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Much as in the rest of the country, the use of federal stimulus money in Oakland is being questioned. What is happening to this “stimulus money” when it reaches our ‘Town?

Wall Street gets billions, the rest of us get zilch.  Oakland Housing Authority gets $11 million, and they use it to create 10.71 jobs! That’s not even one job for every million dollars.  The question we’re all asking is where is all this money going?

Typically, the questions just asked would lead us to another exposé – or rant — about how the money is being spent in some ridiculous, extravagant way: $5,000 toilet seats for Air Force jets; $10 million dollar bonuses to the bankers that created the current financial crisis.

But this is a look at how American’s relationship to authority figures has been changed by the financial mess, the recession, allegations of shady accounting and exposes of incompetence at every level from the lowest to the highest.

The national and global financial meltdown, followed by a weak and sputtering recovery, is changing the relationship of people to their government. Instead of taking the 1950’s approach of blindly accepting government and industry proclamations as truth, or taking the 1960’s approach of leaping to apocryphal conclusions about the machinations of government-led intrigue and conspiracies controlled by the “military-industrial complex,” citizens are taking responsibility for knowing what our elected and non-elected public servants are doing with our hard-earned tax dollars and demanding that the spending reflect our needs.  In short, Americans are demanding transparency in the way our government works and how it spends our money.

Some local community organizations have expressed skepticism at the way the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) is handling American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money.

We are in the midst of a brutal recession.  While the national unemployment rate hovers around 9% and California’s unemployment rate is in the 14% range, Oakland’s unemployment rate is nearly double the national rate at 17%.    ARRA was created by the President to bring money to local communities for the purpose of improving local communities and creating local jobs.

Tassafaronga Village in the Elmhurst District is a federally assisted HOPE VI development built by the Oakland Housing Authority. It replaces 87 deteriorated public housing units with 60 affordable apartments in a new, three-story building, an additional 77 in a section of new two- and three-story townhouses, and 20 more, along with a medical clinic, in an adapted building that formerly housed a pasta factory. Habitat for Humanity is also building 22 affordable, for-sale townhomes on the site.

OHA applied for and received ARRA funding to improve the living conditions in OHA residences.  According to Just Cause, the Advancement Project and community members in partnership with the Voice of California, OHA received $10.5 million dollars in ARRA funds to improve existing units and to construct new units in 12 public housing projects in Oakland.  OHA also received an additional $500,000 in ARRA funds to make capital improvements and to enter into cooperative clean-up agreements to improve conditions in the communities managed by OHA. They received $11 million from Washington, DC to improve conditions for residents and to create new housing opportunities for Oakland residents.  But now comes the problem.  Just Cause has pointed out that only 10.7 jobs have been created by all of that money.   You do the math:  It takes $11 million dollars to create 10.7 jobs?  That’s more than $1 million per job, according to a recent press release by the organization.

Only 20% of the projects have been completed to date, so, according to Just Cause, that means there should still be plenty of ARRA funds left to do what they are supposed to do: create jobs.  Since many residents were unaware that OHA had received federal stimulus funds, there has been little community input in their use.  Now that residents know this funding exists, they are demanding transparency from OHA in its use, and the engagement of public housing residents, to consider the needs of the residents, and most importantly, to make job opportunities available to the citizens of Oakland. “Public housing residents are some of the city’s lowest income people who need jobs desperately, yet it is not clear if they are being offered opportunities, despite regulations that direct some federal funds to be used to create jobs for residents,” remarked Robbie Clark, organizer for Just Cause. “One of the goals of the stimulus is to boost the incomes of those most in need. Yet, public housing residents haven’t felt the stimulus – they haven’t seen job opportunities and the projects chosen don’t necessarily reflect their top priorities,” added Inger Brinck, Public Finance Manager for the Advancement Project.
Residents are being asked to to attend the Housing Authority Board Meetings and to ask questions and tell the Board what they want the money to be used for.  Just Cause urges citizens to demand that the money be used to hire local residents. “There can be no real changes in the lives and conditions of public housing residents without the direct input and effort of the residents.”