2004 Moving To new Ways Annual Plan

The Board of Commissioners adopted the Seattle Housing Authority's fiscal year 2004 plan in July 2003. Below are excerpts from the draft Executive Summary.  

Executive Summary

The Moving To new Ways (MTW) Demonstration Program allows the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) to explore and test innovative methods of delivering housing and supportive services. The original name for this program was Moving to Work. Because the program is not a jobs program for SHA residents as this name implies, SHA has changed the name to Moving To new Ways. In January 1999, SHA and HUD executed an Agreement that defined SHA’s MTW flexibility. SHA’s MTW contract has been extended to 2006.

Each spring, SHA develops its  Annual Plan for the following fiscal year, according to the terms of the MTW Agreement. The  Annual Plan outlines SHA’s work program for the coming fiscal year, including program or policy initiatives and construction, demolition and property disposition activities. The plan also outlines the budget and sets goals for performance in administering housing programs. SHA’s fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30.

Stakeholder involvement   

As part of developing the MTW Plan, SHA provides residents and others opportunities to review and comment on a draft plan. These activities will be summarized here in the final plan.

Moving To new Ways priorities for FY 2004   

SHA’s MTW Agreement with HUD contains a specific list of activities for which SHA may exercise its MTW flexibility. In FY 2004, SHA will pursue the following MTW activities:

• Explore with HUD extending the MTW agreement for an additional three years, for a total term of ten years. This would allow SHA to combine MTW flexibility with new HUD initiatives, provide more time for the effects of rent and applicant choice policies to become apparent; and keep in place the elements of the MTW agreement that support successful HOPE VI community revitalization and complete one-for-one replacement of low-income housing – the block grant budget authority and the ability to project-base Housing Choice Voucher subsidy in SHA-owned units.
   

• Continue evaluating the MTW rent policy which may lead to policy or procedure revisions to better accomplish established goals.
   

• Implement the existing applicant choice policy for households needing 2+ bedroom units.
   

• Designate Ballard House as a second public housing high rise for seniors. (Currently SHA has one designated high rise, Westwood Heights, in the southwest corner of the city.)
   

• Work with the City of Seattle to bring Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) operating subsidy into the City’s low-income housing levy program.
   

• Design and implement a risk-based inspection protocol for the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
   

• Evaluate the first year of the risk-based inspection protocol in public housing.
   

• Implement a new resource conservation protocol with measures for conservation in maintenance, capital and revitalization activities and regular business practices.
   

• Develop and implement new performance measurement systems to replace HUD's standard performance measurement systems for public housing and Housing Choice Vouchers.
   

• Add a Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Homeownership staff member, contingent on receiving requested HUD grant funds, to help clients prepare for purchasing a home. Implement a pilot Section 8 homeownership program as required by FY 2003 grant funds.
   

• Analyze whether the current number of FSS slots (approximately 500) should be increased, using MTW flexibility.
   

• Work with Rainier Vista and High Point residents on new leases for the revitalized communities that incorporate appropriate private sector practices and encourage resident self-sufficiency.

Organizational improvements

• Continue to strengthen SHA’s ability to manage affordable housing with a wide variety of financing and compliance requirements through development of Impact Property Management, an SHA affiliate.
   

• Use formal quarterly reviews of portfolio performance by the asset management team and Senior Property Managers to monitor program performance and identify management improvements.
   

• Continue implementing Protégé@work, a document imaging project designed to improve staff productivity and streamline administration, with a pilot project for Section 8 Mod Rehab.
   

• Replace labor- and paper-intensive of recording and processing of employee time sheets with an electronic system that should reduce costs, and improve efficiency and accuracy of work time reporting.
   

• Evaluate SHA’s overhead cost allocation system for centralized services, such as finance or legal, identify other models and develop a system that allocates costs to SHA’s different housing programs in a way that more closely matches the benefit to each program from centralized services than the current system. 
   

• Address long-term financial sustainability of community and supportive services.  
   

• Continue to clarify and update the Policy and Procedures Manual for consistency with current management practices.
   

• Implement employee development initiatives including: supervisory-management “Break Through” training programs; employee training and development programs based on employees’ needs; refresher training of Section 504, ADA, Fair Housing Amendment Act, Equal Employment Opportunity and Preventing Sexual Harassment; and team building.
   

• Continue improving processes and service delivery to internal and external customers.

Policies to meeting Seattle’s housing needs

• Involve stakeholders in redefining the purpose of the public housing scattered site program. This process could address admissions, occupancy and rent policies for the scattered site program. Originally, scattered sites operated as an “incentive transfer” program for households who had shown themselves to be good tenants in other SHA housing. Over time, scattered sites have been used to meet a wide variety of other needs. As a result, the program has become more costly to operate, while rent revenues have declined.
   

• Implement a new rent policy in SSHP to ensure the program’s financial sustainability while maximizing the number of units affordable to extremely low income seniors.
   

• Continue efforts to improve policies and procedures that support reducing fraud, and aggressively pursue fraud cases.

Community revitalization activities

• Continue the community revitalization efforts at NewHolly, Rainier Vista and High Point.  Construction of low-income rental housing will be underway in all three communities with about 170 new low-income units coming on line by the end of the year at NewHolly and Rainier Vista.
   

• Continue to meet off-site replacement housing obligations, including: selling the site of the old north end maintenance base in Wallingford to Housing Resources Group to develop 35 replacement units in a 70-unit, mixed-income, mixed-use project; identifying 36 partnership Holly Park replacement units for funding; and meeting or exceeding replacement housing commitments for Rainier Vista (15 units) and High Point (no specific target for FY 2004).
   

• Work with the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation to construct the new Yesler Community Center. Replace, through acquisition, the remaining 15 housing units demolished for the community center. 
   

• Complete rehabilitation of all three Tri-Court buildings to create a non-smoking community.  Monitor lease up rates and demand for this type of housing.
   

• Begin planning for the redevelopment of Yesler Terrace.
   

• Carry out a capital program involving $14 million in projects. Finance some urgent projects to get them done quickly, despite reduced federal support, and achieve economies of scale by grouping similar projects. 

Meeting the needs of residents and applicants

• Enhance the ability of applicants to obtain information about SHA housing programs on-line at SHA’s website. Applicants will be able to download program information and pre-application forms and submit them by mail. 
   

• Make housing program and pre-application information available on the website in Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Russian and Somali.
   

• Apply to HUD for Housing Choice Vouchers at every opportunity.  Estimate of new vouchers in FY 2004 is 44.
   

• Develop a “For Residents” section of the SHA website with information on self-sufficiency programs, case management services, landlord-tenant issues, resident council activities and computer access opportunities.
   

• Continue implementation of an action plan in response to public housing high rise community and supportive services needs and interests, as evidenced in an independent survey in FY 2003. 
   

• Create and implement an action plan to address public housing scattered sites community and supportive services needs and interests, as evidenced in an independent survey in FY 2003.

For the full text of the plan in PDF format, click here.

For plan appendices with information about resident demographics, SHA's capital program, FY 2003 vacancy rates, a listing of supportive services and SHA's resource conservation protocol, click here.

For more information about SHA's annual plan or the Moving To new Ways program, contact Andria Lazaga at alazaga@seattlehousing.org or (206) 615-3546.