The Springfield Housing Authority has notified the owner of MacArthur Park apartments that it will no longer issue Section 8 housing vouchers for tenants in the complex due to a history of building code violations.
“Entire buildings, as well as individual units, have been placarded ‘Occupancy Prohibited,’” wrote Jackie L. Newman, housing authority executive director, in a Tuesday letter to James Green, general partner of the Granite City company that owns MacArthur Park. “The list of code violations is extensive.”
Current Section 8 tenants can remain at MacArthur Park, Newman wrote, but no new federally subsidized housing vouchers will be issued, effective immediately. The moratorium will continue until the complex is brought into compliance with city building codes and the owner has “demonstrated a history of compliance with city codes for an extended period of time,” Newman says in her letter.
Don Craven, attorney for the complex owner, said he had not read Newman’s letter and could not comment.
Newman said the moratorium marks the first time in her six-and-a-half years as executive director that the housing authority has stopped issuing Section 8 housing vouchers for an entire complex due to building code violations.
About 60 units in the 188-unit complex are rented to tenants enrolled in the Section 8 program, the housing authority has said. Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, who has been pushing since September for a moratorium on Section 8 vouchers, called the housing authority action a victory for neighborhood groups that are working to clean up neglected and crumbling properties.
“It’s a major signal that SHA will not tolerate landlords in its programs that have a history of local code violations,” McMenamin said.
Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson, who has long called for stronger city action when properties deteriorate, also hailed the moratorium.
“Absolutely, it’s an appropriate action,” Simpson said. “I’ll say to any landlord: You ought to bring houses that you would want to live in, and if you wouldn’t want to live in them, you shouldn’t rent them to anyone else.”
Simpson said that the housing authority has forced improvements to Section 8 housing in her ward when she has brought code violations to the authority’s attention.
“She (Newman) works cooperatively with me to make sure that things change, and they do – rapidly,” Simpson said.
The moratorium comes after a city crackdown on code violations at MacArthur Park that began in August. More than 40 apartments remained placarded as unfit for human habitation as of Dec. 5. McMenamin, whose ward includes the complex, has counted more than 1,000 code violations at MacArthur Park ranging from roach infestations to lack of utilities.
Bill Logan, an assistant to Mayor Mike Houston and former executive director of the housing authority, said that he was aware of Newman’s letter.
“We’re very serious about this, and so are they,” Logan said.
Judging from rental ads placed in the State Journal-Register, the complex owners may have expected the moratorium on new Section 8 tenants. Ads now state that Section 8 vouchers will not be accepted. McMenamin, who has tracked the complex’s ads, says that the advertised rental rate recently dropped from $575 a month to $475.
“The apartments will have to compete in the real economy and earn their tenants in a more competitive atmosphere,” McMenamin said. “It’s significant that the rental rate at the apartments has already dropped. … It appears as though they were on the gravy train with those federal dollars.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Dec 22-28, 2011.
