PROVIDENCE – Providence Housing Authority Director Stephen O’Rourke last week urged Rhode Island’s congressmen and President-elect Barack Obama to include $5 billion in public-housing capital funds and $500 million in operating subsidies in any package designed to stimulate the economy.
“Like our transportation infrastructure, our public housing infrastructure has suffered from the same federal disinvestment during the past several years,” O’Rourke said in a statement. “Six years ago, our operating subsidy from HUD was funded at 100 percent. In our current fiscal year that subsidy has been reduced to 82 percent, resulting in a budget shortfall of $2 million.
“The sorry impact for us is staff layoffs, the inability to complete needed work orders and the layoff of our entire Youth Program staff.”
O’Rourke’s urging is part of a national effort by the 2,300-member National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. That group says that the nation’s 1.2 million units of federally subsidized housing need $30 billion in capital repairs. For PHA, the group’s 2,606 units need about $22 million in repairs, O’Rourke said.
“The taxpayers have made a capital investment of more than $100 million in this housing authority during my 21-year tenure as director,” he said, “and it saddens me that, due to shrinking operating subsidies, these improvements are not being maintained to protect this valuable and irreplaceable investment.”
A fiscal-stimulus plan could be enacted shortly after Obama takes office in January 2009.
Established in 1939, the Providence Housing Authority owns and manages 2,606 units of public housing and is contract administrator for about 2,500 units of Section 8 housing. About 85 percent of PHA housing is designated for families and the rest is for elderly or the disabled. For additional information, visit www.pha-providence.com.
