Knox declines sharing Section 8 administration with Guilderland
— Photo from Google Street View
Brandywine Apartments is one of the complexes in Guilderland that has a Project-Based Section 8 contract with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
KNOX — Knox will not be allowing Guilderland to take over administration of its Section 8 housing slots, as Guilderland Town Board members had hoped.
The proposal had such little support among the Knox Town Board members that it didn’t make it to a vote at their Oct. 10 meeting, Supervisor Russ Pokorny told The Enterprise this week.
“It seemed to me like it was kind of a done deal,” Pokorny said, “although I actually felt a little bad about losing our identity to some extent.”
However, he added, those in Knox who need affordable housing would have been served “just as well” whether the low-income housing slots were administered by Knox or Guilderland.
If the board had made the transfer, “even if you’re from Knox, you’d still be on the top of the list. But the board didn’t like the feel of it and wouldn’t vote on it.”
Pokorny told The Enterprise last month that Knox has 12 slots that it’s had trouble filling. Part of the reason is that Section 8 only covers rental properties, of which Knox has relatively few.
Transferring the administration would have meant that Knox residents with qualifying incomes could get housing in Guilderland, said Nancie Williams, the Outreach and Home Program coordinator for the company that handles Section 8 for both towns, JEM Inc.
JEM had suggested the consolidation for fear of losing the Knox slots altogether, said Williams.
She noted, “HUD hasn’t increased allocations for vouchers for years.”
Williams told The Enterprise earlier, “HUD has asked us to look at programs and consolidate when it makes sense.”
She said it made sense to consolidate the administration of the programs in Guilderland and Knox — there are no other Hilltowns involved in the Section 8 program — because HUD could look at an underutilized program and could cut funding.
Guilderland has a Section 8 waiting list with 200 people on it, and it’s been almost five years since anyone has come off the list, according to JEM Inc. The Guilderland board unanimously passed a resolution on Sept. 19 to accept the transfer of Knox’s slots, should that town pass its own resolution making the offer.
