Laserfiche WebLink
Chairman Keckl.ey said that he was sure the Committee understood that the <br /> meeting method wasn ' t going to be a hundred percent effective , but that if the <br /> Committee got cooperation from fifty or sixty percent of the owners at fault , <br /> that would be an improvement . Be suggested the Committee go ahead with the <br /> ' meetings . <br /> Bob Norris moved that the HCC desired individual conferences with the 53 apart- <br /> ment owners , that the staff consider the Menlo Park and Palo Alto model for the <br /> conferences , and that the owners who elect not to show up be turned over to the <br /> HRC . Fred Soderer seconded the motion . It carried without opposition , Mel Kerwin <br /> abstaining . <br /> Housing Aide Ransom introduced Cliff Baxley , director of the 0E0 Probe Center <br /> in Redwood City , to bring the Committee up to date concerning the San Mateo <br /> County Housing Authority . Ransom reminded the Committee that the Housing <br /> Authority manages some hundred- odd units in Redwood City , but that as much as <br /> twenty percent of the City ' s households qualify for the program and could be <br /> housed under the Housing Authority program if it were sufficiently funded and <br /> competently managed . <br /> Cliff Boxley said that when he came to Probe a..n 1968 the Housing Authority had <br /> just begun its program under Section 23 of the federal housing law, and he had <br /> been able to place a number of people in Housing Authority units . But when the <br /> units were all filled , there were still people in need of housing, and he and <br /> others had begun to look into the Housing Authority to see why there weren 't <br /> more units . <br /> The had found that the Authority ' s Board of Commissioners met late in the <br /> afternoon in "lily-white Burlingame , " he said , but popular pressure had forced <br /> them to meet at night and listen to complaints . He and others had found that <br /> the commissioners and the executive director didn ' t really want the Section 23 <br /> units , and that HUD ' s allocation of 600 additional units had been slowed by the <br /> Housing Authorityts unwillingness to accept a standard lease . Most of those who <br /> presently sit on the Commission had already been appointed then , he said . <br /> Since then, he said , the Housing Authority has been under continuous fire , with <br /> complaints ranging from individual tenants protesting unwarranted evictions to <br /> the Housing Authority ' s own staff protesting that the executive director allows <br /> it no part in making decisions . At one time , the Board of Commissioners were <br /> forced to set up a Tenants Advisory Council, but it died on the vine because <br /> they weren ' t serious about it . <br /> Last fall , HUD officials were in attendance when people from all over the County <br /> protested a Housing Authority attempt to drop 52 tenants from its rolls because <br /> the Authority was over its allocation . At about the same time , HUD wrote the <br /> Housing Authority that it could allocate no additional units because of the <br /> Authority ' s late fiscal reporting and an unusually high staff turnover . HUD <br /> followed with a financial audit and a management review, which basically <br /> documents the complaints made by groups and individuals since 1968 . In its <br /> cover letter to the management review, HUD makes it clear that no more units will <br /> be allocated until the Authority ' s deficiencies are corrected . <br /> MINUTES HOUSING CONCERNS COIvllviITTEE JULY 26 , 1972 PAGE 3 OF 5 <br />