Give Housing a Voice Blog

KOSCO, NYSE&G, Central Hudson, HeritagEnergy, Effron, Ace, Sunshine, O & R – no matter who you pay to heat you’re home, you’re probably paying too much. How many checks do you have to write before you admit you’re paying too much and do something about it?

It’s never been easier to reduce your monthly heating bills. Just pick up the phone and call 331-2140 x 260 and RUPCO’s Green Jobs/Green New York team will get you started!

1. Just saw a neat video of some guy who did this and he’s thrilled with the results. After you make your first phone call, a GJ/GNY team rep will help you pick a contractor to do your energy audit. It’s so cool. They come in with infrared lights and a giant blowing machine and show you where all the heat is escaping from your house. And for most people, this part is FREE!

2. After they figure out what to do to stop the heat loss, you pick a contractor, get an estimate, and get the work done. Maybe the insulation in your house has sunk and you need new insulation. Your basement may need sealing. Cracks get filled in, pipes get insulated, and of course, they look at your light bulbs!

3. Paying for the improvements? No problem. The pre-screened contractors are fair about pricing. And there are agencies like NYSERDA & RUPCO to help. In some cases, there are grants to do all or part of the work. And for the part you have to pay, there are low interest loans that get paid back from the money you’re saving on your energy bills.

Yup. It’s true. NYSERDA is offering a new, convenient option for financing energy-efficiency improvements on small homes. Participants in the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR Program may be able to get financing through NYSERDA’s On-Bill Recovery Loan Program.

This special low-rate program allows you to pay for energy efficiency improvements to your 1-4 family home through a charge on your monthly utility bill. The payments appear as a separate line item on your utility bill and are financed at a low 2.99% interest rate that may be tax deductible. Repayment amounts will be based on your projected energy savings. And get this. If you sell your property, the program is transferrable to the new owners!

So in 3 easy steps, you save money, get a more comfortable and safer home, and increase the value of your property. What’s stopping you?

A couple of announcements about housing this week made housing advocates feel almost as warm inside as the unseasonably warm outside!

First up was an announcement from the Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan that new regulations are being implemented to prevent discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity. On one hand, the announcement seems a little late. Housing advocates in our area have long adhered to the basic principle and it almost seems silly that it must be announced and regulated.

That said, we realize there are many out there who still need to be told that this is unfair and illegal. HUD’s rule clarifies that otherwise eligible families may not be excluded because one or more members of the family may be an LGBT individual, have an LGBT relationship, or be perceived to be such an individual or in such relationship. Read it here:
http://1.usa.gov/z6nq5I

Better late than never!

The second important announcement this week came out of Governor Cuomo’s office. He accelerated the implementation of a new program that will save New Yorker’s big bucks on their energy bills and create jobs for contractors at the same time.

On-Bill Recovery Financing enables qualifying homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient with no cash up front. Some improvements may also qualify for NYSERDA or utility incentives or rebates. The balance of the cost of the energy efficiency project can be financed and repaid through savings on energy bills. Check it out -
http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/1312012energyupgrade

So cash-strapped New Yorker’s can get an energy audit, figure out the cost of improvements that will make the home more energy efficient, calculate how much they will save on their utility bills, and have the funding for the improvements deducted from those savings. A “pay-as-you-save” program. Got to give it to the Governor on this one. It really is brilliant.

RUPCO is implementing a major Green Jobs/Green New York program through out the Hudson Valley so following the details on their website is always a good idea.
www.rupco.org

Affordable housing is a problem everywhere – and for the same reasons it’s important in the Hudson Valley, it’s important on Long Island. Housing colleague Marianne Garvin makes a compelling case in an op-ed piece for Newsday. She could be speaking for the Hudson Valley as well. She says in part:

“While market-rate and luxury rental housing can be built without public dollars, housing at lower prices needs public subsidies to be both profitable for developers and affordable for tenants. The public sector can entice developers to build and manage affordable workforce housing by forming partnerships with the private sector. Offering federal tax credits, which are sold to private corporations such as financial institutions, brings in private capital as equity — not debt — thereby reducing the operating expenses of the development. Another way operating costs are lowered is by the public investment of low-interest loans.

In exchange for these public incentives, the developer’s profit is regulated by law and monitored by the IRS. This ensures that the rent is affordable to people earning less than 50 percent of Long Island’s median income of $107,000. To support local services, the rents cover an operating budget that includes property taxes.”

Check out the full op-ed piece in Newsday because it speaks to us as much as them! And while you’re at it, sign our housing petition on the home page to make your voice heard.

Picture getting dressed for work – in your car – because you have no home. Picture your kids doing their homework – in the car – because they have no home. If you try doing this just one day, you will be taking a major step in understanding why safe, decent affordable housing is a basic human right and why homeownership is still the great American Dream.

But for those in our community who work at minimum wage jobs, the concept of homelessness isn’t just an abstract exercise, it’s a real possibility and the dream of just getting a roof overhead trumps the dream of homeownership. For those who need help just to pay their rent, the thought that they could one day own a home is as frightening as it is inspiring. At its 30th anniversary, RUPCO will honor three past clients who, with courage and commitment, moved past their fears, overcame the hurdles and who are today, homeowners, giving back to their communities.

Tanyikia Davis will be given a Community Partner Award for courage and commitment in her triumph over adversity. Once homeless, with one child and a child on the way, Tanyikia came to RUPCO for help. With rental assistance, Tanyikia became housed and set personal goals related to transportation, education and employment. She met her goals and exceeded them, moving from family self sufficiency into homeownership. Today, she is dedicated mom, a respected employee at HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley. She is clearly a role model for what someone can achieve with a little support from the community.

Lori Rotollo was a transplant to Ellenville, a single mother with a young son to care for. Having moved to the area from Michigan, she had no support network and didn’t feel any sense of commitment to her adopted community. With help from RUPCO, Lori became a first time homeowner and established a strong presence in Ellenville, where her son could walk to school and she could keep a close eye on him. Lori excelled in her work at the Institute for Family Health, becoming a supervisor and an active member of the Ellenville community. When the founder of the Warwarsing Council of Agencies left her post, that association of human service agencies started to flounder. Seeing a need, Lori filled it, becoming a hands-on coordinator who has helped the group flourish and enhanced coordinated delivery of services needed by low income families in some of the counties most rural areas.

Natasha Grant was a young mother, who married her high school sweetheart, Steven Grant, and has struggled to balance work, family life and school. Working as a waitress while Steven drove a bus, the couple moved into Birchwood Village to find decent affordable housing for their growing family of four daughters. But the couple did not want to be getting assistance forever and yearned to own a home of their own. They joined RUPCO’s Family Self Sufficiency program and leaned how to set goals, achieve them, and reach new goals. Both Natasha and Steve had education in their plans and both of them worked two jobs each to achieve the American Dream. Natasha has finished her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Human Services and Steven continues in school. Natasha works for Family of Woodstock as a counselor at Midway, one of the few residential teen programs in Ulster County. RUPCO helped them buy their first home and they are well on their way to creating for their children, the kinds of roots they want.

NeighborWorks® America is a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance and training for community-based revitalization efforts. RUPCO is one of the 235 independent NeighborWorks ® affiliates working in more than 4,500 communities nationwide.

While both NeighborWorks® and RUPCO adopt multiple strategies to effect community renewal, homeownership is at the core for both organizations. A wonderful brochure published by NeighborWorks® explains the benefits of homeownership – not just for the individual, but for the community.

Predictability and stability are among the top benefits homeowners enjoy that renters can not appreciate. With a 30 year fixed mortgage, housing costs are very predictable from year to year and stability of setting, particularly for school-age children, strengthens both family and community. Homeownership builds wealth. For most Americans, it is the most important investment we make. Homeownership provides a type of savings plan as the principal owed drops and equity increases each year. Tax deductions for interest paid on mortgages provide and additional financial benefit.

NeighborWorks® also highlights the importance of homeownership to the community and the economy. Spending on homes and home related items from maintenance supplies and materials to furnishings is a high priority for homeowners. Through our property taxes, we re-invest in our schools and communities, helping to keep infrastructure intact. Home builders, real estate agencies and many others benefit from homeownership, then reinvest in their homes and businesses.

As increasing rental prices and foreclosure continue to plague our economy, homeownership remains, one of the most important driving forces we have. It is still the American Dream and still an important goal for individuals and communities.

Was the economic crisis in our country continues, homelessness is on the increase. There are many reasons, most of them obvious. People have lost their jobs and have no income, or they may be stressed out and suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues. Many of the issues of homelessness are beyond our control. But one is not. Foreclosure.

When people are living in homes they own – often in homes they have owned for many years – they and their communities enjoy a level of stability critical to the healthy functioning of our society. But when thousands of them face foreclosure, all at the same time, it’s a problem for everyone. And when many of those foreclosures are perpetrated by unscrupulous or illegal banking practices, it’s a situation that screams for attention.

RUPCO and other housing counseling agencies have been able to keep hundreds of families, thousands of people, housed in the homes they own. Through both foreclosure and financial counseling, families learn how to cope with income loss, how to downsize and re-budget their households and most important, how to hang on to the homes that are almost always their only significant investment.

Sadly, the funds to pay for counselors have been cut to zero by both state and federal governments. This will have a devastating and long term impact not just on those immediately affected, but on their communities, their schools and the region in general. Congressman Maurice Hinchey understands the impact and the fact that the foreclosure crisis won’t be over in the near term. Read here, in his own words, about his concerns. Then contact your representatives at both state and federal levels and ask for foreclosure prevention funding in the budgets!

A LETTER FROM CONGRESSMAN MAURICE HINCHEY:

“In my home district, Rural Ulster Preservation Company (RUPCO) is a member of a statewide coalition of housing counseling agencies in New York that strongly depends on funding from the HUD Housing Counseling program. Last year, RUPCO counseled 224 new households facing foreclosure, counseled another 481 existing clients still trying to resolve their mortgage delinquency, and attended 103 settlement conferences assisting clients trying to navigate the court system. Impressively, only eight properties were foreclosed upon during that time. The Housing Counseling program has enjoyed bi-partisan support for over 20 years and has been the only federal source of funding for local agencies to provide non-biased pre-purchase, renter, and reverse mortgage counseling. Past HUD Housing Counseling dollars have allowed agencies like RUPCO to increase counselor capacity and provide staff training to assist homeowners facing foreclosure.

Unfortunately, HUD counseling dollars were not included in the long-term continuing resolution passed this past April. If these critical funding shortfalls were to continue, as of October 1, 2011, housing counseling services across the country will be reduced and staff performing housing counseling will be limited. During our current foreclosure crisis, now would be the wrong time to cut funding to this program. As you are aware, the decline in the housing market continues to drag down and slow our national economic recovery. HUD Counseling dollars support our nation’s counseling services and without this funding stream, there is no replacement funding to maintain these critical services.

The loss of these important funds would deal a devastating blow to our already fragile economy and housing market. For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to support the Administration’s request of $88 million for HUD housing counseling as the subcommittee drafts its 2012 appropriations legislation.”

Hurricane Irene and her successor, Lee have certainly changed the housing picture on the east coast in general and surely in Ulster and neighboring Delaware Counties particularly. Many lost homes possessions, some lost everything. And as is so often the case, the burden of this natural disaster falls most heavily on the people in the lower income ranges.

Let’s face it. Lower income housing is generally situated in/on less desirable locations and property. While it’s still too soon to have any accurate numbers, we already know many people in mobile homes lost everything, that renters living in subsidized affordable housing will be displaced for many months, and that people who could not afford flood insurance will find it very hard to rebuild. In the Ulster County hamlet of Oliverea, at least 6 homes were totally demolished. Where will they go?  Most can’t even find property to rent.

The losses are not just destabilizing for those families – but for their entire communities as well. And still, the fight to create decent, safe, affordable housing continues. Currently, the fight is in Woodstock. Peter Applebome hones right in on the issue in a recent New York Times column. It’s a clash of values. Yours against mine. Ours against theirs. Check out his story at this link. Then share your story. Send it to jlb@rupco.org!

“You smell it the minute you enter.” This is the way the best-selling author and award winning journalist Mitch Albom opens a recent article in the Detroit Free Press which also appeared in the Kingston Daily Freeman. Describing a visit to the rented home of a working family, Albom grabs your attention. What he sees in their basement is should be a crime. “The floor is stained. There is wet, dark sewage. The odor clogs your head. You get halfway down the steps and you want to turn back. You can. They can’t. For the Wilsons, this is home.”

He goes on to say that now, despite the problems that have not been addressed by the landlord, the family is being evicted. “This is not a sob story. This is a Detroit story. One that repeats itself over and over, block after bloc, year after year.”

It would be easy for us to say “sure, that’s Detroit, but that can’t happen here.” But it can. Our country’s economic woes and foreclosure crisis have significantly increased the need for rental housing and when need exceeds supply, people get desperate. They will do anything to keep a roof overhead.

Albom points to the fact that foreclosed homes now owned by banks sit empty as the number of needy families increases. “A glut of buildings and an overdose of poverty should make matching needy families with places to live a lemons-to-lemonade situation.” He’s right of course.

As our region continues with a high rate of foreclosures and as municipalities take houses for past due taxes, it is critical to plan for the future of those empty properties at the same time as we plan for meeting the rental needs of displaced families. Read Albom’s story. He says it better than we can. Then sign the petition to Give Housing a Voice and let your elected representatives know that the time for action is now.

It’s been said that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. But when you care about affordable housing and believe that a roof overhead is a basic human right, then you can add one more item to the “sure things” list. You can add the mistaken belief most people have that their community has more than its fair share of poor people and that some other community is where poor people should be living.

In Ulster County, we frequently here that Kingston has way more than its fair share of poor people and that other communities in the county should be doing more to help low income families. But the minute affordable housing in proposed in communities outside of Kingston, the NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) syndrome kicks in and opponents do everything but take up arms to stop it.

The sad truth is that no municipality in Ulster County has provided enough affordable housing for its workforce, seniors and disabled residents. And the sad truth is that Ulster County is not unique. The New York Times published “Subsidies and Suspicion” by Jennifer Medina on 8/10/2011 describing a battle being waged by two suburban communities in California against people being assisted with Housing Choice Vouchers. (Click here to see the article.) While the actions of officials and residents in these communities are extreme, they are not by any means unique.

The Housing Choice Voucher program, more commonly known as Section 8, began during the Nixon presidency as a way to break up urban poverty pockets and allow more people to live in suburban areas with better jobs and better schools. The program generally requires participants to pay one third of their income for their rent. In Ulster County, the vast majority of those using the program are either senior citizens on fixed incomes or residents with some sort of disability.

Age and infirmity are not choices made by human beings but facts of life that can not be avoided. Yet the stereotype held by many is that people use the Section 8 program because they are lazy. A Mayor quoted in the New York Times story says that advocates trying to help Section 8 participants are “poverty pimps who are just looking for attention.”

It’s hard to fight such stereotypes because if 1 of 100 participants fits the stereotype, then that is the story that will be repeated and exaggerated to the point where people believe that 99 of 100 fit the description. As advocates for affordable housing and housing choice, we must do a better job of debunking the myths and showcasing the success stories. The positive impacts of this program are demonstrated day in and day out in every community in Ulster County. If you have a success story, please share it!

The housing situation in the United States is a crisis. Random House dictionary defines crisis as follows:

“Crisis (kri’ sis) n. 1. a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events is determined; turning point. 2. Lit. the point at which hostile elements are most tensely opposed. 3. Med. a. the point in the course of a serious disease at which a decisive change occurs, leading either to recovery or to death. b. the change itself. 4. a condition of instability, as in social, economic, or political affairs, leading to a decisive change.”

No matter how you define it the bad news just keeps coming. And while it’s possible to find some tiny silver linings here and there, it all adds up to trouble for everyone – now and in the future. While one may debate the lack of government action before the crisis developed, no one can argue that leaders have ignored the current situation. Many different solutions have been proposed and implemented – most with disappointing results.

Now, the federal government is looking for ways to turn foreclosed homes into rental properties. In a thought-provoking report today, ProPublica looks at the newest concept under consideration and offers some pros and cons on its blog. Take a look. Let us know what you think! jlb@rupco.org.

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/can-turning-foreclosures-into-rental-properties-save-the-housing-market