|
|
|
San Mateo Times March 14, 2000  See Also San Mateo County Times, 1/27/00 San Mateo County Times, 1/26/00 San Mateo County Times, 1/20/00 San Mateo County Times, 1/5/00 San Mateo County Times, 12/14/99 For more information, contact:
|
HUD says County can aid Midway Officials may bump residents to top of section 8 waiting list By Laura Linden DALY CITY -- The County Housing Authority has the power to vault the embattled residents of Midway Village to the top of a countywide waiting list for section 8 vouchers, placing them ahead of 10,000 other low-income people seeking the federal subsidies. The point that The County, rather than federal government, may be the best-equipped to help relocate the residents of the polluted public housing complex was made by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday, in a letter to Supervisor Mike Nevin. While it shifted some responsibility back to The County, HUD did offer aid to the residents on certain conditions. The agency has agreed to issue subsidies to all 138 households at Midway Village -- but the Housing Authority first needs to devise a plan to demolish the complex. If Midway Village requires only a cleanup based on environmental tests scheduled to begin soon, HUD can tap into a flush emergency fund to pay for those remediation measures, the agency offered. This morning, Art Agnos, HUD's regional representative, is expected to elaborate on HUD's response to the Midway Village saga at the Board of Supervisors meeting in Redwood City. Agnos is expected to speak at 10:30. Whether to put Midway Village residents at the top of the section 8 housing list and to demolish the complex will be decided by the Board of Supervisors. Nevin said he planned to pitch the HUD proposals to his colleagues before today's meeting. Meanwhile, some Midway Village residents and others doubt the vouchers will fix the problem. The section 8 program is growing increasingly obsolete in today's housing market, as evidenced by the 10,000 people currently waiting for a voucher. "It's a bad idea," said longtime Midway Village resident Irma Anderson. "I really want to be compensated for my injuries, all these years I've been living in a toxic mess," said Anderson, who said she has had seven tumors removed while living there. "I want to buy my own home. I think that's what all the residents want." The Housing Authority issues 16 vouchers every two to three weeks, said Maurice Dawson, who heads the agency. One of every seven people who receive a voucher are able to use it within four months, he said. Bradley Angel, head of Greenaction, an environmental watchdog group, said the aid offer shows good will on the part of government, and for that reason it's "positive." But, echoing Anderson, he said what residents are really after is being removed right away, and then proving they are debilitated by toxins at the complex. The HUD response "hardly recognizes the urgency of the situation," he said. Even though it has agreed to "help the residents," HUD is in no way admitting Midway Village is a case of widespread environmental illness, said spokesman Larry Bush. "We have no studies that tell us that this is, in fact, a hazard," he said. "We're responding to the fact that some residents, not all, feel that they are not safe." Midway Village was built in 1976 on land polluted from an early 1900s gas plant owned by Pacific Gas & Electric. Under mounting pressure from local and state politicians, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control earlier this year agreed to retest the soil more thoroughly than before, and to conduct first-time health tests on the residents. Those tests aren't expected to be completed until fall at the earliest.
|