HUD funds passed up, housing reform driven by newspaper

[Guest guest]

Please consider Organic Brain Injury (BI) while reviewing this housing reform

which was driven by newspaper investigations. SSDI Listing12.02 : " Organic

Mental Disorders are those caused by physical brain damage. Examples include

toxins, heavy metals like lead or mercury, degenerative brain diseases like

Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s chorea, strokes, trauma, cerebrovascular

disease, genetic or congenital brain deformities, drugs, and many other

diseases. "

Source: Nolo's Guide to Social Security Disability Getting & Keeping Your

Benefits ISBN 0-87337-914-4

" ...County had left $1.5 million in federal funds unspent since 2002 for two

housing programs for homeless people with chronic mental illness. Funds were

available for more people to be enrolled in the county's Safe Haven and Shelter

+ Care programs... Exasperated HUD officials said that they couldn't even give

some of the money away. Milwaukee-area agencies have left unspent nearly

$200,000 worth of technical advice from the department on how to design housing

programs, improve operations and compliance with department program rules and

increase the productivity of the program. "

Fair Use Notice

Abandoning Our Mentally Ill; Housing Reforms Follow Examination of Troubled

Living Conditions for Mentally Ill in Milwaukee By Meg Kissinger

A year long Journal Sentinel investigation has sparked a host of housing

reforms for people with mental illness.

The newspaper found:

-- Hundreds of people with chronic mental illness living in illegal group

homes and rooming houses - many of them filthy and dangerous, some deadly - that

had sprung up to replace county-run psychiatric hospitals.

-- City building inspectors had failed to identify and close down these

illegal homes. And they had never reported illegal group homes to the state

licensing agency.

-- County caseworkers, responsible for their clients' well- being, regularly

sent clients to these houses and apartments, despite knowing how filthy and

dangerous the buildings are. This was a direct violation of a federal court

agreement.

-- State group home inspectors generally don't investigate homes unless they

are licensed. As a result, unlicensed, illegal group homes escape scrutiny.

-- The federal government adds to the problem by allowing landlords to receive

all of a tenant's disability check directly, despite the opportunity for

exploitation.

A follow-up investigation in July found:

-- More than two-thirds of the properties that the county uses to house people

with severe mental illness and co-occurring drug and alcohol abuse were places

with serious health and safety violations. A vast majority of the homes are in

high-crime neighborhoods.

-- Typical violations included infestations of rats, mice and roaches, no

heat, no fire alarms, broken toilets, exposed asbestos, raw sewage backing up

into sinks, no running water, broken door locks and windows painted shut.

-- The newspaper found several instances in which the landlords repeatedly had

been found guilty of multiple building code violations, failed to fix the

problems and were fined in municipal court. In some instances, the properties

were condemned.

-- At least six landlords were cited for running illegal group homes. None of

the cases was brought to the state's attention for investigation, even though

police officers reported one suspected illegal group home to the city Department

of Neighborhood Services.

A follow-up investigation in September found:

-- Milwaukee County had left $1.5 million in federal funds unspent since 2002

for two housing programs for homeless people with chronic mental illness. Funds

were available for more people to be enrolled in the county's Safe Haven and

Shelter + Care programs, but the county did not have enough staff to administer

the program. Some people who qualified but were not enrolled ended up living in

shelters or on the streets.

-- Until Milwaukee agencies could prove that they can provide more permanent

housing, the federal government has put them on a kind of probation, refusing to

approve certain grants for more than one year at a time instead of the typical

two- and three-year awards. It gave Milwaukee agencies $4.6 million in its

competitive homeless grants program to be used this year instead of the $8.7

million the group requested. No new grants were awarded.

-- Milwaukee's social services and government agencies have frustrated U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development officials by passing up more than

$3.3 million in the past seven years in bonus dollars to induce more building of

permanent housing. Social services agencies and local government officials say

they can't find interested developers who would qualify for the federal dollars.

-- Exasperated HUD officials said that they couldn't even give some of the

money away. Milwaukee-area agencies have left unspent nearly $200,000 worth of

technical advice from the department on how to design housing programs, improve

operations and compliance with department program rules and increase the

productivity of the program.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning.

Story from REDORBIT NEWS:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=784925

Published: 2006/12/31 15:00:31 CST

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