The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development added Boulder and  more than a dozen housing agencies across the country to a program that encourages “outside the box” ideas.

Moving to Work, first authorized by Congress in 1996, is a program that gives public housing authorities flexibility to try “‘outside the box’ ideas that address local community needs in innovative ways,” according to the federal agency.

A federal official announced adding 14 housing agencies, including Boulder Housing Authority, during a press conference in Boulder Friday.

Housing agencies that want to be included in the program have to apply, HUD officials said, and Boulder Housing Authority was one of 14 chosen agencies selected for the program’s latest cohort. 

Other chosen agencies were Livermore Housing Authority in California, West Hartford Housing Authority in Connecticut, Seminole County Housing Authority and Boca Raton Housing Authority in Florida, Evansdale Municipal Housing Authority in Iowa, Kendall Housing Authority in Illinois, Watertown Housing Authority in Massachusetts, and Bath Housing Authority Maine.

Also added were Great Plains Housing Authority in North Dakota, Portsmouth Housing Authority and Housing Authority of the City of Rochester in New Hampshire, Pittston Housing Authority in Pennsylvania and Staunton Redevelopment and Housing Authority in Virginia. 

The program allows housing authorities to be exempt from many public housing and voucher rules and gives them flexibility in using federal funds, HUD officials said. 

The move comes in the midst of a housing crisis in Colorado and elsewhere, HUD Rocky Mountain regional administrator Dominique Jackson said at the conference. 

“Now, more than ever, everyone in every corner of our nation is facing difficulty in finding housing that they can afford and we are witnessing more people heading closer to the devastating reality of homelessness,” Jackson said.

Before Moving to Work got started, housing agencies didn’t have opportunities to customize programs and funding to meet their local needs, Adrianne Todman, HUD’s new acting secretary, said. 

With the program, housing authorities can cater to their community’s needs, she said, and help the entire country learn new innovative ways to make housing more affordable.

“The benefits of this designation go beyond the modeling agencies across the country that now have it because we have actually moved the needle on some of our housing policy because of the work of the agencies with this designation,” Todman said. 

Currently in Boulder County, there are two new projects being built using funds from the project, Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said.

When the next project is complete, it will mark the 4,000th permanently affordable housing unit in Boulder, a city with only about 45,000 total housing units, Brockett said.

“We have to remember that this isn’t fundamentally about the numbers, it’s about the people that we’re helping … it’s about making a huge transformative difference in people’s everyday lives,” he said. 

Susana Lopez-Baker, the interim executive director of Boulder Housing Authority, said the agency will explore using Moving to Work money to expand their voucher program to help low-income families and people afford housing. 

Other projects under Moving to Work in Boulder County will include strengthening family self sufficiency program, creating policy waivers and simplifying administrative processes to be less of a burden on residents and staff, she said.

“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction,” Todman said. “I look forward to seeing what the good folks in Boulder County will do. I know that you all will make us proud.”