PAHC Press Corner

P.A.'s Needy Ignored in Bush Plan

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS - Publication Date: Friday, Feb. 08, 2002
by Sue Hutchison

Just off the top of her head, Judy Catambay, Director of Property Management for the Palo Alto Housing Corporation, can think of at least a dozen residents whose lives would have been trashed if President Bush's proposed 2003 budget plan had gone into effect last year.

A few men renting studio apartments and working as clerks in downtown stores would still be sleeping under bridges. Several single mothers would not have been able to afford living in Palo Alto, so their kids wouldn't have gotten the kind of education that led them to win scholarships to some of the best colleges in the country. One man who had been living on the streets would not have been able to turn his life around and begin teaching computer classes at Foothill College.

And that's just for openers.

At first glance, the president's proposal to cut in half the Community Development Block Grants given to the wealthiest 1 percent of eligible communities doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice. But that's only true if you're talking about rich towns that want to be the exclusive province of rich people. Say what you want about Palo Alto's precious color-coordinated parking zones and sushi served in public school cafeterias. Still, city agencies are not afflicted with a country-club mentality bent on keeping renters and poor people out of town. It only seems that way since the housing market has spiraled into the stratosphere.

The Palo Alto Housing Corporation and the Community Working Group are among several organizations that rely heavily on federal grants to make the city a place where you don't have to drive a Porsche -- or even a beat-up Chevy -- to be part of the community. These groups have been scrambling to find room and services for people living below the poverty line even as Palo Alto real estate prices make it difficult for a middle-class wage earner to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Over the past 20 years, the Palo Alto Housing Corporation has used CDBG grants to help buy and renovate 11 apartment buildings exclusively for the lowest-income tenants. Many of those tenants are single mothers who had been living in shelters and whose children were unable to enroll in school.

Doing good against odds. Don Barr, president of the Community Working Group, said he expects to raise private donations for about half of the $13 million operating budget of Palo Alto's new community and housing center for the homeless. If the group hadn't been able to present an initial development plan, paid for with federal funds, Barr said he's sure they wouldn't be able to raise the private donations they need.

"It's fair to say that people who live in wealthy communities should be able to put more money into social services,'' Barr said. "But that does not relieve the federal government of all responsibility."

Creating ghettos

Bush's plan to siphon grant money from the wealthiest areas and funnel it to the poorest communities near the Mexican border, as federal housing officials say they plan to do, assumes there are no other funding options. The result is continuing to ghettoize poor people even when some very rich communities are trying to share the wealth -- and the opportunities that come with it. That's how you break the poverty cycle.
As Barr said, "If the rhetoric says the only way to invest in poor border towns is to yank services from equally poor people in Palo Alto, that makes absolutely no sense.''

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