THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9606290007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 46 lines
Whew! That was close. Efforts to use $118,000 in federal funds to provide indoor plumbing to poor Suffolk residents were going awry, to say the least. Now the useful program appears to have been rescued just in the nick of time. City officials have designated the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project to manage it.
The program was changed last year from one providing straight grants to a partial-loan program requiring recipients to repay half of the money they got for plumbing. Needless to say, people who lack plumbing generally lack the money to repay half the plumbing cost.
To make matters worse, the city had no designated agency to handle the money but a July 31 deadline for committing the funds.
Originally the city had designated the Portsmouth Community Development Group to distribute the plumbing funds. Without telling Suffolk, that organization dropped the program to concentrate on its Portsmouth work, which had come under heavy criticism.
This spring an individual applied to the state to take over the Suffolk plumbing program, but city officials said they wanted their own Redevelopment and Housing Authority to handle it.
Several days ago, the housing authority notified the city it would not decide whether to take over the program until August, when a new housing-authority director takes office. August, you'll note, comes after the July 31 deadline for committing the funds.
In short, everything was a mess, and naturally the poor would suffer if it wasn't cleaned up.
If the $118,000 is not committed for plumbing in Suffolk by July 31, it will go into a state fund from which any city can draw. But STOP Executive Director Edith R. Jones says STOP will have the Suffolk program in motion before July 31.
People like Dora Adams, 68, of Suffolk, will then have a chance of gaining indoor plumbing. She says she's never had it.
In past years, the federal Housing and Urban Development plumbing program has helped numerous Suffolk residents obtain indoor plumbing. Last year, $100,000 from the program was spent on Suffolk houses.
Suffolk can't do anything about the federal requirement that half the money be repaid, but it surely was capable of designating an agency to handle the program. Thank heaven it did - at the eleventh hour.
Better late than not at all, but the city shouldn't scare folks like that. by CNB