New leader revitalizing agency

Housing advocates and officials are praising the executive director of the Hawaii Public Housing Agency for moving the troubled agency in a positive new direction after only eight months on the job.

Hakim Ouansafi became the executive director of the agency, which has had trouble for more than a decade, in January after the previous director left for personal reasons in October.

"I think Hakim has brought a real breath of fresh air into that whole agency and a real sense of professional discipline and professional competence from the private sector," said David Gierlach, chairman of the authority’s board.

A state audit in 2011 reported a host of problems with the agency from 2007 to 2010, including a lack of staffing; erratic oversight of housing projects; lax rent collection, repair and maintenance, and property upkeep; and a slow turnaround for vacated units, with 233 units sitting empty for an average of six months.

The housing agency manages 6,195 units, and more than 9,000 families are on a waiting list with an average wait of two to five years, according to the auditor’s report.

Over the past three years, the agency’s grade under federal housing guidelines declined from "standard," with a score of 73 out of 100, to "substandard" with a score of 64 by the end of June 2011. This year’s grade will not be available for a few months.

In 2002, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development disciplined the authority for not following federal purchasing procedures and ordered the authority to submit documentation to the federal housing department before making any purchases over $25,000. That order was eventually eased, but still requires the agency to submit documentation before signing property management contracts.

Ouansafi said the agency was suffering from poor management, a dearth of new ideas and outdated procedures. He said he began revitalizing it by focusing on service and efficiencies. He already found money in the budget for 150 new families to rent a home.

Gierlach agreed that Ouansafi has made positive changes to the agency’s culture.

Under Ouansafi, he said, the agency’s staff has been more responsive to public housing tenants — "often the most beaten down and distressed individuals in our community."

"Everybody wants to be treated with dignity," Gierlach said. "He (Ouansafi) has really made it front and center of his administration."

Ouansafi said residents are taking more pride in their housing communities now that repairs and maintenance are being done more quickly.

TO ADDRESS the delays in maintenance caused by a lack of staffing, Ouansafi held the agency’s first job fair this summer. The department hired 19 workers with the goal of hiring 30 more before the end of the year, said Nick Birck, HPHA spokesman. But there is room for improvement: At the beginning of this month, 105 of 366 positions were still open, according to HPHA board documents.

Ouansafi also created multiskilled maintenance teams that can be dispatched to fix up vacant units and reduce the time it takes to prepare a unit for a new tenant. Under the previous system, plumbers, electricians and other skilled workers worked separately, letting the units languish for months until each skilled worker stopped by.

Ouansafi said he plans to reduce the turnaround time for units, once six months, to two weeks; it is currently at 30 days.

"We’re trying to work smart, and we’re trying to have all the departments talk to each other," he said. "(The employees) are loving it. You can see an energy now."

In addition to improving maintenance to get more residents into homes, Ouansafi has reopened the Section 8 housing choice voucher program for the first time in six years. This year, 150 new low-income families will receive a federal subsidy through the program to rent a unit in the private market, pushing up the number of families in the program to more than 1,900, Birck said.

The new families getting vouchers have been living on the street, in their cars or in relatives’ and friends’ homes, Ouansafi said. He said he was able to issue new vouchers by shifting money around.

Soon after taking over as executive director, Ouansafi placed a priority on improving Mayor Wright Homes, a 364-unit housing project in Liliha that was having security problems, including two fatal stabbings within five months.

Ouansafi moved into a unit on the property for four months and came up with new security measures, including a tenant ID card system to screen out nonresidents, changing the security company and erecting a strong, high fence around the property. He says crime has decreased.

"It’s calm," said Right Tongeni, 26, who was trimming the grass in his yard recently at Mayor Wright. "There used to be a lot of trouble."

Drew Astolfi, executive director of the low-income housing advocacy group Faith Action for Community Equity, said since Ouansafi has come in, he’s noticed a more inviting atmosphere at both Kuhio Park Terrace and Mayor Wright, the two properties where the group works with residents.

Astolfi, whose office is at Mayor Wright, said security has improved at the property, especially after the fence was installed.

"Small improvements, but all significant," he said.

Besides improving the properties, Ouansafi is trying to make the agency more efficient by replacing an antiquated computer system with new software that supervisors can use to find basic information, such as vacancies, on any property, without having to call the individual property manager. He said the new system will be completely installed by the end of the year.

In a couple of months, Ouansafi will also announce the agency’s first nonsmoking buildings with a goal of making the entire agency smoke-free in 12 months.

Gierlach, the board chairman, said Ouansafi is working with the board to find public-private partnerships to build more public housing.

"We are looking very closely at the Mayor Wright project to see how that might be transformed in light of the inevitable rail development that’s coming," Gierlach said. He said the board was still in the planning stages and may make an announcement before the end of the year.

One of the most noticeable changes Ouansafi implemented at the agency is the phone greeting used by employees, who now say: "How may I serve you?"

Ouansafi said there was some initial pushback to changing the culture and some employees left, but that was because the previous lack of direction had left a lot of employees confused.

"Some of (the employees) gave up," he said. "Some of them forgot what public service was all about.

"If we don’t have the hearts and the desire to be of service to the people that need us the most, then we do not belong in this agency."