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Three O.C. housing agencies get HUD jobs grants
December 13th, 2007, 7:16 am · 2 Comments · posted by Mary Ann Milbourn
Three Orange County housing agencies will get a total of $379,573 from the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development to help low-income people get job training and employment placement, HUD announced today.
The Housing Authority of the City of Santa Ana will receive $126,120. The Orange County Housing Authority will get a $126,161 grant, and the City of Anaheim Housing Authority will be awarded $127,292.
The grants are part of $59.1 million that HUD is giving to hundreds of public housing agencies nationwide under the family self-sufficiency program. The program encourages communities to develop strategies to help families who live in public housing or receive housing vouchers to get jobs that will make them economically independent and self-sufficient. The Orange County grants will go to people receiving housing vouchers.
Program participants, some of whom are on welfare, sign a contract that stipulates the head of the household will find a suitable job and the family will be off of welfare assistance within five years.
Because public housing and voucher rents are tied to income, when income rises, rent rises. Under the family self-sufficiency program, the rent increase is paid to the public housing authority, but goes into an interest-bearing escrow account.
If the participant successfully graduates from the program, he or she can use the escrow account for a variety of goals, including a down payment on a home, starting a business, paying back debts or paying educational expenses.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:11 am
The idea of making low-income people more self-sustaining is noble, but this plan obviously dreamed up by attorneys and accountants that are very far removed from the reality of the intended program participants that. The only low-income people this will help make more self-sustaining are the clerks hired to administrate this farce. Not only want the program rescinded but the people who dreamed it up removed and replaced with those who understand that the only solution to help low-income people is to grow the middle class economy and educate the hell out of their kids, regardless of wherever they came from.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:13 am
The idea of making low-income people more self-sustaining is noble, but this plan WAS obviously dreamed up by attorneys and accountants that are very far removed from the reality of the intended program participants
The only solution to help low-income people is to grow the middle class economy and educate the hell out of their kids, regardless of wherever they came from.