Ironically, in a town where there is a severe shortage of affordable housing options, there seems to be a surplus of unutilized government subsidies intended to help families pay their monthly rents. Even though 250 Hoboken families are eligible to receive a housing subsidy known as a Section 8 voucher, approximately 60 of them have been unable to use it simply because they can’t find someplace to live that is affordable enough, housing officials say.
The problem partly stems from the spending limits, or “caps,” the Hoboken Housing Authority, the agency that administers the program locally, has placed on the amount of subsidy that families can get. The vouchers require families to dedicate 30 percent of their incomes towards rent, and the rest of the money comes from the HHA, which, in turn, gets it each year from the federal government.
Until recently, a family that hoped to rent a two-bedroom apartment had to find a landlord willing to rent it for $891 a month or less. That is no simple task in a town where the rental market has shot sky-high in recent years due to an influx of young, upwardly mobile workers who are choosing to live in the city because of its proximity to Manhattan.
Many of the families have been lucky enough to find a place to rent that meets the Section 8 criteria from Applied Companies, a development company in town that manages more than a dozen building complexes set aside for low and moderate-income families. A handful of families also use Section 8 vouchers to rent from Frank “Pupie” Raia, a developer and Housing Authority board member, and City Councilman Dave Roberts has recently renovated a building that will house a few families using the vouchers. But other options have been few and far between.
That is until now, commissioners at the Housing Authority hope.
At the board’s most recent meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 24, the commissioners voted unanimously to raise the cap by 30 percent.
Now families can use the voucher to rent two-bedroom apartments that go for as much as $1,189 a month. Caps on studios were raised from $649 to $865. One- bedrooms went from $766 to $1,021. Caps on three and four-bedroom apartments were also raised to $1,392 and $1,663 respectively.
“We hope more types of landlords will start taking vouchers now because we are paying more money,” said E. Troy Washington, the HHA executive director, during the board meeting. “We’re bearing more of the burden.” The impetus for raising the payments appears to have come from Raia, who explained to the board at a previous meeting that the state had recently adjusted the rules regulating the way the Section 8 program could be administered.
According to Raia, who since then was temporarily suspended from the board (see sidebar), the state ruled in September that housing authorities could spend up to 150 percent of the assessed “fair market value” to house Section 8 tenants. The money will be reimbursed from the federal government through the state.
Fair market values are established annually by state officials to guide policy makers in making housing program decisions.
Until the change was made last month, the HHA would not pay to house Section 8 tenants in apartments that rented for more than 90 percent of the apartment’s fair market value. Now that number has been pushed up to 120 percent, some housing commissioners would like to see it go even higher.
“If it were up to me, it would go up to 150 percent,” said Raia. “That’s the maximum the state will allow. There are many more landlords out there who would accept Section 8 if they got their fair share of the rent. Under the state rules, you have to go to 120 percent first before you can go all the way up to 150. But my feeling is that even at 150 percent, it’s still going to be tough to find landlords willing to do it.”
During the meeting, Councilman Ruben Ramos Jr. asked Washington what could be done to obtain more Section 8 vouchers.
Washington told him that he hoped that would be something the HHA could apply for down the road. Currently though, he explained that the HHA was having trouble using the ones it already has.
“It used to be that you had to get an apartment within 60 days after getting the voucher, or else you would lose it,” said Washington. “But we have had to extend it because so many people have been having trouble getting a place to live. We just need more landlords.”
Raia, Guglielmelli still on hold
Ever since Frank “Pupie” Raia and Father Mike Guglielmelli were asked to step down from the Hoboken Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners, Mike Stefano, the chairman of the board, has been scrambling to get them reinstated.
Raia was asked to step down since the HHA administers Section 8 housing contracts for 14 tenants that live on property he owns in town, and state regulators were concerned that his participation on the board could be seen as a conflict of interest.
And Guglielmelli, who also serves as the pastor at the St. Francis Church, was asked to step down since he did not take a handful of courses that all New Jersey housing authority commissioners are required to take. The pastor had trouble taking the classes since they were offered predominantly on Saturdays, a time when he is needed at weddings and funerals, he has said.
Although neither commissioner was back in his seat on Jan. 24 when the board last met, Stefano said recently that he hoped they would be reinstated before the board’s February meeting.
With respect to Raia, Stefano said that the State Department of Community Affairs had already OK’d his continued participation on the board. Apparently a similar situation arose in Lakewood 1987. To get around any appearance of a conflict of interest, the housing authority at the time asked the state to administer the commissioner’s Section 8 contracts instead. Raia hopes the state will agree to a similar deal.
In fact, the DCA already has. “We are just waiting OK from the attorney general,” said Stefano.
Guglielmelli similarly seems to be on the verge of returning to the action.
“We received a letter from the state saying that if Father Mike takes his classes, he will be reinstated,” said Stefano last week. “He has four classes to make up. And we think it will take him about three months to do it.” According to Stefano, Guglielmelli could begin serving again as soon as he begins taking his classes. Stefano also said that in an effort to accommodate Guglielmelli, the HHA would like to bring some of the classes to Hoboken. Other housing authority commissioners would also be invited to attend those classes.