Housing Authorities Reconsidering Policies For Over-Income Families

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The numbers in a KDKA investigation shocked many of you. Families earning more than $100,000 a year, and still living in subsidized public housing. Our investigation got action, and now local public housing authorities are reconsidering their policies.

Sharon Ann Washington has no place to call home. She says she's living with friends.

"People say you can stay a couple of nights," she said. "That's not good."

Like 2,000 other people, Washington languishes on a waiting list at the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, where KDKA found people making in excess of $100,000 living in public housing units.

"No, that's not right," Washington said. "The little money I have, and they got all that money. They should give it to the people who need it, like me."

To qualify for public housing, you can't make more than a certain income, but once you're in, there's no limit to the amount of money you can make and still stay put.

In Pittsburgh, 64 families now exceed those income limits, and the numbers may alarm you. Records show one family made $121,662 last year and is still living in a publicly subsidized duplex. Another family made $114,694, another made $114,661, and yet another made $102,027. And yet none of those families are required to leave.

"We have policies that encourage that, but don't require it," said David Weber with the Pittsburgh Housing Authority. "And I'm not sure that we should require it."

But in a letter obtained by KDKA, the director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently informed authority directors they have the power to evict.

"HUD strongly encourages public housing authorities to utilize the discretion available to remove extremely-over-income families," the letter reads.

And today, after KDKA's investigation, both the Pittsburgh and the county housing authorities issued statements to KDKA saying they would now be reviewing and later adopting new policies concerning those over-income families.

The county housing authority has 29 over-income families and director Frank Aggazio said, "We will collaborate with our resident council to come up with a fair and equitable policy that may take into account a possible safety-net time period.
We do envision after the policy is adopted to act upon excessively over-income families."

But there are now calls from throughout the county for HUD to establish a hard and fast policy to move people who don't need it out of public housing to make room for people who do.

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