Housing crisis severe for Jefferson City's poor

Housing Authority: Priority is to provide decent, safe housing

Julie Smith/News Tribune
This housing complex on E. Elm Street is owned and run by the Jefferson City Housing Authority.
Julie Smith/News Tribune This housing complex on E. Elm Street is owned and run by the Jefferson City Housing Authority.

More than 750 people are waiting for access to an affordable home in Jefferson City. And for many, the wait has been years.

Those on various wait lists require low-income or affordable housing, and there simply isn't enough housing available, especially after the May 22 tornado ravaged a portion of that market.

Cynthia Quetsch, executive director of the Jefferson City Housing Authority, said the lack of affordable housing is an issue they hear often.

"We hear it all the time," Quetsch said. "For the low income people that we serve, there's a wait list, so there's not enough (housing)."

The Jefferson City Housing Authority is tasked with providing decent, safe and affordable housing for low-income individuals or families, people with disabilities and the elderly.

To fulfill that mission, the Housing Authority owns and manages a collection of residential properties around the city.

Available housing stock

Residential properties can be divided into two categories - traditional public housing and tax credit properties.

In Jefferson City, public housing properties include Dulle Tower, Linden Court Apartments and two neighborhoods - one on the west side of the city and another on the east side near Lincoln University.

The tax credit properties in Jefferson City include Capital City Apartments, Robert Hyder Apartments, Ted Herron Apartments, Kenneth Locke Apartments, LaSalette Apartments and Hamilton Tower.

There are 318 units of public housing and 421 units with other sources of funding, such as the tax credit properties owned by private corporations or not-for-profit partnerships but managed by the Housing Authority, Quetsch said.

Public housing options range from one to four bedrooms in apartments or houses. The majority of the properties base rent on 30 percent of the tenant's income and include utilities.

Four of the Housing Authority apartment complexes - Hyder, Herron, Locke and LaSalette - are available exclusively to older low-income residents, with a required minimum age of 55 (except Hyder, which has a minimum age of 61).

The Housing Authority also administers the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, which can assist eligible families with rent payments owned by private landlords.

However, the problem with a lack of housing isn't limited to low-income residents, Quetsch said. Those just above the income levels that qualify for public housing are also struggling.

People who work full-time making at or just above minimum wage struggle to afford housing, she said.

"The number of rental homes in Jefferson City would indicate that there's a need," Quetsch said. "That there's people who can't afford to buy a house but still need housing."

A study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition in 2019 determined Missourians would need to earn $16 per hour to afford fair market value rent on a two-bedroom house with a 40-hour paycheck, without paying more than 30 percent of their income.

HUD considers individuals spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent to be "housing cost-burdened."

All low-income properties in Jefferson City base rent on 30 percent of income (except Herron which has a flat monthly rate, which varies based on the unit).

To be eligible for low-income housing, applicants have to prove to the Housing Authority they fall within a certain income range. Generally, those income levels are divided into three categories - low-income, very low-income and extremely low-income.

A low-income family is one whose annual income, adjusted for family size, does not exceed 80 percent of the median income for the area; a very low-income family cannot exceed 50 percent; and an extremely low-income family cannot exceed 30 percent.

The median household income for Jefferson City in 2017 was $48,132, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In Jefferson City, the income levels for an individual to qualify for public housing are:

- Low, $42,350.

- Very low, $26,500.

- Extremely low, $15,900.

Earning over the highest threshold isn't technically an automatic disqualifier, Quetsch said, but it's unlikely they would qualify. Sometimes other costs such as medical bills are subtracted from income. Minimum amounts for public housing also increase per person.

"Every case is looked at individually, and so there might be some income that doesn't qualify or you might have some other expenses," Quetsch said. "I don't want anyone to say, 'Oh, I make $43,000, I'm not even going to apply,' because that might not, in fact, be a disqualifier."

If someone wants to apply for public housing, staff members are there to walk them through the process and see if they qualify.

Income limits for the senior facilities are slightly different. For example, the threshold for Herron is around $26,500 for one person, while for Hyder and LaSallete, it's around $34,000.

Each of the different types of housing and units also have their own wait lists.

How long is the wait list?

Due to higher demand than supply, there is a wait list of about 400 people for Section 8 housing vouchers. The wait could be at least four years, according to the Housing Authority website.

Quetsch said they've been running a four- to five-year wait for a number of years. They are only authorized to give out 234 Section 8 vouchers at once. When someone turns one in, only then can another person receive one.

The combined wait list for all public housing - the two neighborhoods, Dulle Tower and Linden Court Apartments - is 353.

Quetsch said it's hard to estimate how long people could be waiting. Being more specific about which property you want or the number of rooms you need can make the process take longer, and it all depends on availability.

"No one comes in today in public housing and gets housing today," Quetsch said. "There's going to be at least a couple months."

Quetsch said the number of people on the wait list could have duplicate applicants if the same individuals applied for more than one property.

The tax-credit senior facilities have their own wait lists as well. Hyder currently has a wait list of 11, Linden Campus' is 46 and Herron has just four.

Quetsch said the senior living facilities often have shorter wait lists, but the time people stay in those facilities can sometimes be longer.

Capital City Apartments, which is open to low-income families, has a wait list of 86.

On May 22, a tornado damaged several areas in Jefferson City, including Capital City Apartments.

And then the tornado came

Many said the loss of homes in the May 22 tornado has increased the housing problem.

The city suffered a net loss of more than two dozen housing units, a study of the tornado-affected properties found. City Planner Eric Barron said an estimated 152 units could be demolished, with 125 possibly being rebuilt. The net loss would be 27 units.

The Housing Authority experienced losses, too.

At Capital City Apartments, one building containing five units was made uninhabitable, Quetsch said, while another had too many broken windows for anyone to safely stay in it.

Renovations to Capital City Apartments are currently underway but could take until 2020 to complete, Quetsch said.

People who could prove they were displaced by the tornado, whether from public housing or not, were placed at the front of the wait lists, as long as they otherwise qualified.

Within the first couple of weeks after the tornado, people were placed as soon as they could be.

Future solutions to housing crisis

One solution to address the lack of public housing might be for the Housing Authority to purchase more properties, but the authority isn't in a place where it can do it, Quetsch said, because of a lack of funding.

The Housing Authority receives its funding for public housing from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Quetsch said they fund for the number of public housing units they have. To get more funding would require a partnership between the Housing Authority and the federal government.

"In addition to money, you have to have the space to build it," Quetsch said. While the Housing Authority owns a collection of properties around the city, none are suitable for that purpose currently, she said. That's the main hold up for working on a partnership for new housing.

Rather, the Housing Authority is continuing to work with the United Way of Central Missouri's recovery program to make sure people who were displaced by the tornado know they can get on wait lists.

Quetsch said HUD is scheduling meetings with Housing Authorities across the country to discuss the future of public housing.

"HUD is having all public housing authorities re-evaluate their status and looking toward the future," Quetsch said. "Our meeting for that is in December, and so we'll have a better understanding of what HUD's perspective is on that after (the meeting)."

For Quetsch, meeting the decent and safe aspect of their mission is the current priority. She wants to see upgrades to the current housing first, such as providing central heat and air, which not all units have.

"I think our first priority now is to meet that standard, and if we can meet that standard, then we could have the opportunity to expand," Quetsch said. "It doesn't make any sense to expand at the expense of our current tenants."