County errors costly to families

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Nov. 14, 2005 | 7:52 a.m.

The Clark County Housing Authority spent about $1.5 million it didn't have, forcing at least 40 families to wait until the agency balances its books to get rental assistance they were promised, officials said.

Carl Rowe, interim executive director for the housing authority, said if the Section 8 program where the problem was found is not made financially solvent by early 2006, he will have to "terminate as many families (in the program) as we need to get to zero."

Section 8 is a federally-funded program that offers low-income families or individuals vouchers that cover most or all of an apartment's rent. The program allows people to live in the apartment of their choice, as long as the landlord accepts the vouchers.

Rowe said his staff noticed in August it had issued hundreds of Section 8 vouchers not covered by the agency's budget.

In addition, staff members who have since been fired from the agency misunderstood new federal rules governing the program and also weren't keeping current with duties such as evicting rule-breakers as required by law.

The problem, caused by bad bookkeeping and mismanagement, started in January but wasn't noticed until months later, said Nancy Wesoff, director of operations for agency.

"The whole thing just kept getting bigger," Wesoff said.

The result, she said, was "the perfect storm" to shipwreck the agency's books, bleeding its largest program of hundreds of thousands each month. Rowe said if such a problem occurred in the private sector, he would take the agency into bankruptcy. The worst month was August, when the program spent $743,000 more than it had.When the problem was discovered, about 40 families, some of whom had been on the Section 8 waiting list for three years, were told that they couldn't have the vouchers they had been promised until the agency's books penciled out.

All three housing authorities -- Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Clark County -- have waiting lists that take years to move to the top. Clark County has about 450 families on its list, Wesoff said.

Clark County is supposed to receive about $1.5 million a month for about 2,800 vouchers, Wesoff said. The agency got into trouble because it made bad decisions and neglected certain duties.

First, it accepted hundreds of families from other areas of the country who had been in the Section 8 program and, instead of billing housing authorities in those areas, opted to absorb the costs of the vouchers. Additionally, the agency's staff failed to understand that federal guidelines had changed in the last year, meaning the agency could no longer draw funds according to the number of families served, but instead was now receiving lump sums based on anticipated need. Also, drawing additional funds as needed is no longer allowed, Wesoff said. Finally, families who had violated certain rules of the program -- by not reporting changes in income or moving additional family members into apartments, for example -- were not being evicted, further putting the program in the hole. In the end, the "horrible situation" cost the agency $1.5 million, Rowe said.

Since mid-August, the agency has been able to reduce the amount to about $300,000 by drawing on money from a reserve account, evicting about 60 rule-breaking families and not letting the families whose turn had come on the waiting list use the vouchers.

Outside consultants were recently brought in at a cost of about $7,000 to make suggestions about how to replenish the reserve account, Wesoff said. She said she hoped the agency would have the program squared away by March -- at which point it could issue vouchers to people on the waiting list.

Meanwhile, Wesoff said, the agency is trying to "be as compassionate as possible" with the families who had almost gotten some help from the government.

"They've waited so long and now they're being told to wait some more -- I'm sure it's difficult," she said.

She won't consider the thought of not being able to fix the program, forcing the agency to evict families who had broken no rules, she said.

"I'll be damned if we have to terminate a family because we couldn't pay."

Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or timothy@lasvegassun.com.