The Chattanooga Housing Authority is caught in the middle of the kind of bureaucratic situation only the federal government can engineer.
The public housing agency, as part of the federal Upward Mobility program, offers its newest sites for clients willing to work, volunteer or attend school at least 30 hours a week. In tailoring the new program toward its community, the CHA board voted to evict able-bodied residents ages 61 and younger at those sites if they went 90 days without meeting the aforementioned requirements.
But CHA wasn’t aware of a 5-year-old notice issued by the Office of Public and Indian Housing that says public housing authorities “may not evict a family due to Community Service and Self-Sufficiency Requirement noncompliance.”
So, the federal program, which seeks to foster goals in its Upward Mobility program like “increasing families’ earnings” and “expanding employment opportunities,” essentially hampers the local agency from pushing people to achieve those goals by severely lowering the responsibility side of the ledger.
Fortunately, it appears CHA at least will be able to add a little bit of carrot to the carrot-on-a-stick approach. If tenants are noncompliant, they will be offered a chance to move from the newer site to a family public housing site, Then, if they refuse the move, they can be evicted for violating the administrative transfer policy.