Wednesday, January 31, 2007
WARREN — Fewer than 10 of 79 employees at the Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority will lose their jobs because of reorganization, its executive director says.
“We have to change, we must change, and we are,” Donald Emerson Jr. said today.
TMHA operates 16 large housing properties in Trumbull County for those of low to moderate incomes and the handicapped.
It also oversees scattered housing — most of them duplexes — in Warren, Girard and Leavittsburg.
Emerson explained that because of funding cutbacks by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the authority’s primary funding source, reorganization is mandated by July 1.
Emerson said he has been talking with employees and the prospect of job loss is not new to them.
From 2001 through 2006, the authority has been cut 26 percent of its public housing funds, or $1.05 million. Emerson said there has been a nearly $6 million reduction in all of TMHA’s various funds from HUD for six years ending through 2007.
Despite the cuts over the years, Emerson explained, there have not been any layoffs.
“We have been able to hold off reducing the work force,” he said.
Now, the director explained, fewer than 10 employees will be furloughed. The number hasn’t been determined because some workers will be retiring and others are already seeking employment elsewhere.
HUD is mandating that TMHA, like other authorities across the country, move from a centralized organization to one that is decentralized.
For example, those seeking housing will be directed to property or site managers rather than the central office. Renters needing maintenance will contact the property managers rather than the central maintenance office, Emerson said.
He noted that HUD believes authorities should operate as if a private business, adding that those properties that are profitable will remain and those that aren’t will be demolished.
“The falsity is that we’re not private industry,” Emerson said, pointing out that HUD has many mandated functions that aren’t funded.
He said HUD is moving away from providing housing subsidies, and the authority will have to rely on profitable properties to continue to exist.
“We’ll do it. We’ll comply because we have to,” he said.