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Source: Centre Daily Times (Original Article)

Each month, Governors Gate Associates receives funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Section 8 rental assistance program.

In September, the company, which operates a 66-unit low income housing residence in Bellefonte, was surprised to get an e-mail saying it had received money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the stimulus fund.

“We got an e-mail that said I needed to fill out this huge report,” said Sue Wall, who manages the company’s finances. “And I was like: ‘We got money?’ ”

Wall said that at first she thought it was a prank, or maybe an error. After all, the company had not applied for any stimulus money. Nor, she said, had it received any government funding aside from its regular monthly subsidy.

“My first question was: ‘How do I know that we actually received stimulus funds?’ ” Wall said. “So I called HUD and they said: ‘Yep, you guys got recovery money.’ ”

It turned out that for one month HUD, which pays Governor’s Gate a Section 8 rental assistance payment, used its pot of stimulus money to fund that regular monthly payment.

Governors Gate is one of several firms in the county — and hundreds in the state — that have received federal stimulus dollars through a program designed to prop up a frail economy.

Supporters of the program sold it to the public as a way to create or retain jobs. In the Governors Gate case, no jobs were affected. Other organizations and businesses in Centre County that receive stimulus money say they’ve documented the number of jobs saved or created, a number that is still growing as stimulus money is spent.

As Wall’s experience shows, the stimulus program is, at best, a confusing web of projects and federal dollars. One year later, it may still Bipolar Disorder Info be impossible to say whether the program …continue reading