HUD’s Moving to Work program expands to Boulder County

BOULDER — In just her second official trip outside of the Washington, D.C., Beltway as acting U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary, Adrianne Todman landed in Colorado on Friday to welcome Boulder County’s public-housing agency into the federal Moving to Work program.

The program, to which nearly 140 housing authorities nationwide have applied and been accepted over the past two-and-a-half decades, provides local agencies broader leeway in how they spend HUD funding and more flexibility in how they develop policies and strategies, essentially empowering local groups to cut through certain layers of federal bureaucratic red tape to better respond to community needs. 

Todman, who just days ago took over acting leadership of HUD following the retirement of former agency chief Marcia Fudge and made her first official appearance in her new role this week to Chicago, humanized the aims of the MTW program with a story about a hypothetical senior citizen, who, living on a fixed income, must navigate a potentially onerous and stressful requalification process each year to win the privilege of remaining in her publicly subsidized home, despite nothing changing with her financial situation.

Or, Todman said, consider a local housing agency that’s on the cusp of buying land for construction of a new residential community, but must first jump through hoops to prove to its lenders and underwriters that the federal government is on board with the project. “Imagine if one day HUD said to you, ‘Guess what, you’re now in control of how you’re going to use your funds and you’re able to close the deal.”

What if, Todman said, that new apartment complex is built, but the children who live there have no access to after-school programming? Shouldn’t local housing agencies have the option to use a portion of their HUD funding to build a community youth center?

Moving to Work, which was first authorized by Congress in 1996 and now includes local housing agencies in 40 states, allows local agencies the flexibility to more nimbly react to such real-world situations, she said. 

Since MTW’s creation, “a select group of agencies have reshaped their programs and helped to make the lives of residents better,” Todman said. 

With Moving to Work’s expansion, Boulder County Housing Authority joins existing Colorado MTW-participating agencies in Boulder, Fort Collins, Brighton and Jefferson County. 

“We have actually moved the needle on some of our housing policy because of the work of the agencies with this designation,” Todman said. 

The MTW program allows local organizations to serve as best-practice incubators and accelerators “because of HUD’s ability to say, ‘Find local solutions,’” she said. 

There are, of course, critics of Moving to Work, including housing-policy experts, who say that by allowing agencies to divert federal funds to programs such as meals for seniors, summer-jobs programs for teens or vocational training and educational assistance for young workers from underserved communities, HUD and their local partners are straying from their main mission: placing and keeping Americans in homes. 

“Scholarships are important, however, housing is a basic necessity,” Brittany King, a Chicago resident who waited for years for a public-housing voucher told the Chicago Tribune last year. “The Chicago Housing Authority should stand for housing people, and at this time, it does not seem as though that is the case.”

Will Fischer, a director of housing policy and research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who was quoted in the Chicago Tribune story, said, “Generally, the ways that this money is used tends to be things that are less effective at helping the lowest-income families than vouchers are.”

Still, the MTW designation was welcomed Friday with open arms by Boulder County officials, who, it should be noted, did not mention any specific plans to spend HUD funding on non-housing-specific initiatives.  

“We will be exploring how we can use Moving to Work flexibility to expand our project-based voucher program to help more people afford housing in Boulder County,” BCHA interim executive director Susana Lopez-Baker said. “The voucher program provides rental assistance to low-income families and individuals, and we are excited to help more people access this important resource.”

The additional flexibility granted by acceptance into the Moving to Work program, she said, “may include identifying how to incorporate these vouchers into our newest development project, Willoughby Corner, which is under construction in Lafayette. This new 400-unit development will bring much-need affordable housing to our most vulnerable residents.”

Boulder Housing Partners, the city of Boulder’s public-housing authority, “has been participating (in the Moving To Work) program for more than 10 years,” Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said. “And in talking to them, it’s been transformative for the agency and for the lives of those who live within the housing there.”

The MTW program, he said, has been instrumental in Boulder’s ability to build nearly 4,000 permanently affordable housing units. 

“But this isn’t about the numbers,” Brockett said, “it’s about the people we’re helping.”

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