate landlords to encourage reduction in contract rents by sending letters in rent statements, holding informational meetings, discussing the issue when other communication is conducted. The SFHA should conduct a Random Digit Dialing survey to assess rents. The survey should exclude rent-controlled units and include only units within the City of San Francisco.
In the case of rent increases due to a reduction in the payment standard, the SFHA should
conduct reasonableness assessments (comparable rents) as close to the effective date of the rent increase as possible to avoid a tenant's displacement (when his/her rent may be lowered after reasonableness is conducted). Also, written instructions should be available to tenants with disabilities outlining how they can submit a request for a reasonable accommodation in the form of a HUD waiver allowing for a payment standard of 120% of FMR (as per 24 CFR, 982.503).
1. Medical Deductions: Managers should remind tenants in senior/disabled buildings annually that they can show their out-of-pocket medical expenses to lower their Section 8 rent, and should make it possible for tenants to do so.We suggest that a simple instruction sheet be created to explain to clients with disabilities how to submit their documentation of medical expenses so as to avoid delays or inaccuracies in income and rent calculations. The sheet should also explain which costs are eligible for exclusion from income.
C. Fair Housing
1. Disability issues
Reasonable accommodations forms should be made available to Section 8 tenants at first rent-up and at least annually thereafter. Section 8 tenants should be notified annually of their reasonable accommodations rights, including more time to correct subsidy-threatening deficiencies (such as failure to get documentation for a live-in PCA, or failure to correct a disability-related clutter
problem).
Disabled Section 8 residents should be affirmatively informed of their right to request an exclusion of out-of-pocket medical expenses from their income calculations. Section 8 Clients with disabilities who receive rent increases as a result of the reduction in HUD’s Fair Market Rents should be informed of their right to request a waiver allowing the SFHA to raise their HAP payment to 120% of FMR as a reasonable accommodation and should be given the necessary information to submit a waiver request.
D. Evictions/Terminations:
A plan should be developed with community input as to what measures the SFHA will take in the event that federal funding cuts require voucher terminations.
E. Repairs/ Maintenance
There should be a central repair/ maintenance “hotline” that clients can call to report repair needs. The process and timeline for enforcing violations of code and Housing Quality Standards should be clearly outlined for clients, with relevant information such as how to locate and contact your SFHA inspector, and information about utilizing the Department of Building Inspection and other City departments such as the Department of Environmental Health.
F.Inspections
Initial pre move-in inspections need to happen within a specific reasonable time frame that does not put the client at risk of temporary homelessness or of the landlord renting the unit to someone else.
Tenants should have adequate ability to re-schedule inspections if they are at an inconvenient time. This requires being able to contact inspectors and receiving return phone calls promptly.
III. Public Housing
A. Resident Involvement
Residents should not be intimidated from organizing themselves to ensure their basic rights are enforced and allowed. Resident or tenant associations should be given the authority to decide the amount of autonomy that they would like from the SFHA. Resident and tenant associations should be adequately funded to provide needed programming and services for SFHA residents.
B. Vacancies.
The SFHA should repair and re-rent any vacant units in a timely manner. Units should not be vacant for more than two months. The SFHA should regularly compile and distribute a list of vacant units. If there are any units that have been vacant for more than two months, the SFHA should provide a written explanation for what is causing the delay.
C. Maintenance/ Repairs
Maintenance requests that are reported though the emergency repair line should be followed up on by staff other then the person responsible for fixing the problem in order to ensure that the repair has been done. If emergency repairs are not made within 24 hours after reporting the need, residents should have a means to report the lack of response to a maintenance supervisor. Clients with serious unaddressed repair needs affecting the health and safety of occupants should be eligible for rent reduction and/or swift priority transfer approval. Emergency repairs should also include anything related to violent activity that occurs on SFHA property, such as windows broken from gunshots or domestic violence.
Data on repair requests, including number and type of requests and date of reporting and completion, should be publicly available. The SFHA should work cooperatively with the Department of Building Inspections, the Board of Supervisors and the City Attorney’s Code Enforcement program to ensure that repair needs are promptly and adequately addressed.
D. Disability Issues:
Reasonable accommodations/reasonable modification request forms should be available at the front desk of every building, along with clear information as to where the forms should be submitted. The right to reasonable accommodations/modifications, which include the right to more time to correct tenancy-threatening deficiencies (such as disability-related clutter problems), should be explained to residents annually. Requests that involve disability-related accommodations/modifications should be tracked separately from routine repair requests and in a timely manner.
E. Eligibility/ Admissions
1. Preferences
Homeless applicants should be awarded the maximum number of preference points, above all other categories, on the waiting list for public housing. The City of San Francisco’s definition of homeless, which includes families who are in SROs and “doubled up,”should be used by the SFHA to define homelessness.
The San Francisco Housing Authority should modify its wait list and transfer protocols to include a preference for survivors of domestic violence who are in immediate risk of violence and who need access to safe and affordable housing in order to escape the abuse.
2. Transfers
A clear reasonable accommodation policy for disability-related transfers needs to be written and a separate request form used. These transfers should not be simply classified as one form of “priority transfer.” (SFHA may need to rewrite its “priority transfer” policy as an “emergency transfer” policy.) The requirement that the disabled person’s situation be “life threatening” should not be made. (Neither Federal, state, nor local law requires that a situation be “life threatening” before a reasonable accommodation can be requested; requiring a disabled applicant for transfer to meet this extra burden is discriminatory under Federal law.)
No tenant requesting a transfer for disability reasons should be required to meet tenancy screening requirements different from (higher than) those required when the tenant was first accepted for SFHA tenancy. To impose additional screening requirements is discriminatory under federal law.
F. Demolition/ Modernization
All public housing units demolished during HOPE VI or other types of modernization projects should be replaced one-for-one supporting residents at the same income levels as before.
All existing residents should have the right to re-inhabit units after rebuild without being subjected to further screening. The Housing Authority should ensure in any contracts it makes with other entities to run newly developed or remodeled public housing developments that former residents of the development are automatically eligible for vacancies at those developments.
G. Evictions
Eviction notices (prior to Unlawful Detainers) should advise tenants of their rights to the informal dispute resolution provisions of 24 CFR 966.51-966.55 and should inform tenants of legal services and community resources (such as back rent assistance programs, Eviction Defense Collaborative, etc) .
H. Crime and Safety
1. Police and Security
Police patrols, emphasizing community policing strategies, should be onsite at SFHA developments 24/ 7. There also needs a system of accountability in place by SFHA to ensure the presence of the police patrols. The SFHA should re-examine its policy of leveraging valuable resources towards police patrols (1 million dollars), to institute a more cost-effective program that puts empowerment of residents at the top of the priority list.
2. Priority Transfers
The Housing Authority should ensure in any contracts it makes with other entities to run public housing developments that persons who have been approved for a priority transfer are automatically eligible for vacancies at those developments, and shall be entitled to priority on those wait lists. The SFHA should work closely with City government and non-profit housing developers to identify potential alternative transfer options outside of the SFHA developments. The SFHA should also explore possibilities of providing priority transfers to developments in regions outside of San Francisco by working with other Housing Authorities throughout Northern California. SFHA staff should be trained to assist residents in applying for priority transfers when applicable.
Submitted by:
The Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco
Bay Area Legal Aid
The Eviction Defense Collaborative
The San Francisco Tenants Union
San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness
Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco
AIDS Legal Referral Panel
Senior Action Network
Senior Housing Action Coalition
Council of Community Housing Organizations
SF Housing Justice Movement
New College Housing Advocacy Clinic
Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights
People Organized to Win Employment Rights
St Peter's Housing Committee
Chinese Progressive Association