New HAWS director Larry Woods realizes some things are going to have to change:
The federal government has been systematically reducing the amount of money available for housing authorities nationwide. The budget for HAWS took the same hit as other housing authorities nationwide. It got only 76 percent of the money that it had gotten the previous fiscal year, which means the city’s largest landlord has less money to maintain operations.
As a result, Woods said, the housing authority is going to change the way it does business. For tenants, that means rent increases.
“Other than the elderly, this housing authority cannot survive with tenants paying zero or little rent,” Woods said. “The only option we have is to rethink our operations. HUD has pretty much inferred that we need to move from a social housing model to a business housing model.”
His comment marks a major shift in the way HAWS operates. Since the late 1960s, federal laws had stacked things in a way that it actually benefited tenants to stop paying rent. But that is changing, as HUD continues to reduce payments to housing authorities.
“Housing authorities were better off with tenants paying zero rent. HUD paid more subsidy when that happened,” Woods said. “In many housing authorities, what was happening was families would move into public housing and stop working because they knew the housing authority would pick up the rest.”