VP Housing Authority talk increased spending

At Tuesday night’s Ville Platte Housing Authority meeting, the board learned that while their total revenues are up from last year, so is their spending.
Compared to last year at this time, the total expenses for the housing authority’s part-time labor is up $22,000 and for materials it is up $19,000.
Executive Director Grant Soileau credited the increase in spending to the remodeling that is being done to vacant units by the housing authority’s maintenance crew.
Soileau said, “We have units that are getting up there in age, so when one becomes unoccupied we have to change the floors, redo cabinets, and fix plumbing. Our maintenance crew is doing all of this work because we can’t do total remodeling.”
Total remodeling of a vacant apartment would consist of allowing outside contractors to bid on the remodeling projects, which would be paid for by capital funding. While going through this process, if the apartment remained vacant for 15 days the housing authority would begin to lose subsidies from the federal government.
By allowing the maintenance crew to remodel, there is no bid process needed, and they are able to remodel just the portions of an apartment that are in the worst shape. Doing things this way is more likely to keep from having an apartment stay vacant for more than 15 days.
Soileau however is hopeful that they will be able to return to doing total remodeling in the future.
The executive director said, “Right now they don’t let us go back to total remodeling because we lose subsidies when the unit becomes vacant for so long, but hopefully with the new president we will be able to go back to total remodeling in 2018 or 2019.”
Also discussed at the meeting was the arrival of the housing authority’s brand new trash cans.
Per Ville Platte Mayor Jennifer Vidrine’s request, the housing authority purchased 218, 96-gallon trash cans for the housing authority’s tenants.
Soileau informed the board that 50 trash cans have been delivered and the other 168 will be delivered by Friday. All tenants will be required to bring their trash, in their new trash cans, to the road the day before trash pickup, and then they will have to bring their trash cans back to their apartment after their trash has been picked up.
The next housing authority meeting has been set for September 13th at 5:30.