[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 137 (Wednesday, November 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5949-S5951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OBJECTION
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I intend to object to consideration of
the nomination of Lourdes Castro Ramirez to be the Assistant Secretary
of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, for the Office
of Public and Indian Housing.
Over the last 4 years, I have been raising concerns about serious
problems at public housing authorities and HUD's failure to address
them. The Office of Public and Indian Housing is responsible for
overseeing the public housing authority program.
I recently learned that HUD is negotiating new, 10-year contracts
with the 39 housing authorities participating in the Moving to Work,
MTW, demonstration program. The Office of Public and Indian Housing is
also responsible for administering this program but has failed to
conduct proper oversight for years.
The current contracts don't expire until 2018 so there is no need to
rush into signing new contracts. Instead, I recommend HUD takes serious
steps to address the program deficiencies and determine if this
demonstration should continue.
A group of housing advocacy organizations sent a letter to HUD on
November 7, 2014, raising concerns about the lack of transparency in
the MTW contract negotiations. I am requesting that a copy of this
letter be included with my statement in the Record. These organizations
represent the people directly impacted by HUD decisions. They are
asking questions that would strengthen the program and protect funding
from abuse. But HUD is blocking them from participating in the process.
Only the MTW agencies are allowed to review the contracts and comment
on the proposed changes.
According to HUD briefing materials, the MTW housing authorities
operate about 14 percent of the Nation's housing stock and receive over
$3 billion in funding per year, equal to about 20 percent of total
program funding. Yet HUD has failed to require any meaningful
accountability or transparency.
This has led to financial abuses at the Chicago Housing Authority and
other MTW housing authorities. On October 23, I sent a letter to HUD
about the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), a Moving to Work
participant. CHA has diverted approximately $432 million in Federal
funding into a reserve fund instead of issuing over 13,500 vouchers to
Chicago families who need affordable housing assistance.
For example, the Atlanta Housing Authority has at least 20 employees
receiving annual compensation ranging between $150,000 and $300,000 per
year. The executive director explained that these high salaries are
necessary ``to both `attract and retain' competent staff.''
The executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority also
received a high salary over $300,000 per year. He also threw lavish
parties, provided patronage to friends and supporters, and secretly
paid sexual harassment claims.
Instead of providing safe, affordable housing for those in need,
housing authority officials are using Federal
[[Page S5950]]
funding to feather their own nests. HUD tells me these problems are
anomalies, which lead me to believe the Department may be turning a
blind eye to program failures no matter what the costs.
Both the HUD inspector general and the Government Accountability
Office, or GAO, audited the MTW program. Both determined that little
program oversight is actually being done. HUD has no procedures to
verify agency self-reported performance data and HUD officials weren't
even aware that they were required to perform annual risk assessments.
HUD also has no program-wide performance indicators that would help
determine if this program is a success or failure.
Worse yet, HUD never performed mandatory program evaluations to
determine if the agencies complied with their MTW agreements or whether
they should still be in the program. Department officials said they
lack the funding to performing the evaluations. Under the current
budget climate, additional funding may not be available anytime soon.
In other words, HUD can't tell me if the Moving to Work program
actually works or if it will work in the future.
GAO officials informed me that the agency may be close to closing
three recommendations. For the other five recommendations, they are
waiting for HUD to provide additional documentation about what steps
are being taken or what is needed to close each of them. Instead of
taking steps to improve program performance and provide more effective
oversight, the Agency is, instead, rushing to extend contracts for an
additional ten years.
I expect a lot more answers and accountability before there is a vote
on Ms. Castro Ramirez's nomination. HUD must also refrain from adding
new housing authorities to the MTW program until the agency provides
GAO with the requested information and a definitive timeline for
closing the outstanding recommendations.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
November 7, 2014.
Hon. Julian Castro,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
Washington, DC.
Dear Secretary Castro: We represent housing advocates who
work with clients and community members in the jurisdictions
of public housing agencies (PHAs) that have Moving to Work
(MTW) status. We look forward to working with you to further
HUD's mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive
communities and quality affordable homes for all.
We are writing to ask HUD to take immediate action to
create a more open, inclusive, and transparent process as HUD
negotiates the terms for any potential extensions to Moving
to Work Agreements past their current 2018 expiration.
Consistent with the statutory language creating the MTW
program, we specifically request that HUD consult with
advocates during the contract negotiations. Indeed, Congress
was clear that ''in making assessments throughout the
demonstration, the Secretary shall consult with
representatives of public housing agencies and residents.''
As a first step, we urge HUD to make the baseline language it
is crafting for MTW extension contracts available for public
comment and discussion, and solicit and consider input from
resident and community advocates on the conditions for
extensions and the terms of the extension agreements.
As you undoubtedly know, HUD's MTW demonstration is steeped
in controversy. In addition to receiving criticism from
advocacy agencies providing services to PHA residents in
deregulated jurisdictions, HUD's own Office of the Inspector
General and the U.S. Government Accountability Office have
released studies critical of the MTW program's underlying
structure and HUD's implementation and oversight of the
program, including the GAO's 2012 Evaluation and the HUD IG's
2013 Study. These studies indicate that the Moving to Work
program lacks performance standards and evaluation, and HUD
has not provided critical oversight to agencies participating
in the MTW program to evaluate agencies' compliance with
statutory requirements or verify agencies' self-reported
performance data.
Based on these pervasive critiques, we believe that any
extension of the MTW demonstration must be done with
thoughtfulness, diligence, and open discussion of the lessons
learned from HUD's previous experiments in deregulation,
which simply have not demonstrated any of the programmatic
results this venture was designed to achieve.
The current MTW Agreements do not expire until 2018. We
understand that HUD's stated goal for beginning MTW extension
discussions in 2014 has been to develop better tools and
standards to enable more effective regulation and oversight
of MTW Agencies moving forward. We support any process that
will ensure that new language in MTW contracts will provide
clear metrics for performance, clear processes for
evaluation, and clear protocols for HUD to monitor and
enforce Agencies' compliance with statutory requirements and
standards, even amidst the flexibility the MTW program
intentionally allows.
We strongly support some goals HUD has put forward for the
extensions, including establishing requirements that agencies
use the bulk of their voucher funds for vouchers, higher
baselines to determine if agencies are assisting
``substantially the same'' number of families, and more
rigorous evaluation of policies that pose risks to
participants. Effective requirements in these areas would
have major benefits for low-income families. Without more
information on the details, however, it is impossible for us
to assess whether the changes HUD plans will bring about
meaningful improvements.
As advocacy organizations who work with tenants who are the
``end-users'' of HUD's programs in regions de-regulated under
the MTW program, we believe we have experiences and
observations that can help contribute to HUD's success in
amending the program.
We have documented concerns with the current MTW Agreements
that are not adequately addressed by the limited information
HUD has released about the planned extensions. These concerns
include but are not limited to:
How new MTW Agreements will prevent de-regulated PHAs from
diverting significant resources out of their housing programs
into unrestricted cash reserves or towards other questionable
uses such as excessive executive compensation. These actions
clearly contradict MTW's statutory goal to, ``reduce cost and
achieve greater cost effectiveness.'' The agreements should,
for example, include clear limits on reserve levels and
specific sanctions for agencies that exceed those limits.
How HUD will evaluate the real effects of proposed or
existing major policy changes allowed under MTW, such as time
limits, work requirements, and major rent changes, to assess
whether these changes are achieving the program's statutory
goals of helping families achieve economic self-sufficiency
and increasing housing choice, or instead just creating a
revolving door of homelessness and hardship. HUD has
indicated that it will require more rigorous evaluation of
some new policies, but it should also seek to evaluate
policies already in place and should make clear that it will
prohibit agencies from adopting risky measures like time
limits and work requirements unless funding for a rigorous
evaluation is available.
How HUD will define, monitor, and enforce, the new standard
of 90% voucher utilization, both before and after new MTW
agreements go into effect. This standard will be far more
effective if HUD uses the voucher funding formula to enforce
it, and if it prohibits agencies from counting funds spent
for purposes other than rental assistance toward voucher
utilization.
How HUD will define and enforce the requirement to assist
substantially the same number of families. HUD has indicated
that it will adjust the baseline number of families agencies
must assist upward, but unless HUD also defines ``assisted
families'' to include only families receiving substantial
rental assistance this requirement will have little meaning.
How HUD will ensure appropriate hardship exemptions are in
place.
How HUD will ensure MTWA jurisdictions increase housing
choices and mobility to opportunity communities among program
participants.
Thank you for considering this request.
Through a collaborative, thoughtful, transparent and
inclusive approach, we are confident that we can work with
HUD and participating public housing agencies to create
targeted revisions to the MTW program which clarify
performance metrics, and create clear processes for
evaluation and oversight. Our goal is to create a structure
that provides both flexibility and discipline--A well-
considered framework for any continuation of the program will
better ensure we realize the original goals of the MTW
program, which were to expand housing choice, increase cost
effectiveness, and help families achieve self-sufficiency.
Congratulations on your confirmation as HUD Secretary.
Sincerely,
Asian Americans Advancing Justice--Asian Law Center, San
Francisco Bay Area, California, Christina Dang and
Thomas Lee, Staff Attorneys; Atlanta Legal Aid Society,
Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, Margaret L. Kinnear; Cabrini
Green Legal Aid Clinic, Chicago, IL, Jill Roberts and
Ryann Moran, Staff Attorneys; Center for Tax and Budget
Accountability, Ralph Martire, Executive Director;
Chicago Housing Initiative, Chicago, IL, Leah Levinger,
Executive Director; Community Alliance of Tenants,
State of Oregon, Steve Weiss, Board
President; Community Legal Services, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Rasheedah Phillips, Housing Law Division.
Delaware Housing Coalition, State of Delaware, Trish
Kelleher, Director of Housing; Housing Action Illinois,
State of Illinois, Bob Palmer, Policy Director; Jane
Addams Senior Caucus, Chicago, IL, Lori Clark,
Executive Director; Law Foundation of Silicon Valley,
[[Page S5951]]
San Jose, California, Nadia Aziz, Senior Attorney;
Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, San Mateo
County, California, Shirley E. Gibson, Directing
Attorney; Legal Assistance Foundation, Chicago, IL,
Lawrence Wood, Housing Practice Group Director; Logan
Square Neighborhood Association, Chicago, IL, John
McDermott, Housing & Land Use Director.
Lugenia Burns Hope Center, Chicago, IL, Rod Wilson,
Executive Director; Massachusetts Alliance of HUD
Tenants, State of Massachusetts, Michael Kane,
Executive Director; Metropolitan Housing Coalition,
Louisville, Kentucky, Cathy Hinko, Executive Director;
Metropolitan Tenants Organization, Chicago, IL, John
Bartlett, Executive Director. Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid,
Minneapolis, MN, Dorinda L. Wider; National Alliance of
HUD Tenants, National, Charlotte Delgado, Board
President.
National Housing Law Project, National, Deborah Thrope,
Staff Attorney; North Carolina Justice Center, State of
North Carolina, Bill Rowe, General Counsel and Director
of Advocacy; Northwestern University School of Law,
Chicago, IL, John S. Elson, Professor of Law;
Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality, Chicago, IL,
Jennifer Ritter, Executive Director; People for
Community Recovery, Chicago, IL, Cheryl Johnson,
Executive Director; Sargent Shriver National Center on
Poverty Law, Chicago, IL, Kate Walz, Director of
Housing Justice; Tenants Union of Washington State,
State of Washington, Jonathan Grant, Executive
Director.
____________________