Follow-up to Using State Housing Agencies April 30, 2003 Presenter: Stephen F. Gold Sharon: Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the webcast and teleconference follow-up to using state housing agencies to obtain affordable, accessible integrated housing. Hello, I'm Sharon Finney with ILRU. I'll be your host today. I will be moderating and voicing your email questions to the presenter and shortly I'll be introducing our distinguished presenter Steve Gold. Just a couple of things to go over with you before we get started. Our presenter will pause for questions. So for those of you who are on the phone, the operator will give you instructions on how to direct that question. Please try to keep your questions relevant to the topic at hand. If you're going to ask a question, please take yourselves off of a speaker phone and speak directly into a handset or headset. Also, please speak as loudly and clearly as possible. For those of you participating via the web, you can E-mail your questions directly by clicking on the link at the bottom of the RealOne player or sending an E-mail directly to webcast@ILRU.org. I'll recieve those E-mail questions and voice them to Steve. If you do encounter any problems during today's presentation, you can call our technical support staff at (713)520-0232. Now I'm very pleased to introduce our presenter today, Steve Gold. Steve is an attorney who specializes in civil rights and represents only persons with disabilities. Besides representing numerous individuals with disabilities in discrimination lawsuits, he also represents ADAPT and Not Dead Yet. Mr. Gold successfully brought the curb cut lawsuit, Kinney vs. Yerusalem against arguing that whenever a municipality resurfaces a street, it must ensure access to that street by installing curb cuts. He also successfully argued the case Helen L., that a state discriminated against a person by requiring them to receive services in a segregated nursing home rather than providing them services in the community. Also Mr. Gold's litigated a national ADAPT vs. HUD on behalf of numerous national organizations, including ADAPT, and NCIL, arguing that HUD has failed to enforce the requirement of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the federal Fair Housing Act of 1988. Mr. Gold has an impressive bio located along with his materials on today's webcast at WWW.ILRU.org and you can click on the webcast to get to his materials. All right, everyone, I believe we're ready to welcome Steve Gold. Good afternoon, Steve. Steve: Good afternoon, Sharon. Hi, guys. Today we're going to do three things. First of all, this is a follow-up from the webcast on housing we did about a month ago. Sharon and Rachel asked me to do this again because there were 30 written questions that basically came in that were not answered because of time. So we're going to read some questions and try to elaborate on what the law is based on these questions and try to answer as many as possible. The second thing we're going to do, a number of people had asked questions about the low income housing tax credit web page and how they could find out exactly which housing units in their area have received low income housing tax credits. I am going to actually walk people through the HUD web page in terms of how to find it. And those of you who are doing this webcast, if you have a pencil handy, I will tell you each step that I'm doing. And then third we'll open it up more if there is more time for your questions. Please, please, please feel free to do it and ask them. Okay, I tried to organize these around -- these 30 around general subjects. I wasn't very, very successful so bear with me, guys. One question was, can you please, slowly -- obviously I talk with an accent too quickly -- list the provision of the Rehab Act that is applicable? And that questioner meant in terms of the -- what duties under the Rehabilitation Act that HUD requires recipients of federal financial assistance under Section 504. The specific section is 24 code of federal regulations section -- it's actually part 8. And if you go specifically to new construction, it's part 8 of 22, the rehabilitation is 823 and I suggest you read on through 828. Can you get these regulations by going to Google and putting in code of federal regulations, hitting it and they'll bring you right to the federal code of federal regulations. Another question, is there a difference between developers who are out of compliance of Section 504 and 5 percent designation, and those who are not using the low income housing tax credits appropriately? Let me try again to distinguish between these two separate concepts. They sometimes overlap, but they are separate. That is to say, Section 504 of the Rehab Act requires that all recipients of federal financial assistance, and that could be public housing authorities, that could be the state, that could be nonprofit corporations that get Community Development Block Grant money, that could be people who get -- developers who get HOME money. They must all comply with Section 504 because they have received federal financial assistance. Once they do that, then what we've been calling the 5 percent rule triggers in and someone E-mailed me about people who are visual and hearing impairments. I thought at the beginning of the last webcast I made clear that the 5 percent rule really is 5 percent of the units must be accessible for people with mobility impairments, and another 1 percent must be accessible to people with hearing impairments and another 1 percent for people with visual impairments. When I used the 5 percent shorthand, I mean all of it. Okay, that's the 5 percent rule under 504. Now the low income housing tax credits has been defined by the courts to not be under 504 because it's been held not to be federal financial assistance directly. It's a tax credit. That triggers other duties though that are separate from the 5 percent. Do you remember the last time we talked about -- we were talking about affordable housing, accessible housing and integrated. And by integrated, we mean integrated of people with disabilities living wherever they want with and without people with disabilities. But affordable and accessible are different concepts. Sometimes they are overlapping, but they're basically separate. Section 504 achieves accessibility. That's the 5 percent rule. The low income housing tax credits achieve affordability. Obviously when a project has both federal financial assistance, as some of them do, and low income housing credits, which some of them do, then you get both affordable and accessible. The beauty of the low income housing tax credits is that the businesses and the developers that have received that tax credit cannot, under the law, discriminate against people who have a section 8 voucher. If they do discriminate, they could lose their tax credits and it could go back many years losing it. That's why you have them a little bit over the barrel. The question related to that as a segue was the person was asking for clarification on the prohibition of discrimination against holders of Section 8 vouchers, and the question is, is this prohibition presently in place or does it occur only after the low income housing tax credit is required to be 504 required? Now that person confused the low income housing tax credit and 504. If you think of them separately, it's a little easier to understand. The prohibition against discriminating against a Section 8 voucher goes entirely to the low income housing tax credit. It could also go to 504 when -- if the same units receive both low income housing tax credits and other financial assistance. It could also go, and in a little bit of time we'll talk about the HOME money, the recipients of HOME money. The two public entities that cannot discriminate -- not public entities, the two programs under the Internal Revenue Code that have an anti discrimination prohibition against people with Section 8 vouchers are the low income housing tax credits and the HOME. Totally, totally separate from the Section 504. Obviously one of the things we talked about last time is-- basically people developing a matrix for your local area where you know in the various columns whether a specific housing project development has received more than one source of both money and/or low income housing tax credits. The reason you want to see that is if, for example, 125 South Nine street has received the Community Development Block Grant money for construction and rehabilitation, it immediately goes into your mind is the 5 percent Section 504 duty and they must have 5 percent of the houses accessible. That gets you the accessibility part. If you go across that same matrix and you see they've also received low income housing tax credits, then you know that they cannot discriminate and that will get you affordability. And that's how the two things sort of fit together. Okay, someone asked a question, how do we find out if developers receiving federal money have actually designated the standard 5 percent of the units accessible? That's a real tough question because -- the question isn't tough, but the finding out is tough. Unfortunately, there is no fast and simple way of doing that. That requires you going around and looking at the units and one of the things that we're pretty expert in is you know an accessible unit when you see it. Obviously, if there are steps it's not going to do it, and even if there aren't steps you can tell doorways, you can tell looking. That's one way. The second way, and the only other way -- and I really encourage people to get out on the street and look at the place it's because you'll see a lot of potential violations that way. The second way is if you know the entity that received the federal money, whether it be public housing, whether it be CDBG or whatever, the entity that initially received the federal financial assistance, for example, the city, the public housing authority, the state, you know, ask them with regard to the specific project that you're concerned about to give you the addresses of the accessible units. Just writing that kind of letter and making that kind of an inquiry shakes them up, but the easiest way is to just go out there and look. I don't know another way, unfortunately, of actually finding them. One question was does Section 504 refer only to 5 percent of newly built construction? The answer to that is--No. Section 504 duties under the Code of Federal regulations that I told you about. New construction, substantially rehabilitated or modified construction, it applies to partial rehabilitation, and the 5 percent rule applies actually to all three of those. That is to say, to give it to you in the easiest way of thinking about it, public housing projects, let's say that a public housing project or a city or county has five distinct public housing projects, A., B., C., D. and E. And in 1995 for project A. where there were 100 units, they did rehabilitation, substantial rehabilitation, basically gutting. They must have in those 100 in project A. 5 percent -- at least, at least 5 percent accessible. And the reason I say at least, it's really important, is that if there are more than 5 percent of the people in that project who need an accessible unit, they've got to increase it. Now, let's say on project B. in the city or county, let's say there are 200 units, but they've only done substantial alterations on ten of the 200. Well, the regulation says that until they get up to 5 percent of those 200, which would in this case be ten, those first ten should have been made accessible, and if you think about equal opportunity and equal access, what they're doing is they're trying to start the race off as equally as possible. Obviously if they've only done 20 rehabilitated units in project B., then the first ten have to be accessible. Now, lets assume in project C. they haven't done any substantial -- and by substantial I really mean they've gutted and basically rebuilt them. Let's assume they put new bathrooms in or new kitchens in, just that in project C. Well, they have to make those specific -- and no other units in project C. are accessible. Remember last time we talked accessible means compliance with the uniform federal accessibility standards, which are really, really, really complicated and detailed and comprehensive. And project C. they put new kitchens or bathrooms in. With those specific parts of the project of the units, they have to be made accessible, at 5 percent, and the path of travel to them have to be made accessible. So what the regulations do -- until they get up to the 5 percent in the project C. Okay, I hope that didn't confuse people beyond belief, but you've got to really look at the programs and break them down a little bit. One question was are you able to get a list of developers in your state through the housing -- I'm sorry -- through the housing agency. Let me read the preceding question. Are the state housing agencies who allocate tax credits to developers, also to keep a list of units available throughout the state in order that consumers and providers of housing services who need them can have access to the list? The answer is they have to keep a list of recipients of low income housing tax credits, public and available to you, with street addresses, and because one of the next questions that someone actually asked relating -- they don't have to -- they do not keep a list of anything dealing with accessibility. The state in terms of low income housing tax credits, they keep the list of the recipients of the tax credits. And then the follow-up question that the person asked is are the developers -- I'm sorry -- are you able to get a list of developers in your state through the housing agency? They will have for you the address and the developer. Now, one of the games the developers play, and these are games, is that they frequently will incorporate under different names for each different project, but there will be a street address and if you really have problems, if you go to the deed in your city hall of that property, you'll find out the owners. Relating -- these are three questions basically from the same person -- are the developers who receive the tax credits required to keep the same percentage of low income units for the life of the tax credit? The answer is for the life of the tax credit, yes, but that's not the life of the unit. The tax credit -- they have to keep -- they cannot discriminate for 15 years after they have been allocated the tax credit. Okay, who does one report a developer who is out of compliance? And the person was talking about two different kinds of out of compliance. First is the low income housing tax credit -- you really want to get to your state housing agency. They're is the ones who are responsible for allocating the tax credits, and you really want to tell them that a person is out of compliance -- a developer is out of compliance and discriminating against someone with a section 8 voucher. You also want to write a letter to the Internal Revenue Code, Internal Revenue Service, excuse me, and send a copy to the developer. That will shake them up because the one thing they don't want to happen is the IRS to come in and to do any type of an audit on terms of going back years upon years when they've been receiving these tax credits and they are thinking they're Scott free. Those are the two places you would look for to report a developer who is out of compliance with the low income housing tax credits. What about a developer who is out of compliance who was a recipient of federal financial assistance? And any number of different ways of -- any number of different kinds of federal financial assistance. The first thing that's really important is to make a determination whether the entity out of compliance is the entity that received -- that directly received the money, like the city, the state, the county; or whether it was a sub recipient or developer that to whom the city or the state or the county has passed on the federal financial assistance to construct new -- either new construction or rehabilitation. Because that will very much -- very much depend on who you, quote-unquote, report. One of the problems we cut is that enforcement of Section 504, like enforcement of the ADA, the problem with both of them is basically there is no federal agency around that really is taking this on as a major enforcement. You can file complaints with DOJ. They are overwhelmed with numbers and the odds of anything happening are not high. Other than that, there is no place to, quote-unquote, report. Your option for noncompliance with Section 504, as with the ADA, is to take them to court and to sue them for discrimination under Section 504 or any other statute. But that's basically the only way to hold them accountable. That's in my opinion the primary legal way, obviously, and those of you who know me know what I always, always, always recommend first is putting political pressure in terms of organizing, in terms of if an independent living center or a local disability group or whatever finds a developer out of compliance, a picket sign -- a picket line in front of that person's business or the city housing department is -- should be the first way because lawsuits take time and take energy. And if you can get it done through organizing, absolutely try to do it first. A person said, I thought that housing providers were not allowed to discriminate based on a person's disability. That is to say, they can't give preference to a person with a mobility impairment over a person with a hearing or sight impairment. Let me break it down a little bit. The Section 504 requires the following: That priority be given to people who have -- the term that's used is impairment -- for which the unit is to be made accessible. For example, the 5 percent for mobility impairments, priority is to be given to persons with mobility impairments. The 1 percent people with visual impairment, priority should be given of those units to people with mobility impairments. Now, that does not mean -- that does not mean that a person with a hearing impairment or visual impairment or mobility impairment who wants to rent an unit that is not accessible can be discriminated against. That is a classic blatant form of discrimination. So you've got basically an apple and an orange mixed in here that the owner of the housing providers, the developers cannot discriminate against you because of a disability, but compared to nondisabled people and then secondly, if they have received federal financial assistance, they must give a priority based on that -- based on that impairment. Now, whatever -- one of the problems we're having in a number of places is what does priority mean? And we have not come across anything that is really helpful or that is really, really, really clear in terms of what it means. It sure means the following: And one of the things we talked about in the last webcast, you've got to be in front of the curve. That is to say, you have to know what's being constructed before it's finished so that if it's using federal financial assistance, or if it's using tax credits, et cetera, or a combination, you want to get to them early on and say we have people with disabilities that want to use the 5 percent of the units. Here are the names. Here they are, let us know and establish a contact so then they have no excuse later on to say, well, we couldn't find anyone who had the disability for which the unit was supposed to be accessible, which is happening a lot. Then it says -- or do you mean that a provider can give preference to a person who needs an accessible feature units, wider doors, grab bars, et cetera, over someone that doesn't? And the answer is again, yes, that's exactly what I mean. They're to give preference. Now, lets assume the following: The reason that many disabled people would take an unit that's inaccessible is they need housing. They've got an unit. Well, one of the things we haven't talked about -- and I was criticized for not emphasizing this at the last webcast and whoever did it was absolutely on the money. Someone who is living in an unit has the right, if it's a federally financed unit, to something called a reasonable accommodation, something we all know. Now, this is short of fully accessible under the uniform federal accessible standards. Let's assume someone is living in a federally financed unit becomes disabled. Before they were disabled they didn't need accessible units and now they don't want to move. Reasonable accommodations must be made available for people under both the Section 504 of the Rehab Act, but also under -- and we haven't really spent a lot of time on the federal housing act amendments of 1988 that prohibit discrimination based on disability regardless of the source of the money of the building, regardless of the low income housing tax credits. That same thing applies. The big difference in terms of reasonable accommodation in the two is as follows: Let's assume on one hand you have a housing units that have received federal financial assistance, and the person needs a reasonable accommodation, a ramp, grab bars, a bathroom, accessible shower, whatever. Those reasonable accommodations must be granted and must be paid for by the owners because they have already received federal financial assistance. That is different than under the federal housing act amendments. That is to say, someone is building units or rehabing, they have no federal financial assistance whatsoever and putting aside anything dealing with low income housing tax credit. Pure and simple private development, it could be condos or anything, and the person is in there with a disability. Do they have the right for reasonable accommodation to the access? The answer is yes. However, and this is the big however, the cost of that reasonable accommodation must be born by the disabled person, her or himself. And that's an obvious big, big difference. Question: Our state agency considers itself a quasi-state agency. They're not requiring anything of its recipients. How do you suggest we proceed? Well, I understand what they mean by quasi-state agency, meaning the state housing agency has been -- is a relatively recent phenomenon. But they are getting federal financial assistance, and once they get that they must comply with the civil rights statutes that protect people with disabilities. They are more than a bank. They are more than just someone that gives the money away. If they received federal financial assistance and allocated it to the rural areas that are not covered, for example, by CDBG or the HOME money to those areas that don't receive the HOME money directly, and the recipients in those rural areas discriminate, the state is the primary recipient. Both the state is liable and potentially discriminating under Section 504 as well as the local rural area that has received the money. So sit more than a bank. Now, the question was how would you suggest we proceed? Well, last time we talked about states must file annual plans with HUD in terms of how they spent their -- what they were going to do with their annual consolidated plans. They must hold hearings twice a year. You guys got to get there and you must get on the agenda and you must ask them what are they doing with the money in terms of accessibility and in terms of affordability and in terms of integration, and when they don't give you an adequate answer, you have to object. And this will become part of the plan that HUD has to approve. And we're going to have to hold HUD accountable to make sure they follow up with them. But that's the first thing. The second thing is just going to the meetings will be something that will shock them because it is not -- it is not typical to see people with disabilities at state housing agencies and definitely not at their meetings. The third thing you can do is you've got to find a friendly state senator or state representative who may be -- and you've got to know who is on the board of directors of that state housing agency. And because there may be state money going into them as well and you want them to apply some political pressure. You want them to apply some political pressure to the state agency. Question: Can you clarify how various HUD funds are allocated? The webcast left the impression that HUD allocates funds to state housing agencies, which it does, who then redistribute it locally. And then the person said, correctly, in fact, is it not the case that HUD allocates funds, HOME and CDBG, to metropolitan areas and in states where the metropolitan and rural areas, the state agency may only receive those funds on behalf of the rural area. That is correct. And a certain percentage by federal statute is distributed both to the state agency for the rural area and directly -- and a different percentage goes directly from the Feds to the larger municipalities and counties. One person -- I skipped this before. If I understand correctly, the question is, an apartment that has or received low income housing tax credits must accept Section 8 voucher? Answer, that is correct. They cannot discriminate against people who have vouchers. And a follow-up question with that was -- someone asked a question about I found that all tax credit housing in this area have minimum income guidelines for even those who have Section 8. And the question is even if they are a Section 8 voucher holder or landlord would approve the rent, development -- let me rephrase it. It's questionABLY written. The recipient of the low income housing tax credit, the developer, would turn down the application of a Section 8 holder because of income. And let me try to flesh that out a little bit if I could. Your housing agencies for each area will tell you what the median income is and will tell you the percentage of units in every development that received low income housing tax credits that must accept low income -- up to whatever percent of the median, whether it be 40 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent. Now, the critical term there I sloughed over is up to. If someone with a Section 8 voucher has it, their income is irrelevant because the voucher is going to pay the rent, and all the example means is that -- remember we talked about at the last webcast -- there may be some people, actually whose income are at the level of workers of the centers for independent living, may be eligible to rent in a low income housing tax credit project because of their income. That does not mean, though, that only people at that level can rent there. It means only people up to that level can rent. So that if someone has less income with a voucher, and they get there and the unit is available, the developer cannot discriminate against that holder of the voucher. Now, the question -- the next question again relates to low income housing tax credits. If your state housing agency doesn't publish the low income housing tax credit recipients in their web page, how can we find out who they are? At this time since I'm losing my voice I would like to go with you to the HUD web page. Now, I think Rachel -- I'm going to walk everyone through this real slowly. Those of you who are watching this and listening to this over the webcast and can't get on the Internet, I'm going to tell you each step of the way. The address to type in is LIHTC.HUDUSER.org. There is no WWW before it. You just type that in and hit the go button. That will open you up to something on the HUD web pages called low income housing tax credit selective access. Now, I want to walk you through it nice and slowly because it's important for you to be able to see how this works. On the left-hand side of this web page is something entitled select the variables you want to extract from the data base. The left-hand side is divided in upper and lower. In the upper part of the left-hand side. Now, there are different things you can select here and I'm going to tell you what I suggest people select just based on some experience. I don't think that it's important for you to know the HUD I D.number. So you don't have to check that out. I do think it's important for you to know the project name and address because that will tell you where the actual street address of the recipient of the low income housing tax credit. The geocoding information I don't think is important. The next thing is something called project characteristics, and I think this is important. You want to know the total -- you want to check off the total number of units, you want to check the low income units, and then you want to check the year placed in service and the year credits allocated. Those are two separate ones. You want to also check new construction rehabilitation. Now, the one that I don't check, but you may want to check off is unit bedroom distribution. I guess for some of you that would be very important. So the project characteristics, I guess you want to check them all now that I do it this way. You don't need anything more on the upper left hand side. You've got to make sure there are checks on those. Then you go to the bottom left-hand side and it's entitled selected a single state or multiple states. And here you have the first sort of bar is select single state. And there is a down arrow and you point your pointer on it and you just highlight your state, or whatever it is. I'm just going to do -- I'm going to do Pennsylvania only because I know it. Pennsylvania. Now you go over to -- it says refine your query, use the devices below to refine your query. Now there is a whole bunch of stuff here. There are a number of boxes that you can choose. Some of them are already highlighted for you. I'm going to tell you whether to keep it or not keep it. The first thing is the city or cities that you want to look at. Now, you can do all cities in the state of Pennsylvania or alphabetically you can go and highlight just the city you want or cities. I'm going to do Philadelphia only because, again, that's where I'm at. Philadelphia. If you want to do counties rather than cities, there is a bar, a box, counties versus the cities. You can do that as well. The next box in the middle is find all projects within -- and you can put whatever mileage you want and then relate it to the city or burrow again. I don't think that's as important and I normally don't do that. Going over to the right the next two boxes have place in service years and credit allocation years. And they are already highlighted and I think you should keep that just the way it is. The next thing it says in the middle, it says, credit type, no restriction, keep it no restriction. Something about all the other no restrictions I would keep it just that way and then at the bottom it says, select output type and the one that they highlight for you is 1 HTML table listing all properties. That's all you've got to do. Then there is a bar that says retrieve project data. By highlighting that you will now get -- we're going to get for Philadelphia, but you're going to get for any state and any city that you want going back to 1987 all the housing low income housing tax credits by street address. I know this is sort of weird to do this over the Internet when some of you are on webcast, and I do really, really apologize. But after the last training a number of people asked me the same question about how do you find out if the state agency doesn't have it. Many, many, many state agencies do have it. They may not give it to you break down the way I just did it, but it's okay. I'm now looking at Philadelphia. It's the low income housing -- LIHTC data base access in the HTML output. And there are a number of columns. Column one, project name and I'm just going to go over the first ones here, everything on it. The first thing they give me is the project name. And you know, it could be the street address, it could be the apartment names, it could be an anymore or street address, but that's what it is. The next column is the project address, that's what people want to know, where are they? It's important for you to know the address so you can then go over when people have Section 8 vouchers and be able to send it to them. You may have to do some testing the same way we do fair housing testing. The next column is project city, I don't know why it gives us that, and state, but they always do, and they then give you the total number of units and the total number of low income units. The difference between the two is very important. I'm just going to scroll down and show you -- I don't see any on the first page, but frequently a developer will have money -- will apply for low income housing tax credits for only part of the total number of units. And that's important for you to know so that if for example they've got -- they're building 25 units and 18 are total number of low income housing units, those are the units that have to be -- 18 out of the 25 must accept the Section 8 voucher. That's basically the entire way to find the street address, the type of construction, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is critical, if you want to find out -- and you're going to see it goes on for pages. One of the things I suggested the last time was that you guys start with the most recent ones. And the reason I think that is important is they may not be full yet. They may be -- you know, they may not be full yet and you may be able to easier get them than those that have been out since 1990, 91 and 92, et cetera. But that's what you want to do if your housing agency doesn't publish. That's how you find it. Let me see -- I have a lot nor questions. Sharon, I will be glad to stop now and answer questions directly or continue -- let me answer two more questions that are related here and then we'll take some live questions if you want, Sharon. Sharon: That would be good I have several questions that have come in. Steve: I still have out of the 30--ten at least. One question was could you clarify what fair market rent means with regard to a person finding an unit at 120 percent of the FMR? Okay, great question. Section 504 and the regulations that we talked about clearly recognizes that in order to find an accessible unit, the rents may be higher than a nonaccessible unit. They may be in much shorter supply than a nonaccessible unit. So what HUD has basically done to try to equalize the opportunity, HUD sets the fair market rent for every housing authority all over the country. And then the housing authority can set what they are going to have their Section 8 voucher pay. Most of them are now up to 110 percent of the fair market rent, the FMR. Let's assume that a person with a disability has a voucher and cannot find an accessible unit at 110 percent of the fair market rent. What HUD has done to eliminate the discrimination -- you know, they sure could find units at 110 percent that are inaccessible, but to eliminate the discrimination of the inaccessibility, HUD has said that the housing authority must -- has the right to, as a reasonable accommodation, go above the FMR, and there are several steps that can be done. Step No. 1, they can go up to 120 percent pretty easily and quickly I'm now told by just writing a letter to the regional HUD office and saying that, you know, Ms. Jones, Ms. Smith, et cetera, is a person with a disability and cannot find an unit at 110 percent, but has an unit at 120 percent. And what I've been told is that the turn around has been really getting quicker and quicker all over the country, both regional and HUD offices which is terrific. What happens if you can't even find it at 120 percent? All right, what happens if you find an unit at 140 percent or 150 percent of the fair market rent? Well, what I suggested last time, and I stick to it, you've got to go with your voucher to your housing authority because it's the housing authorities that administer the Section 8 voucher program. And someone asked me a question that I can't find now quickly, but it was -- they asked what's the difference between a housing authority and a state housing agency? The state -- the housing authorities are what we normally talk about public housing authorities. They're the ones that build public housing, but they also administer the Section 8 voucher programs. The state housing agencies might also administer in rural areas voucher programs, but they also administer other programs that housing authorities do not. And most time, I don't think I know of any, that guild itself housing. So when we're talking about housing authorities, we're talking what's commonly meant as the public housing authority as distinguished from the state agency, as distinguished also from many, many, many cities have housing agencies that do not -- are not public housing authorities. Sometimes they might administer the housing authority, but not often. All right, the question was your housing authority that is administering the your Section 8 voucher program. You want to go to them and say to them -- they're supposed to have a list of all Section 8 participating units that are available. And you tell them I would like a copy of that list. And then you ask them the question once you have that list in your hands. Which of these units have -- are accessible for persons with disabilities? A., mobility impairments, B., hearing, C., visual. Let's stick with mobility. And you ask them to identify them. Now, 99 percent of the time, if not more, your housing authority, based on my experience and it may not be fair to say 99 percent, but most housing authorities will not know, or if they do they will not tell you which of the participating Section 8 private landlords that are participating in the Section 8 voucher program have an accessible unit. Now, if they cannot tell you that, the housing authority is discriminating because the person with a disability should not have to go from one unit to the next and ask do you have accessible units? We've been told by some private landlords, sure, I have an accessible unit and it happens to be on the second floor. They have no idea what you mean by accessibility. The housing authority should know that. Let's assume that they could not tell you. Then the next thing you want to do is to tell them that you have found a place at 150 percent that's accessible that's agreed to participate in the Section 8 program because obviously the private landlords have to participate and no one can force them to. But the nice thing about the accessibility and increasing the FMR, is that they could rent one or two or three units that are accessible to people with disabilities and not open up all their other units to other Section 8 issues or tenants and they can get more than FMR because they have an accessible unit. It's a real incentive for the landlord and a real incentive for the person with the voucher. If the housing authority objects and refuses to do that, they have to basically request national HUD approval for the modification for the FMR. And the national HUD has done it, I've been told, at least 140 percent. Then you have a Section 504 violation. The same way you would against any other public or private entity that fails to provide a reasonable accommodation. And you can really stick it to them and say, well, if you don't want to go through the paperwork to get the FMR at 150 percent for this person, show me the accessible units. Where are they? And they are not going to have them and they don't know where they are. And they don't think they're in the business of finding private landlords. Sharon, let's open it up. Sharon: Okay, I have several questions. Let me go ahead and ask a couple of E-mail questions and then we'll open the floor for the callers. Steve: Okay. Sharon: The first question -- they are on the low income housing tax credit website and they're having a problem. It says the data seems to stop at year 2000. Is there a place to get more recent data? Steve: Great, great, great question. The answer is about once a year HUD is several years behind as you can tell. I expect in the next month or two, if you went back there you'll get beyond 2000. The HUD will update it for you. The other place to get it where they have it now is the state agency because every year the state -- for the year 2002 maybe also already 2003, your housing -- your state housing agency has allocated the tax credits. Remember when we went through this thing on the left there is a box that talked about year of -- year credits allocated? That's different than year placed in service. The allocation year will be a year or two before they are placed in service because what happens is the developer uses that to build and it's important, therefore, to know when they get it so that you can get to them immediately and say we have people who are available who want to use the accessible -- who want to use their Section 8 vouchers. The other reason it's important to know their address is to see whether that address has received CDBG money or HOME money. Because if they've done both, i.e., low income credit and federal financial assistance, then you've got them both under affordability and accessibility. Sharon: Okay, another question in reference to the HUD website. If a project has a low income housing tax credit and it says to the HUD website they have 24 low income units, and they have 24 low income tenants already, are they required to allow vouchers? And where is this written? Steve: They technically could not do it. What it means is as follows: When the next tenant moves out -- if there are 24 units and 24 low income people and all of them are low income units, if I understand the question, is that there are already people in the 24? Sharon: Yes. Steve: Then there is nothing you can do. You can't kick anybody out. They're fully in compliance. The other thing -- let me sort of do a follow-up on my own kind of question to that. What happens -- you see, the developer has to make those units available to the low income person, but what happens hypothetically, you're in a town and they build 24 units. They've gotten tax credits for all of them. And they open them up and only ten low income people apply, and low income we mean within the percentage of median income that that low income housing tax credit must run to. Well, one of the things we've never been able to figure out is how long they have to keep it open. Clearly, they don't have to keep it open forever. They've got to keep it open, I assume, and I don't have the law and I don't pretend to know the regulations by memory well enough, how long do they have to keep it open? And if they then rent it to someone who is not a low income person and a low income person then comes along, I don't think we can win in court they're going to have to kick that person out. So one of the things you want to do and to start at the end, the most recent, as the tax credits have been allocated, you want to get to that developer today and say before they are building them, before they're built, before they're open, we have people with Section 8 vouchers who want to move in there period. So there is no excuse. The developer has no -- no excuse that they didn't have people who were low income. Sharon: Okay, one quick question before we go to the phone line. It is my understanding that housing tax credits do not trigger 504 requirements, is that not true? Steve: That is true to the extent that -- it is absolutely true to the extent that the recipient of the tax credit did not get any other kind of federal financial assistance. Meaning as follows: Let's assume that a project, a development, that low income housing tax credits and no other money, no HOME money, no CDBG, no blah, blah, blah, those are the two big ones. Then the -- they don't have a 504 duty. Their only duty in that example is not to discriminate against a holder of a Section 8 voucher so that we get affordability because there is no discrimination based on the voucher. You do not get accessibility on that voucher. That's why I go back to saying to particularly to centers for independent living and et cetera that have a computer gurus on them, develop a matrix so you have a row -- each row is a different address, each column is did they receive a source of money or low income housing tax credit? So if you looked at 125 South Nine Street and they go low income housing tax credits in 1998 which immediately a bell goes on that they cannot discriminate on a section 8 voucher, and if you keep going across the row and there are no other checks, that's the only duty they've got. If there is a check that they received other federal money, then the 5 percent requirement in Section 504 goes into effect for accessibility. So they would have both the duty to not discriminate on a voucher holder and have the duty not to discriminate in terms of accessibility. Sharon: Okay. Steve: Your turn, Sharon. Sharon: All right, I think we're going to open up the phone lines. Operator: At this time we'll open the phone lines. If you would like to ask a question press the star key followed by the one key. Questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. If at any point you need to remove yourself from the questioning queue, press star 2. Please limit your questions to one at a time. Again, to ask a question press the star key followed by the one key on your touch tone phone now. Our first question comes from Gail. Ma'am, please go ahead. Gail: Yes, I think my question was misunderstood. Say a project has X. number, maybe 30 units all told, and on the website we learned that 24 of those units are dedicated for low income housing tax credit. Steve: Got you. Gail: And they have 24 low income people living there. Are they then required to accept a voucher for the remaining six or whatever empty apartments? Steve: No. No. Caller: That's the wrong answer. (laughing) Steve: Sorry. As far as I know, the answer is no that their duty not to discriminate goes to those units for which they received the low income housing tax credit, and your example, Gail, it would be 24 out of the 30. I have never researched that, but that's my understanding. And I'll tell you, before I see you in ten days I will do some research. Gail: that really isn't the answer I was looking for. Steve: I'm sorry, that is the answer. Operator: Our next question comes from Steve. Sir, please go ahead. Steve (caller): Hi, I'd be real interested to know on smaller projects like we have here in Maine, sometimes the units only number ten or twelve per project and whether we're talking about the 5 percent rule or the 1 percent rule or the 1 percent rule when you're in a 12 unit project it's hard to figure out those percentages. Steve: Well, let me -- Steve, let me first stop you because the 5 percent rule, unfortunately, -- no, I'm so are I. You're right. You're on money my man. 5 percent still means one. A project of 15 units, it's one. Steve (Caller): Okay, that was my question. So basically you round up? Steve: So up to the one. Steve (caller): For instance, 5 percent of 12 unit project might let you put Braille on the elevators. Steve: No, it's one unit. Steve (caller): Thanks. Operator: Again, if you would like to ask a question, press the star key followed by the one key on your touch tone phone now. Sharon: All right, I think we'll take some more E-mail questions while we pause. Steve, I have a couple of questions. What are the possibilities for an advocacy group to develop a housing project or project funded through tax credit which would, one, provide integrated affordable, accessible housing, and two, provide capital and revenue to fund advocacy activities? If so, could the advocacy group do this on their own or should they seek developer partners and have any groups already done this? >> Steve: Groups have done it. I got into the housing business in the 80's with a group that was doing that. I know Atlantis in Denver has done it. Very, very nice housing. Guys, I think you really want to partner with a developer. There are so many technical aspects of building and putting together a package and a program that, you know, I don't want you to waste your staff time or your time doing that. You want a developer. You guys want to hold the project goals or the project ideology in check and you want the developer to do the business part and the construction part and all that other stuff. Sharon: Thanks. Steve: But just to respond, if you want to know -- if you guys go to the Atlantis -- I'll give you a phone number. I know -- I've seen their housing and their apartments and they're very, very nice. 303-it's in Denver -- 733-9324. You can ask some of them how they did it. I'm sure other places have done it, too but I know they have done it. Could I ask, Sharon, some of the two questions that is sort of a follow-up that I didn't get to on this one, but it's a total segue was -- God, I lost it. I put the paper down. Your turn. I'm sorry. Sharon: All Right. How will the current administration's tax cut especially the treatment of dividend taxation affect low income housing tax credit? And will this dry up this avenue for developing accessible, affordable, and integrated housing? Steve: First of all, I don't think that that tax credit is going to go through. If it were to go through, the answer is I think it would. I mean, right now -- let me make sure you guys understand the magic of tax credits. Right now businesses, corporations that have a tax liability can get a few good fuel on that tax instead of paying to IRS so they can get off dollar for dollar on their liability by doing a tax credit to a low income housing tax developer, et cetera. So rather than pay the taxes, they will then pay and get -- they actually make money over the years? Terms of how much credit they go. But if the president's proposed tax dividend were to go through, there would be -- I think, and I'm not a tax lawyer or a tax planner or a tax anything -- I think the incentives for the corporations just go out of the window. They're going to be able to -- they're not going to have that kind of tax liability. And we're going to be really, really, really in trouble. Because I told you last time the low income housing tax credit is one of the three biggest still around. In terms of affordable housing. Sharon: Okay, Steve, I think we're ready to take any callers, Lindsey. Operator: Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the one key on your touch tone phone now. Mrs. Finney, we have no questions in the queue at this point. Steve: Great, let me keep going back. One of the things I would like to do, Sharon, is that we've done now on the computer on the web -- the HUD web page low income housing tax credits. I sat around in the last few weeks, and the information bulletin is called CDBG and HOME and then the second one was called more CDBG and HOME, and I've gotten a whole bunch of people who have actually had a lot of questions about it. I want to walk people through how to find this on the web page so that they can figure out how -- how to basically -- how much money did we get? I can't do the same thing in terms of street addresses, but some person in Kalamazoo, Michigan was trying to figure out how much money have they gotten in HOME money. HOME money can be used for three things. HOME money can be used for new construction. It can be used for rehabilitation, and it can be used for rent subsidies. I'm interested in the first two. This person and I went to the following web page to get ten years' worth of HOME information. And I want you to understand this because I can now -- I can break you down -- this web page is available in one spot throughout the entire country and you can go to your city and you can then find out dollar for dollar how much they've gotten because it will blow your mind. Kalamazoo, Michigan, for example, between 93 and 02 got more than 9 million dollars in HOME money. When I did Philadelphia for an independent living center a day or two ago, we discovered they got 111 million dollars of HOME money. We have no idea what kind of buildings have been built with that and the reason that the HOME money is important is HOME is the only program that you get both the 504 5 percent requirement and the duty not to discriminate based on the Section 8 vouchers. So let me now take you -- let's do this nice and slowly. It's WWW.HUD.gov/offices/CPD/about/budget/budget01/index.CFM. Okay, now, we're going to open that in a minute. If you were to substitute the same thing and do 02 and 03, you'll get the current -- 03 is obviously fiscal year 03 and the reason I'm saying 01 is that's the one that gives you the historical data. Okay, so now you come up with something called the community planning and development program formula allocation page. And on the right in a little box called related information is something called historical funding allocations from 1993 through 01 are included in an MS access database which shows you how I'm getting into the lingo as we do this. This is not your excel, guys. You have to open up Microsoft for the access. So what I've done is I now link the MS access database on that page and then you get something comes up that says file download, and you say okay. And then you get something they call -- that says HISTALLOC.MDB, and you do save. Okay? Now, what this does -- what this opens up for you is -- under Microsoft access you then go into -- I'm sorry -- you then go to your start, programs, then to Microsoft access, and then you hit -- and it will open up. And you will have -- you can save it open as an existing database, you can do a database wizard and three different ways of doing it. Now, I have saved it under my regular documents, my housing stuff for HOME. And what you have is this Microsoft access. You cannot make changes to objects in the database historical allocations. Now what you have is an amazing document that's called history, 1993 to 2001 table. Now, a number of these columns are total jiberish, and I've got to tell you guys that I'm looking at the first one from Alabama, alphabetical by state, I have no idea what first few columns mean. I start on a column that says state, Al, Alabama, name, and that gives you the name of the recipient. It's Aniston City. Now, you've got to keep going over because about five or six columns over, you're going to see something that starts at CDBG 93. Now, what this web page does for you is it will give you the historical allocation of both CDBG, and if you keep going over, and HOME program. Now, the reason that this is important, I want to focus as I told you guys in the information bulletin on the HOME rather than on the CDBG for the following reason: The CDBG can be used for lots of different things, not just housing so that my experience is that only about 20 to 25 percent of the CDBG money goes for housing. You should find out what it is, but since those of you that are going to be plow go through, I think it makes much more sense to go right to the thing we know is housing as the first thing. And that is the HOME page. Now, what I'm going to do for those of you that are on this to show you how I read this, I'm going to go down to Philadelphia again. You go by state and then I go to Philadelphia. Okay, and I go over to my HOME money and I find out, for example, that in 1993 HOME Philadelphia money -- HOME money was allocated 2 million. A lot of places go no money, zero, and you've got to find out whether your place got money or didn't get money under HOME. But the reason that this is important -- and those of you who got no money under HOME, you will see you did get money under CDBG. Let me just deal with the HOME ones first because it's a little easier to deal with and discuss. Under the HOME program, I've asked our independent living center folks and our housing people to tell me going back to 93 where was this money used? I want to know now the street addresses. So we're going to have to probably get the consolidated plans going back to 1993 to see where that money went. What were the projects that they put the money in. The reason this is important, I want to get the street addresses of those because I want to make sure that they are in fact taking Section 8 vouchers and not discriminating against Section 8 vouchers. Absolutely critical. And it's a source of lots and lots and lots of house. Now you're going to also see when you do this that a number of the different recipients are also state agencies. The state agency gets HOME money. And what you want to do on that -- I'm looking -- the Oklahoma State program -- Ohio state program. I'm just scrolling up. You want to get to your state agency and get their consolidated plan for those years. North Dakota state program -- and to see where did they either build new construction, do alterations or renovations or use the money as rent supplement? Because if they did the first two, you want the addresses, right, because now you've got the street address for the low income housing tax credit. Now you also will have the total amount of money of the HOME program and the CDBG and for those people who have the energy to really get the consolidated plans under the CDBG and go back, you're going to find out how much of the big money, all right, the CDBG is much bigger money than the HOME money. How much of it was actually used for actual housing because that also has a 5 percent requirement. It's clearly federal financial assistance. Okay, that's how you get to the history of the HOME money. Sharon, I'm going to go back and finish up the questions from the last webcast. Okay? Sharon: Okay. Steve: Question: A member of ours in California has discovered a developer in his community that keeps getting contracts from the city to build low income housing, low income properties and keeps failing to comply with the accessibility requirements. However, the developer appears to keep in good graces with the city authority by giving generous contributions to elected officials' campaigns. How do advocates deal with this type of co companies I relationship that interferes with the compliance with the law. It can be frustrating and illegal and your civil rights can be violated. What I suggest in that kind of thing is that you don't go after, initially at least, the developer. You go after the recipient of the low income housing tax credits, i.e., the city agency or state agency that received the federal money and has passed it onto this developer and you hold them accountable. Do you remember the last time in the webcast we talked about a case we brought in Philadelphia a number of years ago. And what we did was we went back a few years under CDBG to find out where they had been spending their CDBG money in terms of specifically housing. All right, and we then wanted to hold them accountable for when they had not built accessible units. Now, obviously, when you go back to 1993, 1994, 1995, those units would not have been accessible in my bet, the odds are. So what do you do now? You have a recipient of the federal financial assistance, the housing agency, the state housing program agency that have abused the CDBG or HOME money to build places that were not accessible. Clear civil rights violation, clear civil rights discrimination. You are now in an incredibly powerful situation and position. You could berings if you had a straight face, tell them make those places accessible and give priority to people with disabilities even though you have other people living in there right now. If you have the kahonies to do that, go for it. They're clearly in violation of the 504 and the Rehab Act. What we did in Philadelphia is to tell them the following: We don't want you to kick out these people, we don't want you to go back and redo those that you've done, but for the next X. years in the future, we want the following: A., more than 5 percent built with priority to be given to people with disabilities; and B., and in terms of the CDBG, we want you to make sure that you use some of the CDBG money for a home MOD program. So someone has used the term on the E-mail address, it sounds like you black mailed them. Well, you can call it anything you want, but we got -- I mean we got them with their pants down. They were in violation to technically comply they would have had to kick people out. We thought we were being very reasonable and sensible about what to ask them to do. So that's what I would do and I would go after the recipient. I wouldn't go after the developer. Make the recipient of that money comply. If they want sweetheart deals with developers and violate your civil rights, that's their business, but you're not going to let that happen or continue in the future. Sharon: Okay, Steve, I think we have a few more minutes in the presentation today. Steve: Okay. Sharon: And I do have one question. Steve: Go ahead. I'm sorry, Sharon. Sharon: And I think it's truly valuable. What's the simplest way for us to learn more about the tangled maze of HUD options? Is there any clear road map publication? Is there a clear, well organized website? Steve: Yeah. Let me give a plug for the group that I like very much, and that's the technical assistance collaborative, Inc. and the disability rights housing out of ToPEKA. And I think both groups have -- I know that the technical assistance collaborative has a great website, and I think if you go to info at TAC.INC.org, if you call up the Topeka independent living center, 785-233-4572, and you ask them for the website for the housing -- the disability rights housing group, they will give it. I thought I had it. I'm looking as I'm trying to do it quickly and I don't have it. The third thing is, guys, what I've tried to do on my web page with all these information bulletins is a package, but that's what I've been trying to do by program. If you go do my web page WWW.StevegoldADA.com and you scroll down the picture of me sleeping in a telephone booth to searchable archive and you hit on that, in are 60 or 70 and maybe half of them deal with housing. And if you go to the early ones, I really tried to lay out in simple English, people can dispute whether it was simple or not, but I tried to lay out what the programs are and what the duties are. And the fourth thing is call me. Call me or send me an E-mail. I answer questions as much as I can. My E-mail address is the same thing, StevegoldADA@ CS.com and if I'm in the city I try to get back to them in a day or two and I will get back to you. I will at least try to and if you can make your question as specific as possible I'll be glad to try to help. Sharon: Great. Steve: Can I keep going? Sharon: We have a couple more minutes and I do have a question that was put in front of me. Steve: Go ahead. Sharon: Are there other ways advocacy groups can become housing developers both to create housing options and to acquire revenue to fund advocacy? It's time for people with disabilities to get more sophisticated. Steve: Oh, I agree completely. You know, this is not an area -- you can apply for HOME money. The advocates -- as long as you're a nonprofit, you can clearly apply for federal financial assistance. You want to go to your local -- you want to become a player. I mean your cities and states are receiving millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars every year under the CDBG and they're giving it to -- they're reallocating it to housing, a portion of it, and for HOME money all of it. You want to tell them, look, we're a player. My gut says -- and it's not experience, it's more gut -- you really want to get someone from your local area who a developer had has been through it and who knows the ropes a little bit to assist you at the beginning. There is a lot of technical stuff you can get swamped in. Sharon: Okay, Steve, thank you for your presentation today. Steve: I can't believe we have questions from the last time we haven't gotten to. Sharon: We still have more questions. Steve: And one of the things, Sharon, you're going to tell them, some of these you'll put on the bulletin board? Sharon: What I was going to mention to you, Steve, is that the sites that you referenced today and some of the E-mail information that you just gave out will -- we would like to post that on the message board. Steve: Oh, please, do it. Sharon: We'll have that information on available to every one if you weren't able to get it down. Steve: And if I talked too quickly I'm really sorry. Sharon: I think our captioner did really well today. Steve: Let me just tell you to the listeners. I understand that this is -- sounds the first and second and third time like we're talking a different language with housing and the reason is that historical the disability community has not been in the housing game. And you know, the way we know attendant care and the way we know various DMA's and the rest the of the world doesn't we're just now learning about housing. So don't get discouraged with the language and the lingo and the rules and how this fits together. It's a puzzle and we're learning as we go along. Sharon: All right, Steve. Again, thank you and everyone for participating today. I think the information that Steve mentioned in terms of the website addresses and the questions that he still had unasked from ther last webcast as well as all the questions that have come in today, we'll be posting them with the archive of today's presentation on the ILRU website. So if you go to the ILRU website at WWW.ILRU.org and you click on webcast, and then you go to the archive, I would suggest tomorrow, it will appear in order and Steve's of course will be at the top, along with a link to a message board where these questions that were pending as well as questions that you may still have that you would like to ask, you can post them on that message board and Steve will be answering those for the next two weeks. Steve: Right. I will. I will try to. Well, no, I'm going to be out have town a little bit. I will give this priority. Sharon: And then we'll be available even after that two-week period, but Steve will be getting to those in the next 14 days as well as we will have the transcript from today's presentation that you can share with your colleagues and the audio of today's presentation that will be available. Also we'd like your feedback so please fill out the evaluation form on our website and the support for today's webcast was provided by did national institute on disability and rehabilitation research, NIDRR, through its funding for the Disability Law Resource Project and their website is WWW.DLRP.org. NIDRR is part of the U.S. Department of Education and no endorsement by the department of the opinions expressed as part of any webcast should be inferred. As well as this is sponsored by the Rehabilitation Services Administration through the Department of Education through its funding for the Olmstead training project and no endorsement by the department of the opinions expressed has any part of the webcast should be inferred. Finally the teleconference and webcast was facilitated by did ILRU webcast team of Marj Gordon, Dawn Heinsohn, Rachel Kosoy, Rob Dickehuth and Marie Bryant whose fingers are burning right now. Good afternoon and have a good day.