Overview and Goals

In 1999, LMHA was designated as a Moving To Work (MTW) site. This special designation gives LMHA added discretion to create housing policies and programs that are tailored to our community's needs. With this designation, LMHA can suspend certain U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations and requirements to locally develop appropriate housing and self-sufficiency strategies. The MTW designation also suspends requirements to comply with a number of regulations related to public housing and tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher rules and allows public housing authorities (PHA) to combine operating, capital, and tenant-based assistance funds into a single agency-wide funding source. The current term for the demonstration expires on June 30, 2009. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development program goals are:

• To provide flexibility to design and test various approaches for providing and administering housing assistance that reduces costs and achieves greater cost effectiveness in federal expenditures;

• To give incentives to families with children where the head of the household is working, is seeking work or, is preparing for work by participating in job training, educational programs or programs to assist people to obtain employment and become economically self-sufficient; and,

• To increase housing choices for low-income families.

As a MTW site, LMHA's goals are to:

• Reposition and redevelop the conventional Public Housing stock
  
  The physical stock of family housing developments needs to be completely redeveloped. These sites - large, dense, urban and often isolated - need major renovation or replacement. LMHA's goal is to transform these communities in the coming years, replacing the current public housing developments with mixed income communities, while at the same time providing replacement units so that the overall number of families served will not decrease. In the elderly developments, modernization efforts will proceed with an eye towards appropriate and expanded service provision, such as assisted living.
   

• Increase housing choice through stronger rental communities and options, and expanded homeownership opportunities
  
  Homeownership is an important housing choice option for many residents/program participants, and is an appropriate program given the local market. The former Housing Authority of Jefferson County (HAJC) had a very strong Section 8 Homeownership program, and HAL instituted its own version of such a program (as referenced in the FY 2002 MTW Plan). LMHA intends to continue to move these programs forward, as evidenced by the consolidation of its policies and procedures using MTW flexibilities. For the many other families for whom homeownership isn't a viable option, LMHA will look at its public housing communities to see what policy and program changes might strengthen those communities and make them better places to live.

• Develop programs and housing stock targeted to populations with special needs not served elsewhere in the community
  
  LMHA is using a combination of available resources to develop targeted programs for people with specific needs. Some of these needs will be transitional; others are for programs that provide more long-term support, particularly for the elderly and younger persons with disabilities. The goal is to meet needs not met by other agencies, and/or partner with local organizations that have social services strengths and programs that need a housing support element. Developing comprehensive programs in these areas will continue to require MTW regulatory relief.
   

• Encourage program participant self-sufficiency
  
  The MTW agreement allows LMHA to reinvent the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program to make it appropriate to local program participant needs. The Demonstration also allows LMHA to rethink other policies - like the rent policy - to encourage individuals to seek employment.