Step by step, weaned off public housing

By Timothy Pratt

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007 | 1:13 a.m.

At one point, 16-hour days piled on and Hattie Johnson felt like turning up her strong hands and saying, no, I can't do this anymore.

That's when her caseworker shot back, it's only a year to go, you'll soon hold the Cordon Bleu diploma in your hands, find a job that pays more and kiss the federal government goodbye.

Johnson held on with blind faith. Recently, she was one of 26 people, mostly single mothers like herself, who graduated from a federally funded program run by housing authorities called Family Self-Sufficiency.

On the way, she obtained her cooking school diploma. And for the first time in at least five years, she now pays the rent for her three-bedroom house with her own paycheck, no longer needing federally funded Section 8 vouchers.

Launched by the Housing and Urban Development Department in 1990, the Family Self-Sufficiency program has drawn praise from groups that normally fault the federal government for insufficient and often ineffective programs to help the poor.

The program is now helping about 70,000 families nationwide reach goals for getting off public assistance and out of poverty, whether by obtaining a diploma that leads to a better job or buying a home. It has helped many families put money in the bank for the first time.

By all accounts, the program, which hinges on keeping a plan to reach goals and the cheerleading and hand-holding of caseworkers, has created a mostly silent army of local heroes who offer an alternative to prevailing stereotypes about the poor - such as, that they don't want to work and prefer to stay on the dole.

Getting poor families to pay their own rents or mortgages is particularly important in Clark County, where affordable housing is one of the area's most pressing needs.

"In an area with housing challenges like the Las Vegas area ... you need to think about moving families out (of subsidized housing) so that others can take their place," said Jeffrey Lubell, executive director of the Center for Housing Policy.

The only problem with the family program, many say, is that it's not well-known and is underfunded.

A 2004 report by the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank, called it the Housing and Urban Development Department's "best-kept secret."

Lubell said the program is "working magic ... but it's largely underappreciated."

Similarly, Reid Cramer, research director at the New American Foundation, a Washington-based public policy institute, said "it's amazing this isn't our federal policy on public housing."

A look at the minuscule portion of HUD's budget that goes to the family program shows why it isn't playing that role, however. In 2007, Family Self-Sufficiency expenses nationwide totaled only $47.5 million of the agency's $36 billion budget.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report estimated that fewer than 5 percent of families with children in Section 8 and public housing programs nationwide have used the program.

This fall, Johnson joined that small group, her family becoming one of hundreds locally to use Family Self-Sufficiency.

For five years, she slowly weaned herself off Section 8 vouchers, which helped pay the rent at her $1,150-a-month, three-bedroom Las Vegas house. Until recently, she shared the house with her sons, Chad, 21, and Donald, 17. The older one now lives on his own.

Her cooking school diploma is her hope for better jobs. Money set aside by the Las Vegas Housing Authority, plus loans, paid for her education. Along the way, she also got help cleaning up her credit, which will make possible her goal of buying a house in the future.

For now, she works two jobs and can pay the rent herself at her worn but neat house in the northwestern part of the Las Vegas Valley.

Speaking in a rich voice with traces of her Louisiana upbringing, Johnson, the daughter of a mill worker, admits there were many times when "I didn't think I could raise my kids and do what I want to do."

Johnson entered the statistical rolls that sink many black families into poverty when her off-and-on relationship with her husband finally sputtered to an end about a decade ago, forcing her to raise their three children mostly on her own. The absent father is a weight carried by many black families in Clark County: Fifty-six percent of households with children are led by single mothers, according to the Census Bureau. That's more than twice the percentage of white and Hispanic families.

So Johnson said working two jobs is "second nature." One year, she filed eight W-2 forms with the federal government.

She stayed with family for a while, taking advantage of having her four sisters within a two-mile radius. Then she got into the Section 8 program, using her first voucher to move into a house.

"I was terrified," she said. "It was just me and the kids."

One of her sisters is the only other family member who has gotten public housing assistance, and that was only for a short time, Johnson said. She didn't feel touched by the stereotype some use to describe families in those programs - lazy, messy and worse.

"I was always working, so most people probably didn't even think I was on Section 8," she said.

Nonetheless, she thought of her children and the example her life sets for them. "I didn't want them to limit themselves," she said.

When she found out about the Family Self-Sufficiency program, she signed up.

At one point during Johnson's sojourn, her days began with eight hours of work followed by a two-hour bus trip and six hours in a classroom.

"I felt drained," she said.

A year ago August, the housing authority stopped helping with her $1,150 rent, the first step to completing the family program.

Again, she was scared.

But she also was relieved.

"I know I can actually do it ... I can pay my own way," she said. Then, for good measure, she said it again. "I can pay my own way."

Lubell said for poor families to obtain Johnson's results, three things are necessary.

First, there's meeting the immediate need of affordable housing. That's what the vouchers are for - a subsidy that HUD offers through housing authorities. The vouchers can pay part or all of a household's rent, depending on its income. HUD also runs public housing complexes, commonly known as "projects."

But those programs by themselves, Lubell notes, are not enough to get a family on its feet. The second factor is a financial incentive. Through the Family Self-Sufficiency program, many families accumulate savings in a bank account for the first time, toward buying a house, or, as in Johnson's case, going to school.

Finally, he said, there's the point that Johnson reached after months of 16-hour days.

"People are going to get stuck along the way," Lubell said. "That's when you need the caseworker."

Lubell said local housing authorities can overcome the lack of funding for caseworkers by partnering with local nonprofit or government agencies. He also pointed out that the Section 8 Reform Act now before Congress would provide more money to hire caseworkers in the program.

Miranda Ford, one of three caseworkers at the Las Vegas Housing Authority, has helped 150 families since that agency took on the program in 1999.

She pointed out that her agency, one of three housing authorities in the Las Vegas Valley, has 180 families in Family Self-Sufficiency and a waiting list of about 300. If there were money to hire more caseworkers and get the word out about the program, she thinks, many more families would sign up.

"If the resources were there and if there was more exposure ... it would make 'em know it's possible to be a part of the American dream."

Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or at [email protected].