Mayor and Members of the City Council:
This email is to provide you with a summary of what I am proposing as the short-term, medium-term, and long-term steps to improving the services provided by the Richmond Housing Authority.
Richmond Housing Authority Improvement Strategy
Short-term steps (approximately 2 weeks to one month)
The short-term steps are associated with addressing the immediate maintenance issues of all public housing tenants and to assess and improve the systems for ongoing property maintenance. These steps will include the following:
1) Every residential housing unit in all five Richmond Housing Authority (RHA) properties will be inspected beginning immediately, with this process to conclude within approximately one week. The inspections will be conducted by a licensed, professional home inspection firm, accompanied by a Housing Authority staff member. Tenants will provided with appropriate notice and will be asked to grant permission for these unit inspections. The basic purpose of the inspection will be to determine whether each unit is meeting a high standard for decent, safe, and sanitary housing. The results of the inspection will be recorded for each unit. I believe that this will provide a far more complete assessment of the conditions of RHA units than simply auditing maintenance records (i.e., work orders).
2) Inspections of facilities will be done at the following properties in the listed priority order (unit count and construction date is for information purposes):
a) Hacienda (150 units, built in 1966)
b) Nevin Plaza (142 units, built in 1986)
c) Friendship Manor (58 units, built in 1976)
d) Triangle Court (98 units, built in 1987)
e) Nystrom Village (102 units, built in 1942)
3) In addition to the residential units, inspections will include all common areas.
4) As part of the inspection process, every tenant in every unit that is inspected will be asked:
a) Whether or not they have requested maintenance services within the past three years;
b) Whether or not the maintenance staff responded to the request;
c) Whether or not the response was satisfactory, and, if not, why not;
d) Whether they have current maintenance needs;
e) Whether they have submitted a maintenance request to deal with that maintenance need;
f) If they have not submitted a maintenance request, then why not?
The collection of this initial information is intended to be a simple process: easily gathered and easily analyzed. This information, in combination with the physical inspection, and coupled with a comparison to our maintenance records, should allow us to determine whether our maintenance management system is fully capturing and tracking maintenance needs, and whether maintenance needs of tenants are being reported.
5) We will prepare a schedule for procuring a contract for security services, and, based on this procurement process, for possibly transitioning these services to a new contractor. The existing contractor will be immediately given the required notice of contract termination based on that schedule.
6) All Housing Authority staff have been advised of the necessity to be respectful in their dealings with tenants, and that lack of professionalism in this regard will not be tolerated.
7) Other short-term steps may be necessary based on the results of the inspection and survey processes described in (1) through (4) above.
8) A City Council meeting (preferably a single purpose meeting to address Housing Authority issues) will be scheduled that includes a reporting of the inspection information, as well as reviewing the overall strategy as outlined in this email. (Calling of a special meeting is under the purview of the Mayor, and a current, tentative date for such a meeting is Wednesday, March 5th.)
Medium-term steps (approximately 1 – 3 months)
As discussed at Tuesday’s City Council meeting (February 18th), the conditions at Hacienda are particularly problematic, to the extent that it is highly questionable whether this facility can be relied upon to provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing both in the short-term and in the long-term. The following medium-term steps are proposed to be taken with respect to Hacienda:
1) Based on the results of the inspections described above, in combination with prior data collected regarding structural conditions of the property, we will make a recommendation to the City Council regarding whether Hacienda can be improved to provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing, or if we believe it cannot be improved without a large scale improvement project involving relocation of tenants. We will also include in our evaluation whether it would be more cost-effective to relocate tenants and demolish Hacienda.
2) If the City Council concludes, based on above-described analysis, that it is necessary to relocate tenants from Hacienda, either to undertake large scale improvements or to remove this as an active property, we will prepare a relocation plan that continues the availability of public housing services for these tenants at other properties outside of Hacienda. This will include the use of Section 8 vouchers to meet this housing need. We will also submit a request to HUD to provide funding for relocation of tenants.
3) After Hacienda tenants are relocated, we will take the necessary steps to either improve or demolish Hacienda, and will seek HUD funding to do so.
It is clear that completion of steps listed above for Hacienda will require significant cooperation from HUD.
Long-term steps (up to 3 years)
The Housing Authority has been given approval for implementing a Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program for Nevin Plaza, Triangle Court, Friendship Manor, and Nystrom Village. The RAD program provides for conversion of public housing units to long-term Section 8 rental assistance contracts.
The RHA has received an allocation of tax credits for $13 million in improvements at Triangle Court, $9 million for Friendship Manor, and will be seeking an additional $25 million to complete the renovation and conversion of Nevin Plaza. This provides a combined $47 million in funding to improve these properties, in conjunction with the conversion to Section 8 subsidies for tenants, allowing these tenants more housing options. The Council has already authorized $55 million in bonding authority for the proposed property improvements based on these tax credit allocations. In addition, the Housing Authority has a contract for the complete redevelopment of Nystrom Village, also providing for more housing options, and making Nystrom a location of affordable choice (similar to Richmond Village). RAD conversion for Nevin Plaza, Triangle Court, and Friendship Manor should be completed by 2016. Conversion of Nystrom Village should be completed by 2017. If Hacienda is removed from the public housing mix, which we believe it will be (see medium-term steps, above), then all current public housing will be significantly improved and under private management with Section 8-based housing subsidies to tenants in approximately three years.* * * * *
The short-term, medium-term, and long-term steps described above are a starting point and will continue to evolve. We believe, however, that they will be effective in identifying and meeting short-term tenant needs, and in dealing with the most deficient property (Hacienda). We also believe that they offer a sound, long-term strategy for conversion to a Section 8-based housing system, to the sustained benefit of tenants.
As always, I look forward to your comments on this proposed strategy.
Sincerely,
Bill Lindsay
City Manager
Bill Lindsay
City Manager
City of Richmond
450 Civic Center Plaza
Richmond, California 94804
(510) 620-6512
Bill_lindsay@ci.richmond.ca.us
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