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Message from the Executive Director

    Danny Queen (left)

This has been an incredible year of change for the Fort Myers Housing Authority. As the end of this century approaches and we enter the fourth quarter of our fiscal year I am pleased to report improvement and progress in our operations and delivery of services to our residents.

Our local economy is seeing an all time high, unemployment is at its lowest ever and local development does not seem to have an end in sight. I am excited to say that the Fort Myers Housing Authority has participated in this boom economy. We have assisted residents into the workforce; we have participated in providing educational opportunities and have been able to increase our non-public housing inventory to expand opportunities for our residents to move out of public housing.

Public housing as we have known it is changing. Since HUD was created in 1965, economic and social conditions in the United States have changed. To improve its management HUD is focusing on managing its programs and people more efficiently and responsibly. Just as HUD has gone through this change so have we. The first three-quarters of our fiscal year have been focused on a fundamental management overhaul. An implementation of a plan that represents a combination of significant organizational changes, as well as personnel changes.

We are currently in the final stages of completing our Agency Strategic Plan that contains our goals and objectives, performance measures and indicators, and timetables for tracking program priorities and accomplishments. Meeting our strategic goals and objectives, as measured by our performance indicators, will continue to ensure better housing management practices and service for our residents.

As HUD moves towards the next millennium, their strategic objectives reflect their core business functions:

Empower communities to meet local needs;

Help communities and States establish a full continuum of housing and services designed to assist homeless individuals and families in achieving permanent housing and self-sufficiency;

Increase availability of affordable housing in standard condition to families and individuals, particularly the Nation’s poor and disadvantaged;

Reduce the isolation of low-income groups within a community or geographical area;

Provide empowerment and self-sufficiency opportunities for low income individuals and families, particularly the Nation’s poor and disadvantaged;

Increase homeownership opportunities, especially in Central Cities, through a variety of tools, such as expanding access to mortgage credit; and

Promote equal housing opportunities for those protected by law.

We will maximize our opportunity to work with HUD to accomplish these objectives locally. Our mission of creating opportunities requires more than just administering our programs on a day-to-day basis. We must take a proactive, leadership role in partnering with other agencies, businesses, and organizations.

While our strategic plan covers many objectives, the reduction of isolation of low-income housing within our community is the most controversial and impactful. HUD has a few strategies for public housing along these lines:

Create income diversity in traditional public housing through rent incentives to retain/attract working families and encourage families to move to work or better work;

Replace the worst public housing with less dense, economically integrated communities;

Provide additional replacement housing resources through portable Section 8 vouchers; and

Improve the Section 8 tenant-based assistance program to increase private owner participation and portability throughout the metropolitan area.

As you can see many changes are on the horizon for public housing in this new century and the Fort Myers Housing Authority plans to take advantage of as many of the new programs and opportunities to increase service, self-sufficiency and home ownership as possible.

While we may be changing one thing is constant, our goal is always to serve our residents and provide a decent, safe, and suitable living environment.

I pray your holidays were filled with cheer and that this coming year we will continue to work together to improve our programs and opportunities. My staff and I make ourselves available for you participation and thoughts.

Happy New Year….