To comment:
Residents may provide input for the Five-Year and Annual CHA plan through Sept. 26 by mailing comments to Kristine Seaman, CHA, 801 North Holtzclaw Ave., Chattanooga, TN 37404 or to kseaman@chahousing.org.A public hearing is scheduled at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at CHA’s office on North Holtzclaw Avenue.
The Chattanooga Housing Authority wants to stop accepting applicants under age 62 for its senior high rise apartments.
Under the plan, no residents currently living in senior housing will be asked to leave.
The agency also wants to require that Cromwell Hills become an upward mobility site, which would require residents who live there to work or attend school.
The changes are among several modifications proposed in the housing authority's Five-Year and Annual CHA plan.
The plan notes that the housing authority serves nearly 6,000 families with 2,342 public housing units and 3,603 Housing Choice Vouchers.
CHA has invited residents to give written input about the plan through Sept. 26.
A public hearing is scheduled at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 27.
CHA will send the plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by Oct. 16.
"The documents reflect the CHA's proposed activities in the upcoming year(s)," wrote CHA Executive Director Betsy McCright in an email Friday. "Comments and questions are welcomed from residents and the greater community."
CHA's 2017 plan and five-year plan are online and may also be read at the leasing offices for housing sites, the Chattanooga Mayor's Office and the Chattanooga Public Library.
Resident Advisory Board member Joe Clark, 87, said if housing officials want senior residents to read the plan, they should make the print bigger.
"The print is so small it's pitiful," Clark said.
He said he's reading through the plan and will make written comments before the deadline.
Housing officials propose accepting applications only from people age 62 or older for its high rise buildings for the elderly. The agency currently accepts applications from applicants as young as 50 and gives priority to those age 62 and older. But so many people age 62 and older are applying that it would take years to house applicants in their 50s, said McCright.
Instead of having a long waiting list, housing officials propose having residents who are younger than 62 apply to sites other than senior high-rise buildings.
The annual plan proposes accepting applicants for its Housing Choice Voucher Program in the first quarter of 2017.
It proposes that housing officials stop trying to modernize and upgrade apartments as it did 15 and 20 years ago and instead stretch capital funds to meet the minimum standards of repair needed to preserve as many housing units as possible.
College Hill Courts and East Lake Courts, the housing agency's oldest and largest sites are beyond repair, said McCright. CHA is researching whether to apply for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development's Rental Assistance Demonstration funding, which would pay for renovations.
The plan states that the housing agency will continue renovating Boynton Terrace Apartments with the goal of renovating all 250 units by 2020.
The housing authority wants to renovate the 200 public housing units at Cromwell Hill Apartments and build 50 to 60 new units. The remodeled Cromwell Hills will be an upward mobility site, according to the plan.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.