MANSFIELD — When the Mansfield Metropolitan Housing Authority re-opened its Section 8 waitlist, applications flooded in.
During the last four days of October, the MMHA received more than 1,300 applications.
In January, agency staff will begin processing those applications, MMHA executive director Steve Andrews said Tuesday.
Andrews said these applications will likely include more up-to-date information than applications submitted before the waitlist closed in January 2023, meaning approval rates could be higher.
But finding housing remains a challenge, even for those approved for a voucher.
“It is going to still be an issue,” Andrews said. “Right now that’s going to be a struggle in our county and every county around us. It’s just hard.”
A housing study commissioned in 2022 found about one in five Richland County housing units were built before 1939. Nearly three in four housing units in the county were built before 1979.
“We still have a lot of vacant units in Mansfield. We still have a lot of older units that aren’t being rehabbed well,” Andrews said. “We have the housing stock, but we don’t. It’s not useful.”
Andrews also shared year-to-date information on the authority’s use of housing vouchers and federal funding.
As of Tuesday, the authority had utilized almost 91 percent of its funding for housing choice vouchers (Section 8), with a voucher utilization rate of 93 percent.
The MMHA will end the year with a Main Stream voucher utilization rate of 83.55 percent and 93 percent fund utilization.
Andrews said both fund utilization rates were higher than the national average of 86 percent.
“We’re going to finish out the year pretty strong,” Andrews said. “We’re real happy with where our staff’s at and what they’re able to do.”
Vouchers aren’t considered utilized until a voucher holder has been approved for the program and secured housing.
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Board votes to delay severing ties with Seneca Housing Authority
Andrews also updated the board on yesterday’s Seneca Metropolitan Housing Authority board meeting.
The MMHA has a shared services agreement with the Seneca MHA — and Andrews also serves as the agency’s executive director.
Last month, the MMHA board voted to give the Seneca board a 30-day notice terminating that partnership due to communication issues with the staff there, Andrews said.
“We had a board meeting (Thursday) in Seneca (County). It was very productive. They understood the concerns that I brought forth,” Andrews said.
“They made a resolution in their meeting to ask for an extension of our termination, and I said we would be willing to give them a 30-day extension into January, but we need some things resolved.”
After the meeting, Andrews said he’s optimistic the two authorities will be able to work through their differences.
In September, MMHA ended its service agreement with the Huron Metropolitan Housing Authority. Andrews said the agency still provides services to several smaller housing authorities.
“Mansfield has always performed these services and we do not charge them what it costs us to do those services,” Andrews said.
“We’ve always been very beneficial to the smaller authorities because they are smaller, they don’t have as big of a budget and all those things. So it’s not like we’re making money on those deals. We typically are losing a little money on those.
When we have a very productive relationship, like we have with Crawford Metropolitan Housing Authority, and everything’s smooth and we communicate well, we are more than happy to again bear the brunt of the heavier workload.”
In other business, Andrews shared the authority’s IT professional had taken a job elsewhere. Rather than replace the employee, Andrews decided to contract with an IT services company.
“They can do things off site, and they can respond very, very quickly, and I’ve worked with them in the past,” he said. “We know that they’re a good company.”
Andrews said the contract will cost just under $34,000 annually, while the cost to employ an IT professional with salary and benefits was around $62,000.
