When 49-year-old single father Howard Schott moved his family into an old, yellowing apartment on Grove Street North in St. Petersburg, he didn’t expect to stay for three years. It was meant to be a transitional place before he could find subsidized housing. He had suffered a stroke the year before and could no longer work.
Schott has a full head of gray hair and could pass for a senior citizen. He moves with great difficulty, an effect of the stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. The stroke also impaired his speech. His drooping lips reveal a gruff voice, and words don’t always come out the way he wants.
Schott’s landlord plans to tear down the apartment building in December and build a new complex over it. Schott’s three teen-age kids can’t wait to move somewhere else. But there isn’t anywhere to go.
In 2000, Schott applied for a housing choice voucher, also known as Section 8, which gives people the option of looking for subsidized housing in privately owned buildings. Section 8 is a federally funded program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and is administered locally through the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. If a landlord agrees to comply with federal guidelines, then the local housing authority subsidizes rent for the Section 8 tenant. Housing vouchers are open to very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled.
Although Schott is eligible, he hasn’t heard from anyone from the housing authority since he was put on the wait list three years ago.
There are no guidelines regulating the waiting period for qualified candidates on the wait list. “Long waiting periods are common,” the Housing and Urban Development Department website says, but it does not provide further information on the wait. Nor does the St. Petersburg Housing Authority cap the wait period.
“Like any organization, we have to abide by the rules and regulations, and our rules are from the federal government,” said Syl Farrell, communications director for the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. “Hopefully, people are patient and they will wait.”
Schott and his three kids have been living on a tight budget since his stroke four years ago. Before he began receiving Supplemental Security Income, Schott and his kids lived on welfare for a year. Now Schott receives $1,229 a month in disability, which he juggles to meet his $550 monthly rent, bills and medical expenses.
“After a while, you get used to it,” Schott said.
Schott’s 15-year-old son Nicky plans to take a summer job soon to help pay the bills.
Living in a four-person household, Schott receives little enough income to qualify for Section 8 housing, falling under the category of “30 percent of the median income,” which falls below the “very low income” category.
But no preferences are given to people with dire circumstances, according to the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. Public housing authorities can decide whether they want to establish local preferences. Here, the list works on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We don’t play favorites,” Farrell said. “We don’t skip ahead. That wouldn’t be right.”
Schott remembers the moment of his stroke four years ago.
“It was the middle of the night and the kids were all sleeping,” he said. “Then I went numb. My mom called up the next morning and took me to the hospital.”
Schott had hung drywall for 25 years before the stroke. He took pride in his work. But when the stroke paralyzed the right side of his body, there was no way he would ever be able to work again.
When Schott knew he wouldn’t be spending his days working, he got a dog named Shadow to keep him company. Born with sprinklings of gray hair, Shadow bears a striking resemblance to his master. The kids had always wanted a dog, but before the stroke, no one was home during the day to care for one.
To manage the effects of his stroke, Schott gets by with free samples from the doctor and from Suncoast Community Health Center, a non-profit clinic. Schott takes 11 pills a day, eye drops for glaucoma and uses two inhalers for asthma. He also takes medicine for cholesterol.
His 14-year-old daughter, Sara, writes his paperwork because Schott says his writing is “horrible.”
The Schotts are one of 360 families waiting for Section 8 housing in St. Petersburg.
Although Schott is also eligible for public housing, which also has a long waiting period, he doesn’t want to live in public houses complexes such as Jordan Park or James Park. He said there are too many drug deals in the area and he doesn’t want his kids getting involved with drugs.
“It’s hard enough keeping my son out of trouble,” he said of his 13-year-old son Keith, who is serving a nine-month juvenile detention sentence.
Schott has been a single father since Keith, his youngest child, has been in diapers, when he and his wife divorced. He hasn’t heard from his wife since.
Since the stroke, the family has had to move to a dilapidated three-bedroom apartment to make ends meet. The brown carpet is soaked with dirt and the yellowish walls are covered with cracked paint.
Schott hates the look of the walls with plaster peeling off. With his 25 years of experience hanging dry wall, the look of the worn-down walls bothers him.
Last Christmas, Schott said, the tenants upstairs flooded their bathroom and water leaked into his kitchen from the ceiling. His landlord did nothing about it, he said.
In May 2000, a federal audit of the St. Petersburg Housing Authority revealed massive financial and personnel mismanagement. The report found that in 1999, 181 families that should have obtained housing didn’t. Authority officials at the time acknowledged this and said they had “taken several steps to improve management of the Section 8 program,” according to the report.
Schott suspects that the housing authority’s mismanagement may have contributed to his three-year wait, but Farrell said the financial mismanagement revealed in the audit did not cause the long wait period. He attributed the long wait to the long list of people in line for housing, the lack of apartment owners who are willing to comply with federal guidelines and limited HUD funding.
Aside from the wait, Schott is angry with the housing authority’s failure to keep him informed. Schott said he never heard from the housing authority since he applied three years ago -- not a single call or letter. Farrell said all clients get one letter notifying them they are on the wait list and one letter notifying them that their voucher is ready to be picked up, regardless of the length of time.
“I wish they would have told me more,” Schott said. “Three years being kept in the dark is a pretty long time.”
Schott has about five months before he’ll be forced to find someplace else to live, although it’s not likely he’ll find an apartment for his family that he can afford. The average three-bedroom apartment in St. Petersburg ranges from $800 to $1,000 in monthly rent, according to the apartment rental agency, Apartment Finders of Tampa Bay.
“I’m just in limbo waiting for something to happen because I can’t do it myself anymore,” Schott said.
After Farrell checked on Schott’s record, he confirmed that Schott was still on the waiting list.
“Mr. Schott has not been forgotten,” Farrell said. “He may be in the next batch that’s called, but I couldn’t say to you when that is.”
For now, Schott will have to stay in the shabby apartment he currently calls home. It’s located less than a mile away from Tropicana Field, where he once hung dry wall.