Single mom faces loss of housing aid after promotion with Portsmouth Housing Authority

PORTSMOUTH — Portsmouth Housing Authority employee Andrea Pickett understands the struggles families face to find affordable housing in the city’s skyrocketing housing market.

A single mother, Pickett lived in Wamesit Place, a PHA property, when she was hired to work for the agency after attending a class there in late 2017 aimed at helping residents “get ahead."

She worked as a resident services coordinator, bringing to the job an understanding of what it means to be unable to afford a place to live without assistance, Pickett said.

“My experience living in the Housing Authority, I think, helps me relate to the residents in a way that is almost like a superpower because I can understand how the systems are working from the inside,” Pickett said. She spoke during an interview in the Housing Authority’s Ruth Griffin Place, a below market rate downtown housing development opened in 2022. “When somebody explains something that is holding them up, I can immediately put myself in the position of understanding what they’re going through.”

Promotion and raise bring a loss of housing assistance

Pickett, who ran for Portsmouth City Council in 2023, recently was promoted by PHA and is now the agency’s director of community outreach and engagement.

Pickett said she’s “very excited” about the new job, which also came with a raise.

But she acknowledged the promotion came with real-life impacts, which she described as a “cliff.”

“You’re progressing and you make a certain amount of money, and then all of a sudden you no longer receive all the benefits you’ve been receiving,” Pickett said. “There’s a wide gap between having your resources met by subsidies and having them met by what you’re able to earn.”

Pickett currently lives in Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) housing in Portsmouth, she said. But when her lease expires, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to “qualify for my housing assistance” because of her recent promotion and pay raise.

“I’m lucky I have options because my mom has a three bedroom and it’s just her, so my daughter and I can go stay there and help her with her mortgage, save and it feels like a good option,” Pickett said.

If that option didn’t exist, she’d be faced with having to pay between $2,000 to $4,000 for a two-bedroom apartment in Portsmouth, which she could not afford.

“Even with a substantial raise, that money gets absorbed. It’s scary,” she said.

Rents “get a little bit better as you get farther outside the city, but not to the extent that it’s going to make a difference, not to the extent where you’re building and saving,” she added.

She is hoping city officials and business leaders are ready to take action to address the housing crisis, saying “the conversation is red hot right now.”

Pickett also hopes to “be an advocate for people who have been through the housing journey and need to find middle-income housing.”

Portsmouth Housing Authority director explains 'benefits cliff'

Craig Welch, PHA’s longtime executive director, said what Pickett is facing — and others routinely face — is called a “benefits cliff.”

“It’s a real problem and creates some disincentive for people” when it comes to “taking any kind of risk, even when it means making more money,” Welch said.

He explained there’s “a lot of complexity within the social safety net that people depend on when they have low incomes.”

As someone becomes more successful in their career, it could mean they end up losing housing, child-care or health-care benefits, Welch said.

And the higher income “doesn’t fill that gap,” he said.

He described Pickett as “a real success story,” who has worked hard to “put herself through school while being a single mom.”

“We’re super proud of her, but the benefits cliff is real,” he said.

No disposable income

Like everyone, Pickett’s search for someplace to live for her family comes in the midst of Portsmouth’s red hot housing market, where rents and home prices keep going up, Welch said.

The Housing Authority’s recent Housing Study reports 15% of people living in Portsmouth spend more than 50% of their income on rent.

That means, Welch said, “you don’t have any disposable income at all.”

“Most people don’t’ understand what it is to live like that,” he said.

As an example, if someone in that situation faces a car repair of $1,000 so they can get to work, “it could be catastrophic for them,” Welch said.

“There’s just no way for them to build assets,” he said.

“It’s really remarkable how fast rents have gone up and how so many people here just cannot access this housing market,” Welch said. “One of the big trends and tragedies is that people who have grown up in Portsmouth end up getting priced out of the market.”

Shovels in the ground on new housing needed now, director says

Asked how quickly the Housing Authority would like to begin working with the City Council on a new below market rate housing plan for the former Sherburne School property, Welch said, “Immediately.”

“Our housing report shows that between now and the end of this decade we’ll need another 1,500 affordable housing units, and we’ve been the primary provider of that,” Welch said.

He acknowledged “we’re so far away from being able to meet the need that our entire goal should be getting shovels in the ground and getting this built.”

More: Portsmouth leaders renew push for affordable housing, calling it their 'duty'

That includes, he said, working with the public and city to create “a thoughtful design for the project.”

He called the Ruth Griffin project – which created 64 below market-rate apartments in the heart of downtown – “a grand slam for the city of Portsmouth.”

“But it took six years,” he said.

He shares the need expressed by multiple speakers at a Portsmouth Listens dialogue on housing who urged city officials “to act with urgency” to address the housing crisis.

“What we should be doing is lining these projects up because we’re so far from being where we need to be to,” Welch said.

The Housing Authority has also worked to “increase our capacity,” he said, so they can “work on multiple projects” with the city at the same time, Welch said.

“There’s a first step in all of this in terms of getting things designed and permitted, but we shouldn’t wait to do that piece of it,” he said.

The housing crisis "deserves a serious approach,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Single mom faces loss of aid after Portsmouth Housing job promotion