The City of Covington and the Housing Authority of Covington will begin merging the city’s housing choice voucher program into the housing authority at next week’s commission meeting, following a request from the city’s Neighborhood Services Department on Tuesday.
The commission placed a resolution to begin the consolidation onto next week’s consent agenda, meaning it will likely pass.
More commonly known as Section 8 vouchers, housing choice vouchers provide full or partial rent help for qualified people seeking housing on the private market. They are funded with federal dollars.
The consolidation will not affect either voucher applicants’ status or the living situations of residents in the housing authority’s properties, but it will affect the operations of the voucher program itself.
“We have been operating under a consortium model here for quite some time,” said Neighborhood Services Director Brandon Holmes, who requested the commission.
The city manages housing vouchers for all of Kenton County. Meanwhile, The housing authority manages publicly owned housing within the city of Covington, including the complexes of Latonia Terrace, Golden Tower and City Heights, the latter of which the authority is currently shuttering and dispossessing.
Covington Neighborhood Services issued 1,144 vouchers in 2023 as of Nov. 30. As of the same date, 333 landlords participated in the voucher program, and there were 1,771 applicants on the waiting list.
“What we do here in Covington is an anomaly,” Housing Authority Executive Director Steve Arlinghaus told LINK nky in a phone call before the meeting.
Most voucher programs nationwide operate under a single organization, usually the local housing authority. Covington and the housing authority have administered the programs jointly under a consortium agreement since 2006. The text of the resolution, as well as statements from both Holmes and Arlinghaus indicate that Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, was in favor of the move, although a federal representative did not attend the meeting.
Arlinghaus told LINK nky that discussions between the city, the housing authority, and HUD have been ongoing for a long time and the consolidation “should have happened years ago.”
He added that the change “helps with the efficiencies of the operations.”
The unification is aimed at increasing resident access to services and increasing overall efficiency by creating a “one stop shop of housing opportunities for applicants and tenants with a cohesive customer service plan” at a centralized location, according to the resolution’s text, rather than making applicants truck back and forth between the housing authority and city hall as their living situations change.
If affirmed, the consolidation would be finalized on July 1, 2024, at the beginning of the next fiscal year.
“So we have existing Covington employees,” Covington Commission Member Ron Washington asked Holmes at Tuesday’s meeting. “What’s going to happen with them?”
“Those employees will be absorbed into [the Housing Authority of Covington],” Holmes said. He added that most employee benefits would remain unchanged, with the exception of health insurance, the details of which the department is still examining.
The meeting also saw the appointment of Velma Goldsby, a housing authority resident, to the authority’s board of commissioners, which was added to next week’s consent agenda.
Read the resolution’s full text here.
The next meeting of the Covington Board of Commissioners will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street.
The next meeting of the Housing Authority of Covington Board of Commissioners will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the housing authority’s main office on Madison Avenue.