sist, but, generally, staff time is freed from this activity.

The field representative then completes a "Dwelling Unit Report" describing the unit and what work needs to be done, takes pictures of the unit, contacts the fire marshal, and asks the owner to set a price and the preferred lease tenure, which may be negotiated. If the unit appears in standard condition, has a reasonable price, and is needed in the community-based on applications on hand or on talks with local welfare and other agencies to determine the local low income housing need-the staff will recommend the unit to its board of commissioners. With the board's approval, a lease is drawn up; or, if rehabilitation is needed, the authority will give the owner a conditional commitment to lease the unit when certain work is completed. All units are reinspected before the lease is signed.

2. New Construction-The process leading to the signing of a lease for newly constructed units is similar to the process for existing housing. The developer can approach the authority with plot and floor plans, certified by an architect or engineer, and the projected costs. These are reviewed by the executive director before being recommended to the board. A conditional leasing commitment is issued to developers whose proposals are approved. To monitor the construction, the authority relies on local inspectors, where they are available, and requires periodic inspections by licensed architects or engineers. HUD's inspections have been sporadic, at best.

How the Authority is Governed: The authority is governed by a five member board of commissioners appointed by the Governor for staggered 5-year terms. Though not intentional, the current board represents geographically diverse regions; yet, three of the commissioners come from towns in which the State authority cannot operate because each has its own housing authority.

The board is involved in the approval of every unit that the authority puts under lease. Although approval power is not delegated in the by-laws, the board has developed this control and wants to keep it. Leasing of a needed unit is sometimes held up until the board has its monthly meeting, although units recommended by the staff are rarely rejected. Meetings are cancelled if there is no business because most of the board members drive hundreds of miles to attend the meetings.

Housing Administration: Vermont's statewide housing program is administered from a central office located in the State's capital, Montpelier. There is one small office in the 104-unit project in Springfield where an authority field representative holds office hours, and another field representative operates out of his home in the southwestern part of the State. With 11 administrative employees, VSHA meets the ratio of one staff person to every 90 units under management recommended by the HUD area office.

For administrative purposes, VSHA has designated three geographic areas: the entire northern area of the State is covered by one field representative out of Montpelier; the southern area is divided vertically and covered by two field representatives. A tenant selector trainee in the central office is beginning to assist the northern field representative whose territory now includes over 400 scattered site units and requires about 130 miles of daily travel, at least 4 days a week. An additional field representative position has been requested to divide the northern area, but HUD has refused on budgetary grounds.

The southern areas require far less travel time because the housing tends to be more clustered and the field representatives live closer to the units. Still, all the field representatives are on the road much of the time, using their homes and cars as offices, and reporting daily by telephone to the field supervisor for instructions. Each Monday they all report to Montpelier for a staff meeting. Their responsibilities are extensive. Each representative is a jack-of-all-trades, taking applications, looking for housing units to lease, supervising move-ins and move-outs, handling tenant or landlord complaints, referring tenants to social service agencies, and dealing with all other needs.

Applications and Rental of Units: Vermont State Housing Authority has widely advertised its presence. Consequently, potential applicants call the Montpelier office from all parts of the State or obtain the local field representative's telephone number from a leased housing tenant. If a call is received at the central office, the tenant selector will either mail an application or ask the field representative to interview the applicant. In some instances, a local welfare or Operation Mainstream organization has been asked to interview an applicant. The authority works closely with these agencies and others to find both tenants and suitable housing.

All applications, except those for Springfield, are kept at the central office where they are filed chronologically and according to location. The authority rents units on a first-come first-served basis, unless an emergency exists. Preference is given to current residents of the town in which a vacancy occurs.

Vacancies are low and easily filled, since there is a backlog of applications in most communities. VSHA applied for 400 more leasing units to reduce the backlog but, according to HUD, the application was "lost."

Like most rural authorities, VSHA experiences little vandalism, even when units have been vacated. Unannounced move-outs rarely occur, so landlords can usually plan ahead for any needed rehabilitation on a unit for the next tenant.

Rent Collection: Leased unit owners are responsible for collecting rents the beginning of each month. The authority supplies prenumbered receipt books, and the owner is expected to mail all the receipts to the Montpelier office by the fifth day of the month. Some tenants will mail in their checks, particularly if the owner lives out of State, and tenants of the 104-unit Springfield project pay their rent to the field representative in that area.

The authority's intention in requiring owners to collect rents personally was to ensure monthly inspections for repairs or excessive damage, but problems have developed under this system. Since the authority mails to each owner a full lease payment on the first of the month, some owners become careless about collecting the rents to reimburse the authority for its administrative costs.

One result of this system has been a 20 percent monthly delinquency rate. Some owners simply do not pressure tenants to pay their rent, and the authority's small field staff has little opportunity to visit each delinquent tenant-or irresponsible owner.

Maintenance: Maintenance repairs are the responsibility of the owners. Tenants are supposed to call the owner-or in some of the larger projects, the onsite maintenance employee -when something needs repair, although some tenants prefer to call the authority first. If an owner does not respond to a maintenance request, the authority may order the item repaired and deduct the cost from the owner's lease payment. Excessive damage repairs are billed to tenants, and the authority often gets involved in ordering this nonroutine repair work.

The Springfield units, although privately owned, are managed and maintained by a fulltime maintenance employee hired by VSHA. This arrangement has meant a higher standard of maintenance for these units than for the scattered site units. The authority has found that when there are enough units to warrant a fulltime maintenance employee, tenant complaints are handled promptly. In addition, preventive maintenance is practiced. This is in contrast to the often erratic maintenance on the scattered site units.

Many of Vermont's small towns have only one skilled plumber or electrician. If an owner calls the town's plumber to fix something at a leased unit, and the plumber is working somewhere else, the tenant's problem either has to wait several days or the owner has to pay the high price of bringing a plumber from 30 miles distant. As a general rule, the tenant waits.

The authority would like to hire its own maintenance team which could be dispatched to any unit at the request of an owner. The team would sell its service to the owner, possibly becoming self-supporting, and would ensure that tenant complaints are answered before the problems become excessive and costly.

Social Services and Tenant Relations: Although the field representatives make some social service referrals, the authority has wanted a social service program since 1970. Budget limitations have prevented the authority from hiring a full-time social services coordinator who would identify tenant problems and develop referral contacts with appropriate agencies throughout the State. Instead, a small social service component may be possible under the HEW/HUD agreement. This arrangement would, however, only allow the authority to focus on "crisis intervention" rather than prevention.

Supplementing VSHA's current and planned social service efforts are three tenant organizations located in Montpelier, Springfield, and St. Johnsbury; all are large towns for Vermont. The authority encouraged the development of these organizations but has found that they lack leadership. Thus far, their major activities have been social, but they are being encouraged to participate more in board of commissioners' meetings.

Unlike the other regional authorities studied -and probably most rural authorities-Vermont State Housing Authority has a detailed grievance procedure. It provides for a grievance panel that includes tenants as well as authority officials. Although the procedure has not yet been used,

there is a case developing which should test its effectiveness.

Case 5. Housing Authority of the City of Americus, Georgia

The title, Housing Authority of the City of Americus, Ga., is misleading, because it is the designated authority for four towns in the area and manages units for three other housing authorities. This extensive program is made possible through a "cooperative management agreement," described in the introduction to this study as the tool most widely used to consolidate housing efforts. As an example of a cooperative agreement authority, Americus is among the best known in the southeast, where cooperative housing efforts have often been used in rural areas.

Authority Background: The Housing Authority of the City of Americus was established in 1946 but was inactive for a number of years. A town leader revitalized it, and program reservations were obtained for 150 units. In March 1950, the authority's first and current executive director was hired, and the events that followed have their niche in the history of consolidated housing efforts. Soon after the executive director's appointment, HUD's predecessor agency, the Public Housing Administration, decided that his position should be part-time, considering the authority's small number of units under management. To prevent the loss of full-time administration, the executive director approached leaders in the nearby small towns of Andersonville, Plains, and Leslie about their housing needs. Each of the towns wanted housing but not the responsibility of running a housing authority. Consequently, they were able to reach an agreement with the Americus authority enabling it to act on their behalf in the development and management of low rent housing. These towns do not operate their own LHA's, but have formed a "consolidated," or multimunicipal authority with the town of Americus.

In the late 1950's and early 1960's, the Americus authority director also became executive director of three other housing authorities, Buena Vista (which had not built anything since its formation), Ellaville (which the Americus director helped form), and Lee County (which had projects in two small towns). At the time that Americus assumed management of the Lee County authority, the part-time executive director there was receiving only $50 per month for his services. The books were poorly kept, and main

tenance was poor and sporadic. It took an Americus maintenance crew 2 months to bring Lee County units up to decent condition. Once they were, utility bills dropped (defective heaters had not been repaired in 2 years), and the Lee County authority was able to break even.

Buena Vista, Ellaville, and Lee County authorities signed a cooperative agreement with Americus, giving it management and maintenance responsibilities. Each of the authorities does, however, retain its own board of commissioners and annual contributions contract. (This type of arrangement was all that was feasible at the time under Georgia State law, though regional authorities are now possible.)

By joining a cooperative agreement, each of the smaller authorities have remained solvent. According to the Americus accountant, this would not be the case if any of them suddenly had to operate on their own. In contrast, the Americus authority now has enough units, with a total of 390, to be self-sustaining. And, it has an additional function: it is the urban renewal agency for the City of Americus. In this capacity, it has purchased numerous tracts of land, developed land use plans, made land available for recreational facilities and school expansion, and sold lots for the development of 235 and 236 housing and individually developed homes, in addition to building public housing where slums once existed.

The role of the Americus authority as housing manager for numerous small towns was logical. Americus is the largest rural town (with a population of over 16,000) in its southwestern area of Georgia and is central to the four-county region where it now manages units, as shown on the accompanying map. It is also the focal point for the area's industrial growth. As the mobile home capital of the South, it provides employment for people who can no longer find work in the dying agricultural towns surrounding Americus. These small towns, including those served by the authority, are within easy commuting distance of Americus. The furthest distance staff must travel is about 30 miles, although most of the towns the authority serves are within a 12 mile radius.

Employment opportunities have grown in the Americus area, although poverty and bad housing are still prevalent. In the general four-county area served by the Americus authority, 32 percent of the population is below the poverty level, and 51 percent of the occupied housing is inadequate. This level of poverty may account for the

Of these units, 568 were built by conventional method. Another 50 units of conventional public housing are ready for construction in the Americus urban renewal area, and 32 units of Turnkey housing are planned for the town of Leesburg. The authority also leases 43 units but has found that the quality is poorer than the conventional units and, consequently, require more repair work.

An additional 150-200 units have been estimated as the minimum need for low rent housing in the Americus area: 100 units for Americus, 50 for Ellaville (a prior application for units was not approved by HUD), and more for Leesburg in Lee County. In these towns, no alternative supply of decent low income housing is available. Units similar to public housing in Americus, for example, rent for $75 per month, or $30 more than the average public housing unit.

Unlike Americus, which has a large number of occupied shacks, the low rent housing needs of Andersonville, Plains, and Leslie have probably been met. With farm mechanization, the populations of these towns have decreased, and the need for low rent housing is minimal.

How the Authority is Governed: Each of the four authorities that cooperate with Americus has its own board of commissioners, with five members on each board appointed by a mayor or, in the case of Lee County, the county commissioners, for 5-year staggered terms. Andersonville, Plains, and Leslie, the three towns that have designated the Americus authority to act in their behalf, do not have their own representatives on the Americus board.

These separate boards apparently satisfy the desire of the smaller communities to retain some degree of local control and, according to the executive director, these boards free the already busy Americus board from having to undertake the low rent housing problems of other towns. Meetings of each board are scheduled annually and for special purposes. Most of the board members are bankers and businessmen who prefer not to meet more often than necessary.

Housing Administration: The authority's housing program is entirely administered from the central office in Americus and a small office serving three projects on the north side of town. One employee in the smaller office collects rent and takes tenant complaints. The remaining eight administrative and 12 maintenance employees work out of the large central office.

With 610 dispersed housing units, the authority maintains a high ratio of administrative staff to units under management, at 1 to 76. The ratio of maintenance staff to units is exactly at the level recommended by HUD, 1 to 50.

All employees are full-time, and their salaries are prorated among the authorities according to the number of units each has under management. Before the prorata formula is applied, the Americus urban renewal program is charged 20 percent of the executive director's salary and 10 percent of the accountant's salary, thereby lowering the administrative cost burden of the housing authorities. The urban renewal program employs its own staff of three; they occupy Americus office space and use Americus supplies. In return, urban renewal pays the authority 15 percent of all its overhead costs.

Applications and Rental of Units: The Americus authority is well known in the area through publicity efforts and word-of-mouth referrals.