toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio

The Bell administration has stopped pumping taxpayer money into a trust fund that distributes grants for the construction and renovation of low-income housing.

Hugh Grefe, president of the Toledo-Lucas County Housing Trust Fund, said the city is obligated to continue providing $50,000 annually and without that money, the organization will likely dissolve.

The trust fund, which is controlled by a board of directors that distributes the grants, was told earlier this week that there would be no more city money.

Mr. Grefe said the fund has been used to help people who are "not poor enough" to qualify for federal programs.

"The purpose of this housing trust fund - and there are 700 across the country - is to address the housing needs that cannot be addressed by federal funds," Mr. Grefe said.

"We are actually kind of shocked because Mayor Bell was one of many candidates last year, before he was elected, to promise to support the housing fund," he said.

Mayor Mike Bell said Wednesday the city has allocated $23 million of federal money this year toward housing issues; it is not obligated to underwrite the trust fund. It would take money from the city's already lean general fund.

"The bottom line is people around here have no sense about trying to sustain a budget, and anything we do has an impact on the budget and we are doing pretty good right now," Mr. Bell said. "That is the way I am going to stay, and if that makes people mad, oh well."

The mayor also said he did not offer a blanket promise during his campaign to fund the trust fund.

"When you are a candidate, you don't have all the information," he said.

The mayor went a step further and said the trust fund actually owes the city $2,700 for overpayments, but said repayment would not be requested.

Steve Herwat, deputy mayor of operations, said the city allocated $995,956 to the trust fund as of October, 2008.

"Is there a housing need? Yes. The city of Toledo has not ignored its housing needs by any stretch of the imagination," Mr. Herwat said Wednesday.

The history of the trust fund is somewhat complicated.

In 1998, Toledo City Council approved a long-awaited settlement with low-income housing advocates who had pressed the city to spend profits from the Superior Street parking garage - which is on the east side of Superior between Adams Street and Madison Avenue - on neighborhood revitalization projects.

Under the terms of the settlement, the city transferred $268,000 in past profits to the then-depleted Toledo-Lucas County Housing Trust Fund, which was originally an account set up in 1991 with $280,000 in taxes from the estate of Paul Block, Jr., former publisher of The Blade.

The council in 1990 adopted a resolution promising to devote the garage's profits to the cause of neighborhood revitalization, but city officials had not followed through on the commitment until the push in 1998.

Under the 1998 ordinance, in addition to the $268,000 infusion, the trust fund would receive at least $50,000 a year, in perpetuity, in parking-garage profits.

Mr. Herwat and Mr. Grefe disagree over when the city last paid the trust fund the annual $50,000.

Mr. Herwat said the last allocation was in 2004, while Mr. Grefe said the payments ran through 2007. Mr. Herwat also said that ordinance cannot legally bind the city to the $50,000 forever.

Mr. Grefe countered by saying council "over many years" has passed a "number of ordinances that have been passed legitimizing an agreement that the city would transfer to the Toledo-Lucas County Housing fund the net revenue from the Superior parking garage."

Contact Ignazio Messina at:
imessina@theblade.com
or 419-724-6171.

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