MTO Tenant Champion – Mr. Green

I was sad the day I learned that Mr. Green had passed.   No one can remember the first day that Mr. Green began volunteering in the MTO office but it was a while ago, before we moved to our current location at 1727 S. Indiana.  He first became involved with MTO because his HUD building was in terrible shape and he wanted to start a tenants association.  He threw his whole self into organizing the tenants, who then voted him to be the association’s president.  The tenants under his leadership gathered for monthly meetings, wrote and met with HUD officials, joined with other HUD tenants and even protested outside of HUD’s offices and in the end, the tenants won many of their demands.   HUD paid for the rehab of his entire building.

Mr. Green was so much more than president of Lake Vista Tenants’ Association.  He was a dedicated volunteer who always gave to MTO.  He would come to the office nearly every day to volunteer on the hotline, sharing his knowledge with thousands of tenants in need.  Mr. Green was in many ways MTO’s messenger.  His wheelchair was an MTO billboard hosting signs that read, ”Housing is a Human Right” or “Tenants Know Your Rights”.   He collected thousands of signatures in support of the Source of Income laws for Section 8 tenants.  He would pass out MTO know your rights flyers on buses, at rallies or in his neighborhood.  Sometimes I would ask tenants how they heard of MTO.  They responded, “The guy in the wheelchair gave me your number.”

For Mr. Green, it was MTO and the Cubs that stirred his passion.  He was so happy the year Cubs finally won a world series.  He came into the office with a huge smile on his face and said we did it.  After a few high fives coupled with some baseball gossip, he sat down to begin answering tenants calls for help.  There will never be another Mr.  Green.  To MTO and the tenants he helped, Mr. Green was a hero and a champion of tenants’ rights. by John Bartlett

The Power of Organizing

I went to went to Lake Vista Apartments almost three weeks ago at the beginning of September.  The building looked amazing.  Almost everything is new.  The first floor was WOW. I wished I had taken pictures of the building when we started because the change is incredible.  I would move in there, it looks so good.  Seeing the change reminds me of the power tenants have when they work together.

I first went to the building almost 13 years ago and it was a mess.  Lake Vista tenant Mr.  Green called our hotline because he wanted to start a tenants association.  Mr. Green believed in housing equity. He did not think it fair the low-income residents in his building should live in fear because of poor security.  Tenants complained of being robbed in the hallways and parking lot.  With MTO’s help, tenants formed the Lake Vista Tenants Association and elected Mr. Green as President.

His first step as president was to set up an all tenants meetings with the manager and the property owner.  At the meeting, Mr. Green laid out the tenants demand for 24-hour security.  While the owner did not agree to that, the owner did agree to install security cameras in the parking lot, laundry rooms and throughout the first floor.  Security improved.

Improved security was just the beginning for the Lake Vista Tenants Association.  The building was old and in need of maintenance.  The building had pests, mold, appliances and cabinets that were as old as many of the residents.  As President, Mr. Green made sure the tenants understood the RLTO and that they engaged with HUD, the holder of the purse strings.  Mr. Green and the other tenants testified every year at MTO’s HUD Tenants Town Hall.  The tenants association challenged the owner as well as HUD officials to take care of the problems and make the building better for the senior residents. In the end, the owner and HUD officials agreed to rehab the entire complex.

The $14 million rehab is complete. The tenants have new meeting and exercise rooms, new cabinets, remodeled kitchens, and it is all repainted.  Unfortunately, Mr. Green did not get a chance to enjoy the new construction of the building as he is with his Lord but I am proud to say he played a huge role in it. Organizing works.  By David Wilson, Community Organizer

Senate Releases Funding Numbers for Homeless Prevention Programs

Action-Alert21Yesterday, the Senate HUD funding Subcommittee released and voted on its FY 2015 legislation. The Subcommittee’s proposed legislation includes only a $45 million increase for HUD’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, which is $255 million below the amount requested by the President. This funding level would very likely not provide enough funding to make any expansion to programs and would not provide any additional funding for new projects!

Fortunately, the process is far from complete and we have further opportunities to encourage Members to provide additional funding for homelessness-prevention programs in FY 2015. Therefore, it is extremely important that we begin and maintain a drumbeat that reminds Members of Congress that this is the year!

Here’s What You Can Do:

1. Call your senators and representatives!

a. Ask to speak to the person who handles appropriations or housing issues. We can help you get this information, or you can call the congressional switchboard at 202.224.3121.

2. Tell the staff person their boss MUST provide more funding for McKinney in FY 2015!

a. Tell them we must continue making progress on chronic homelessness and need $2.405 billion in order to meet our goal of ending chronic homelessness by 2016.

We have an opportunity to educate and make an impact. Please seize this opportunity moving forward and work with your Members of Congress – all of them, from both sides of the aisle – to prioritize ending homelessness!

HUD Subsidized Tenants Issues Forum

On March 31st HUD Subsidized tenants from all over the city gathered together for a forum to discuss issues in their buildings.  The goal of the Issues Forum was to identify problematic issues within HUD subsidized buildings in the city of Chicago and to move towards solutions.  MTO worked with organizers and tenants from various community organizations throughout the city such as STOP (Southside Together Organizing for Power), O.N.E. (Organization of the NorthEast) and Access Living along with the National Alliance of HUD Tenants to plan and implement the forum.

Around 30 tenants participated in breakout sessions, on topics including: Maintenance, Security, Recertification, REAC inspections, Reasonable Accommodation, and Organizing Concerns.  Tenants identified issues and formulated demands to bring to HUD in a series of accountability meetings.  Each breakout session developed a concrete list of policy changes and solutions to increase tenant participation in management decision making and to improve living conditions.

Drawing from the issues identified at the Issues Forum, tenants will bring their concerns to the local HUD office in a HUD Town Hall meeting in early summer.  Tenants will present documented problems and individual experiences on to local HUD officials and demand accountability from the local office.  Any issue or policy change that remains unresolved will then be presented in a second HUD accountability session called Eyes and Ears in the late summer or early fall.  The Metropolitan Tenants Organization with its tenant leadership aim to improve living conditions and preserve aging housing stock in HUD subsidized buildings.

 

President’s 2013 Proposed Budget Increases Rent for HUD-assisted Families

“Obama’s proposed hike to minimum rent for HUD-assisted families could put poorest in the street”

 

By YanaKunichoff – March 27 2012 – Community Renewal Society

 

A proposal in the 2013 presidential budget to raise the minimum rent in public housing could put the poorest families at risk of ending up on the street, say advocates.

And what may be most surprising for some people, Pres. Obama’s proposed hike is more than what’s being asked for by the Republicans. Plus, it pitted two local pols against each other over this issue in Washington.

John Bartlett, Executive Director of the Chicago-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization called the proposed increase, which would raise the minimum rent to $75 a month from $50 for all households assisted by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, “horrible.

“People can’t get back on their feet if they don’t have a home, and some of them will lose their home because of this,” said Barlett.

$75 may not sound like much, especially in Cook County, where the average price is $853 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities calculates that 19,602 Illinois families in project-based Section 8 housing, supportive housing and those using housing choice vouchers administered by HUD would be negatively impacted by the rent increase.

What’s more, Illinois would be hit harder than the national average: 14.11 percent of households relying on rent assistance here would face an increase, compared to 12.4 percent of households nationally.

“There has been a lot of pressure on discretionary programs in general,” said Barbara Sard, author of the Center’s report on the cuts.  “All of the low-income housing programs are part of the discretionary side of the budget.”

The problems of the recession on low-income people have been compounded by cuts to social programs, which have been accelerating since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in the November 2010 election, Sard added.

The proposal to raise the minimum rent in Section 8 housing originally came from the House, which proposed in October 2011 to raise the rent to 12 percent of the local Fair Market Rent, or to $69.45 a month and index it for inflation.

The leader of this push in the House was Republican Rep. Judy Biggert, Chair of the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity, from the 13thCongressional District of Illinois, which is in the Southwestern suburbs. And one of the most vocal opponents of the bill was Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez from the 4th Congressional District west of downtown Chicago.

“Raising rents for the poorest of the poor. I just don’t know how this makes sense,” said Rep. Guttierrez, in a February discussion of the rent increase. He had offered an amendment in February to remove the provision from the budget, which he later withdrew.

In response, Rep. Biggert told the subcommittee that increasing the minimum rent for rent-assistance housing would lower the overall cost of the program and allow more people to receive help.

In the end, the difference between the proposal coming from Rep. Biggert–$69.45–and the increase proposed by President Obama–$75–was minimal.

But Sard noted that “for the first time ever the administration proposed an increase in a minimum rent to an even higher level than the Republicans had proposed.”

And when looking at assistance for the “very, very poor,” every penny counts, she said.

“Congress and the president have a lot of discretion as to picking winners and losers,” in the budget cuts, said Sard, and “housing programs are only a small side of the overall budget.”

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes that, along with raising the minimum rent, the 2013 fiscal year budget is “at least $1.7 billion below the amount needed to fully renew rental assistance provided this year under HUD’s three major rental assistance programs.”

Barlett, from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization,  sees the proposed raise in the minimum rent as part of a larger attack on the poor.

“It’s more of a tax increase on the poor instead of taxing the billionaires.”

Original URL: http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2012/03/obamas-proposed-hike-to-minimum-rent-for-hud-assisted-families-could-put-poorest-in-the-street/

 

 

Region 5 HUD Bed Bug Memo

Metropolitan Tenants Organization, in partnership with Region 5 HUD, Georgia HAP, Shriver Center, Community Investment Corporation, and several other agencies and community organizations, is happy to announce the completion of our guidelines memo on the best practices of bed bug control. Region 5 HUD distributed this memo to all Region 5 HUD property owners and agents in March 2011. Members of this partnership conducted much research on the best practices of bed bug control and on already existing HUD policy on general pest control to create this document.

This guidelines memo was written largely in part in response to the bad practices that have been employed by both landlords and tenants in efforts to rid their properties of infestations. Due to the dramatic spike in the frequency of calls to the Metropolitan Tenants Organization’s Tenants Rights’ Hotline regarding bed bugs, it came to the attention of MTO that there is not much awareness nor are there many protections available to renters who deal with bed bug infestations in Chicago. Since then, MTO has worked diligently to ensure that there will be more education around the issue and more protections available to renters.
MTO convened this roundtable of partners in response to these bad practices in efforts to inform renters, landlords, and private homeowners on how to eradicate bed bugs in the most safe, effective, and economical ways. Many initiatives were discussed, including an educational campaign for both renters and landlords on how to effectively deal with bed bugs and an initiative to prevent the spread of infestations by properly marking or destroying infested mattresses and other pieces of furniture that have been disposed of in alleys, in addition to the memo/policy on the use of best practices in bed bug control.
The initial goal of the roundtable was to create a Region 5 HUD bed bug policy to be distributed to all HUD property owners and agents in the region. As it turned out, federal agencies do not have the jurisdiction to write and enforce policy at the regional level. As an alternative, the roundtable decided to go ahead with writing the document as a guidance memo to Region 5 HUD owners and agents. Click here to read the document in full. The roundtable will next work on getting national HUD to create and enforce a bed bug policy on the national level.

HUD Bed Bug Memo

When Bed Bugs Attack

Bed bugs have returned, invading our hospitals, hotels, public transportation, and most unsettling of all, our homes. While bed bugs do not transmit disease, bed bugs have proven to be a serious nuisance to homeowners and renters alike, across the nation.

While New York City leads the nation in reported incidents of bed bug infestations, according to an August 2010 report released by Terminix, the Windy City does not find itself far behind – we live in the fifth most bed bug infested city in the U.S. MTO can certainly attest to this, as hotline calls pertaining to bed bugs have increased dramatically in the last two years. In 2010, MTO received 313, usually very frantic, calls with complaints of bed bugs. Two years ago, bed bug calls to MTO’s hotline were nonexistent.

In response to this sudden reemergence of bed bugs in Chicago, MTO has led efforts to create a roundtable of representatives from HUD, EPA, Chicago Department of Public Health, Illinois Department of Public Health, and other invested agencies and community organizations. MTO is actively working with this group on creating a policy proposal for HUD subsidized buildings. Among other recommendations,  MTO has proposed the following to be included in a HUD policy on bed bugs:

-Landlords should disclose any known bed bug infestations within the previous 12 months to prospective renters,

-HUD should support an initiative for an educational campaign on bed bugs and pest control,

-Landlords should hire certified/licensed pest control professionals for both bed bug inspections and treatments,

-Landlords should encourage tenant notification of bed bug sightings by never retaliating against tenants (e.g. imposing fees, threatening eviction, etc),

-and HUD should allocate a long term source of funding to help landlords and renters combat bed bug infestations.

MTO is working on the bed bug issue at the state level as well. Meron Kahssai, an MTO Healthy Homes Organizer, has been appointed to the Illinois Subcommittee on Bed Bugs, a subcommittee of the Illinois Structural Pest Control Advisory Council. MTO will serve on this subcommittee as the voice of renters and will provide the necessary insight on the plight of renters to the other members of the state’s bed bug subcommittee. The goal of this subcommittee is to create a report with recommendations to the IL General Assembly on the prevention, management, and control of bed bugs which include recommendations on an educational campaign, proper transport and disposal of bed bug infested materials, and best practices of treatment and eradication.

Tenants who have dealt with bed bugs are encouraged to join MTO’s bed bug committee. This committee is open to anyone who is interested in serving the need of renters affected by bed bugs by pushing policies for both subsidized and market rate renters. Please contact Meron Kahssai at 773-292-4980 ext. 229, if interested.

Bed bugs will be the topic of discussion at the January 20th Tenant Congress meeting at the Chicago Urban League (4510 S. Michigan). Following a presentation on bed bugs, the floor will be open for a question and answer session. This meeting is open to the public.

Affordable Housing Lottery: Apply Now

The Chicago Housing Authority is accepting applications for tenants who are in need of affordable housing.

Applications will be accepted from June 14, 2010 to July 9, 2010.  Of all applications received, CHA will randomly pull 40,000 names from the list.  These 40,000 applicants will then be placed on the Family Wait List.  If you are put on the Family Wait List, you will be contacted when a subsidized unit is available.  If you are eligible to recieve the subsidy, you will then be able to move into an apartment and your rent will be affordable based on your income.

We all know that affordable housing is hard to find, so don’t miss this rare opportunity to get on the list.

For more information about eligibility, applying, or CHA guidelines, go to CHAwaitlist.org

Testify about Your Experience as a HUD Subsidized Renter

Wednesday, June 30th will be your chance to voice your concerns to Mr. Ed Hinsberger, Chicago Multifamily HUD Director, and Mr. George Gilmore, HUD Neighborhood Coordinator.

HUD Subsidized Renters are invited to attend a HUD Townhall Meeting. This meeting is for property-based Section 8 Chicago HUD Subsidized tenants only.

When: Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Time:   1:00pm till 3:00pm
Where: Access Living
115 W Chicago Ave

The Metropolitan Tenants Organization along with Access Living are providing tenants of subsidized housing a platform to address their concerns regarding maintenance and management of HUD subsidized buildings.

For more information please contact:

Metropolitan Tenants Organization
Farid Muhammad
773.292.4980 x 236
faridm@tenants-rights.org

or

Access Living
Deidre Brewster
312.640.2100 x 132