Rep. Joyce sends letter to HUD urging relief from Section 8 voucher program in Johnstown

Dec. 3—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — U.S. Rep. Dr. John Joyce has petitioned the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to examine and address the effect the federal Section 8 housing choice voucher program is having on Johnstown.

A main issue is "portability," a policy that allows a qualified low-income person to get a voucher for rental assistance through one housing authority and then use that voucher elsewhere in the country.

Joyce, a Blair County Republican who represents the 13th Congressional District, sent a letter to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, asking her to "find solutions to challenges, which have arisen because of unintended costs and burdens imposed on the Johnstown community due, primarily, to that community's overstock of housing and a 'loophole' in the program's portability provisions."

The portability policy has created an unintentional connection between the Johnstown Housing Authority and the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Philadelphia's demand for public housing and Section 8 vouchers is so great that the authority no longer accepts applications. In contrast, about 200 of Johnstown's 960 Section 8 vouchers are not currently in use.

So, for example, a Philadelphia resident can establish residency in Cambria County, get a voucher here, and then return to Philadelphia or move elsewhere in the country.

Joyce wrote to Fudge about how the impact of that policy is felt in Johnstown.

"One example of this burden can be seen in the (Greater) Johnstown School District — where, in a district of 3,000 students, nearly 480 students have entered or left the school district in the first four months of the current 2022-2023 academic year, with 116 students coming from Philadelphia," Joyce wrote.

"For school administrators and teachers who are forced to plan on restricted budgets, frequently shifting and reassigning already-limited resources to accommodate a fluctuating student population creates additional, unanticipated challenges."

He expanded upon that thought during a telephone interview, saying, "We want to get those answers from Secretary Fudge. We're working to build a community here. We want the schools to be able to budget, to understand which students are going to be there.

"We don't want this transient population to continue. We want to attract workers to the family-sustaining jobs that are in Johnstown and Cambria County. We want people who want to come to Johnstown, stay in Johnstown, become integral parts of the community."

Joyce has been looking to see if the issues with portability are widespread.

"We have reached out to other (congressional) offices, but right now this is a unique loophole that we're seeing having such a significant impact in Johnstown," Joyce said. "I'm unaware, to date, of any other communities that are affected in such a negative way as the Johnstown community is."

Along with the Section 8 vouchers, the Johnstown Housing Authority has approximately 1,500 public housing units, which are almost always filled to capacity.

That has played a role in saturating poverty in the city, where the overall population has dropped from 42,476 in 1970 to 18,411 in 2020.

"It has become abundantly clear that the current state of public housing in Johnstown is not sustainable," Joyce said. "It's not sustainable for the school district, who are dealing with the transient student population as they set their budget. It's not sustainable for the housing authority, and it's not sustainable for the community."

Joyce said his "goal is to utilize my voice in addressing this issue in Washington."