By Andrew Ba Tran |South Florida Sun-Sentinel
- February 22, 2009
FORT LAUDERDALE – Thousands of people seeking government-subsidized housing packed the street Saturday morning in front of the Robert P. Kelly Housing Authority building until police shut down the line because the crowd had grown unmanageable.
Officials estimated that 4,500 people were waiting in line at 8 a.m. when the Housing Authority of Fort Lauderdale
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But the application process was shut down earlier than expected because of the overwhelming turnout, police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa said.
“It was a much larger crowd than anticipated,” he said, adding he was unsure if all the applications had been distributed.
Though the crowd grew unruly, only one person was arrested for trespassing, Sousa said. He had no details.
Outside the Housing Authority building at Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest Fifth Avenue, discarded blankets, fast-food containers and plastic chairs littered the curb where thousands had gathered.
Carmen Garcia arrived too late to get an application. “It’s really unfortunate. Times are really hard right now, and this could have helped out,” she said.
Applicants were told specifically in fliers and ads not to arrive before 7 a.m. Saturday, said Tam English, executive director of the Housing Authority. But the number of people who showed up after dark Friday grew out of control, he said.
Police said they cordoned off the entire block early Saturday morning with barricades to organize the crowd, which included children and elderly in wheelchairs.
“It was a big turnout and it shows what the need is right now in the current economic situation,” English said. “There’s a lot more need than there has been in the past.”
Broward had the eighth-highest foreclosure rate in Florida in January, with one of every 182 households in some stage of foreclosure, according to a recent RealtyTrac report. Though home values continue to drop, the battered economy has kept those prices still out of reach for many, who then are left to navigate a rentals market in most cities that have not seen rates drop as drastically as many home values.
Applicants were allowed inside the building at 8 a.m. one at a time, and about 2,800 forms were handed out before 9:15 a.m. The crowd outside had grown considerably since 7 a.m. and police decided to shut down the operation, fearing the crowd would storm past the barricades to get the few hundred remaining applications.
With the voucher, low-income applicants would pay 30 percent of their monthly income on rent, while the housing authority would pay the rest, English said.
English said he would consult with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials in Miami to determine whether to distribute the remaining applications and, if so, how.
“If we take a few hundred less applications than we had anticipated, that won’t significantly impact the people on the wait list right now,” he said.
The owner of the first application picked following Saturday’s handout could be called by the Housing Authority in six months, English said. The 2,000th voucher could be called in about three years.
The situation Saturday morning mirrored the huge turnout in 2003, when the Housing Authority passed out a limited amount of applications at a single location at a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex. “I was told it was a disaster then,” English said.
For Saturday, officials chose a nonresidential location with better parking. “The big difference is the demand now. We thought we had fixed one problem, but then another came around and bit us in the rear end,” he said.
It also marked a change from the last time the organization passed out applications, in 2006, after advertising online and accepting mail-in applications for up to 10,000 people. By limiting the applications and by spreading the word through limited advertising and word-of-mouth, English said he hoped fewer residents from outside Broward County
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“It was crazy here, just so unorganized,” said Karen, a single mother from Pompano Beach, who declined to give her last name because she didn’t want people to know she was seeking government assistance.
Karen said she saw one woman buy an application from someone for $10. “I would’ve given $50 for that,” she said.
