Q. Why do you think people moving into motels and not turning to CHA?

A. There’s not adequate subsidized housing available in Chattanooga or really anywhere in the country, particularly metropolitan areas, to accommodate the needs of the low-income and the very low-income.

You know that our Section 8/Housing Choice Voucher program waiting list is closed. I just had a conversation with our director this morning, there are currently 4200 names on that waiting list so if you’re on the back end of our waiting list, right now you could probably expect not to be housed for a minimum of 24 to 36 months. We don’t foresee with that many names on the list, we’ll probably not open that list for some time.

Q. Why is the list so long?

A. We’ve been living in a decreasing funding environment for some time now. 2002 was the last year that the housing authorities were funded 100 percent. I think you could probably say that the mood in Congress changed or other priorities for the allocated dollar changed at that point in time. 2002 fairly well aligns with things like our two wars overseas and some other domestic needs like Homeland Security that have had tremendously increased needs in funding. During those times we’ve had several major natural catastrophes like Katrina.

Q. When it comes to low-income public housing, how available is that in Chattanooga?

A. It’s not available hardly at all. We have waiting lists at most of our communities. We have some availability, though very small, at a couple of the communities and they turn over pretty quickly. That’s been another place where that’s drying up pretty quickly. A few years ago, we had a considerable amount of availability and nowadays we have much less.

Q. Would you describe the shortage of affordable housing as a crisis in Chattanooga or would you say we’re not quite there yet?

A. I don’t know it I would describe it as a crisis at this point in time. I think it is certainly trending toward being a problem. It could become a crisis if we don’t address it properly. I don’t think Chattanooga is unique, though. I think that’s probably the case throughout America.

The cost of rental housing is increasing because of demand. You’ve got a smaller supply of rental housing, a larger number of folks trying to obtain it and people can get top dollar for it.

Q. Can you characterize the people who are seeking public housing or housing choice vouchers?

A. Most people live in subsidized housing, the great majority are working families — single mothers with children. Statistically, 55 percent of low-income families have at least one parent who works full-time, year-round. That’s striking. What we have out there is a perception by at least some of society that all people who receive subsidy for housing or for other things are just lazy and don’t want to do anything. And that’s just not the truth.

There are, and there always will be those folks. There will always be folks who will ride off the fat of the land. That’s now, and there will always be. But I can tell you statistically, that’s a fairly small percentage and unfortunately, it’s a price that you have to pay for doing the right thing.

Today and going forward what we see and what we expect is we’re going to have two growing populations in subsidized housing: We’re going to have the working poor and that’s those people who are employed at or below the poverty level, which again is a pretty large sector of society when you consider that the average wages in the average town are still at or below the poverty level, and because those people are becoming elderly who were born in the baby boom period, we think that we’re likely going to see a trend of growing number of elderly folks who are going to require subsidized housing or some plan for affordable housing. So that’s where we see the growth being.

Q. What problems are you aware of with using motels as the housing of last resort?

A. With the elderly you have somewhat of a special-needs population being probably underhoused in an environment that probably doesn’t meet all of the needs that they have. And mixed in often with other age groups that are not consistent with the lifestyle of the elderly, so that makes for a difficult life for older people.

And for families, the extended stay hotel option is really just not a good option. There’s not enough room, they’re underhoused generally speaking. It’s not a good environment for children, generally in that they lack places to play, safe places to play and developed. They’re cramped usually in one or two small rooms. So the extended stay hotel as we know it today is probably an OK choice for some part of the demographic. Single people, particularly, who don’t have a lot of needs, who are in relatively good health, they have a lower income, and it’s a good way to manage their cost of their housing based on their income. And their lifestyle is consistent with the type of environment that you would have with an extended stay hotel.

But I don’t think it’s a good option long-term for people who are trying to do better and who are wanting a leg up and trying to get children educated and moved on along so that they can step up and step out. Subsidized, affordable housing becomes more of a stepping stone for them then it does a destination.

Q. Is there something else you’d like to add to this discussion that we haven’t already talked about?

A. We are in a situation economically and socially where the housing market for the bottom third of our employment structure is not affordable any longer. And that has created a whole new dynamic for the need for housing at the affordable level. Because there was a time, and particularly in the 60s ... What we saw and continued to see historically is that a resident of public housing of the past would have been somebody unemployed, fully disabled, had no education, had no ability to be gainfully employed, a lot of women particularly at the time when women weren’t accepted into the work force ... And we’ve had a completely huge change in that dynamic now to where going forward unless something dramatically changes, the people we will have to be housing are the work force.

Chattanooga’s changed its entire economic structure for the most part over the last 20 years from an industrial -based economy to a tourist-based, service-based economy. The problem with that is that in the service-based economy the majority of the jobs are paid in the lower end of the wage spectrum. So when you go to downtown Chattanooga, it’s different from when you walked into Siskin Steel ... As you walked through their work force, almost everyone was fairly well-paid, they were paid certainly in the moderate level of the wage spectrum for this area and they could likely afford housing.

Now when you go down and look at the average worker in our main industry, tourism ... when you go down now, you’re looking at the average service worker — waitresses, taxi drivers, hotel workers, maids, retail clerks — and for the most part, their wages are full-time wages, if they work 2,080 hours a year a,re going to be at or below the poverty level. And generally speaking, they cannot afford housing inside the city of Chattanooga.