Berks County Housing Authority is poised to take over administration of public housing in Northampton County. Management of public housing in Northampton County had been administered by Lehigh County Housing Authority, but Lehigh gave notice of its intent to end its relation with Northampton after residents complained about unresponsiveness. The divorce between Northampton and Lehigh is supposed to take place August 1, but Northampton is seeking an extension so that Berks can get situated.
"We found our angel,:" said Northampton DCED Director Tina Smith. That angel is Gwendolyn Didden, the Executive Director at Berks. She told Northampton County Council last night that "residents are our primary concern." She promised to bring more responsive management to public housing.
She plans to spend two days a week at Oliver Border House, located in Nazareth, and stated that a Berks employee who lives in Lehigh County would help manage the buildings. She noted that she needs to conduct audits and inventories, but her primary concern is making sure staff is on hand to respond to repair calls.
"We don't want to give somebody a building we wouldn't live in ourselves," she remarked. She added that, at one time in her life, she relied on the voucher program so she could keep her family together.
4 comments:
Is there some good reason that Northampton County can't do its own public housing management? Are we that inferior to other counties? Is there no one out there who can make Northampton County great again?
Bernie, thank goodness for Berks Conunty. We knew things wouldn't happen overnight, and it has almost a year and finally hopefully things will be turned around. Thanks to Tara Zarinski who helped get the ball rolling, and Mr. McClure who listened and cared about the residents and Becky Bartlet and Tina Smith who worked tirelessly to get this done and the members of county council who listened and cared. As, II was told by the current project manager, I must think I'm Rosa Parks, well just like Rosa, we are now at the front of the bus
So, Mc-Cluelees sits for years and watches a situation deteriorate into a horrible experience for senior housing residents until he and Council are finally forced by press coverage and resident complaints to do something. And then, once again, has to go to another county to get management assistance. Here’s hoping Berks official have the wherewithal to make this right.
Public housing is a highly specialized field and is NOT one of the core functions of county government. It is actually HUD. Housing authorities manage public housing, not county government.
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