OK, I’ve been stuck in a foreclosure-document zone for a couple of days. Sorry it’s been so sparse in Survival-land this week.
Here’s the update on the public housing swap I blogged about the other day:
On Tuesday, the City Council approved unanimously the Housing Commission’s plan, which is basically a plan to — well, plan, at this point. The approval means the commission can ask the federal government’s Housing and Urban Development department to let them out of an under-funded, public housing program, and switch a batch of their properties to regular Section 8 rentals for low-income households.
The commission is submitting that application to HUD this week, said Erika Rooks, spokeswoman for the Housing Commission. She said it might take a year for their application to be assessed, and then up to five years to complete the transition from public housing to Section 8.
Rooks said the commission is excited about the project, which would allow residents to stay put at their current rates, or would give them the option to move to another property that accepts Section 8 vouchers. Then, if they did that, as many as 1,366 low-income tenant households could move into the vacated apartment units.
“It’s a smart, self-sustaining business model that moves us away from dependency on an unpredictable federal subsidy,” Rooks said of the plan.
In my earlier post, I’d mentioned Rooks’ estimate that this plan would double the number of Section 8 vouchers allocated to San Diego. Rooks corrected that estimate yesterday — the plan could bring another 1,366 Section 8 vouchers to San Diego. The city’s current Section 8 voucher tally is about 12,000, Rooks said.