“This is our longed-for facade restoration project,” said Harrietstown Housing Authority Executive Director Sarah Clarkin on a recent afternoon, upstairs in a residents’ lounge that had been empty since the start of the pandemic.

The Housing Authority’s offices are on the ground floor of the Lake Flower Apartments; the rest of the building is divided up into 78 apartments that function as the majority of the affordable housing that the HHA oversees.

“When it was built, this building was poorly designed and poorly constructed,” said Clarkin above the low hum of outside construction. “The original facade, the bricks were a curtain — very poor brick that was deteriorating. We literally had pieces of brick fall off the building. After three engineering studies, this is the result.”

The restoration was supposed to start in April, but was delayed until late May because of the pandemic. It’s slated to finish by late October.

An earlier phase of the Lake Flower Apartments renovation is seen July 7, before the original red bricks were replaced with new tan bricks. (Enterprise photo — Peter Crowley)

In the state of New York, housing authorities are created through state legislation, which then gives municipalities the authority to create their own housing authorities, which are overseen by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as New York State Homes and Community Renewal. The town of Harrietstown created its housing authority in the late 1960s, though many other towns still don’t have one.

“Our primary mission is to provide safe, quality and affordable housing to income-eligible residents,” said Clarkin. The HHA operates two programs. One is the public housing program that oversees the Lake Flower Apartments and an additional 35 units at Algonquin Apartments on state Route 3. The other is a Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8, that currently awards 135 vouchers to subsidize low-income people’s rent.

In addition, the HHA works with an affiliated organization called the Adirondack Housing Development Organization. That organization manages 12 apartments in the village — the Helen Hill apartments, which are subsidized.

Affordable housing has become a key issue in the upcoming Village Board of Trustees election as well as in daily life for many communities in the North Country. The scope of what the HHA does is often unnoticed. It’s also more accessible than you might think.

“While we have a waiting list for both programs, it’s a relatively short waiting list,” said Clarkin. So what is relatively short exactly? “Maybe two or three months,” she says, for Section 8 housing. For an apartment in public housing, she says it’s not much longer, maybe three or four months.

Another aspect of the voucher program that many don’t know about is that it can ultimately be used in different locations. In other words, people can come to this village, get approved for a voucher, live here for a year or so and then relocate still using that voucher, which could then be transferred to another municipality.

As for paperwork, “the obligations aren’t strenuous, though you do need to comply.” Those mostly mean annual recertification to be Section 8 eligible.

Affordable housing is defined as costing roughly 30% of your income, and that’s how the HHA determines what residents pay.

“So if you make $1,000 a month, you pay around $330 in rent. But if your income gets cut to $100 a month, then you would pay $50. Our minimum rent is $50.”

Clarkin adds up all the units she oversees.

“We can accommodate 260 families,” she says. “If you do the rough math, the HHA and its affiliate assist more than 10% of the village population. To me, this underscores what a needed resource we are. And what a valuable resource we are.”