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Housing Agency Aims To Be Self-Sufficient

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By JOHN W. ALLMAN

jallman@tampatrib.com

Published: November 23, 2008

TAMPA - The Tampa Housing Authority's new five-year plan represents an ambitious appeal for improvement and self-sufficiency.

Not only for the authority, but also for the low-income residents it serves.

More than anything, the plan outlines ways that the agency can continue to meet resident needs amid ever-diminishing assistance from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"Each year our subsidy is reduced. We're trying to find ways to sustain the agency without 100 percent reliance on HUD," said Lillian Stringer, director of public relations. "We are tying to find ways to help residents gain self-sufficiency, to break away from government assistance, to prepare them for the future in terms of educating them."

The authority's board is expected to approve the plan at its Dec. 17 meeting.

Most of the goals presented in the plan are conceptual, at best, and many will not become reality. But it does lay out areas in which the agency wants to focus and make changes by 2013:

•Redevelopment: Consider demolishing Robles Park Village and North Boulevard Homes to create new housing developments.

•Home ownership: Place 250 new families in affordable homes. Develop a 4-acre lot the agency owns on 34th Street for new homes. Look into buying city infill lots to build new homes.

•Section 8: Significantly increase the Housing Choice Voucher program, which is federally subsidized, and develop housing vouchers for the homeless.

•Fraud detection: Verify, investigate and prevent fraudulent receipt of federal assistance.

The authority also is considering creating a boarding school for low-income children and teenagers.

In recent years, the authority has had mixed success with redeveloping former public housing sites. Belmont Heights Estates was built at Lake Avenue and 22nd Street after the authority demolished its College Hill and Ponce DeLeon properties. But Encore, a planned community on Nebraska Avenue, has sputtered since Central Park Village was razed in 2007.

Robles and North Boulevard are the agency's oldest properties, built in 1953 and 1940, respectively. They also are the largest.

Robles likely would be redeveloped first, Stringer said.

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