LAKE COUNTY >> The county will update their existing Section 8 Administrative Plan due to the changes that occurred in the Federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Edgar Perez, the Program Manager for the Section 8 Program, said a majority of the changes revolve around the adoption of mandates to protect those who are victims of domestic, dating and other types of violence.
Some of the other changes requested by the community and partner companies include clarifying some parts of the plan and also additions to some of the recommendations.
Perez said the public would have a chance to see changes made to the documents to maintain the community involved and informed.
“We opened up the comment period about nine days ago and this is a combination of that period and we are actually here to see if there is any additional comments so we can finish add those on,” Perez said.
Typically this would be something that is done in March, he added, but because they need to make the changes ahead of time and give time for the public hearing it had to be brought sooner. The complete update to the Section 8 Administrative Plan is said to be ready for approval when they come back to the board.
“This year is a little bit different because there was a lot of changes that had been requested to be made to the existing plan, the one that is actually in place right now,” Perez said. “The plan that will be approved in a few weeks will actually be effective immediately and will take us to the next fiscal year.”
The Section 8 Program is a federally mandated program but what they are working on comes from local partners and concerns that are made by the community.
Perez said these changes are available to the public and can be found in their office. They have also advertised and published that they are making these changes.
“In a few weeks when we come back we are going to outline the changes that are in the plan. A lot of them we do not have control over it is what the Fed is telling us we need to do,” Perez said.
In the future when making changes, Perez said they would consider putting out an outline of them instead of the complete updated document.
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said having a summary of the updates will help better serve the public and make it easier for them to spot, giving the Section 8 Program personnel more feedback.
