Taking again oversight of health-related inspections at Golden Gate Village is true for Marin – Marin Unbiased Journal
Golden Gate Village in Marin City. (Robert Tong/Marin Independent Journal)
A recent sewage spill in a Marin City apartment was enough to show that Golden Gate Village residents should be able to rely on response from county environmental health officers.
Over the past decade, oversight of such matters had to go to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a giant bureaucracy with offices in San Francisco.
The Marin Housing Authority, which manages and governs Golden Gate Village and other public housing in Marin, opted out for HUD to review health-related inspections.
The recent spill prompted a change back.
It makes sense, in terms of the promise of a fast and local response to any problems or complaints and independent oversight to make sure they’ve been remediated properly.
The housing authority says the sewage backup occurred because a tenant had flushed paper towels down a toilet and caused a blockage. The authority called in a plumbing contractor and the line was cleared.
Clean-up and sanitation crews were also called in.
The incident is one of the reasons the authority is replacing sewer pipes as part of the rehabilitation plan for the 60-year-old public housing complex.
Golden Gate Village, with nearly 300 apartments, is the largest and oldest low-rent public housing complex in the county.
The county’s involvement will be to provide oversight of the authority-hired contractor that is the front line when it comes to handling those inspections.
HUD, which funds the public housing, also performs its own inspections.
County and authority officials say that it is unclear why the authority shifted primary oversight to HUD. It may have been because it seemed bureaucratically redundant.
In recent years, the county and the Golden Gate Village Residents Council have had a rocky relationship, with the council filing complaints about rat problems, mold and wiring problems. The council also advanced its own proposal for a multi-million dollar overhaul of the complex, including creating a trust that would enable tenants to own their units.
The primary objective of shifting inspection oversight should be that public housing residents receive the same level of public-health inspection response as anyone else in the county.
If those inspectors come up with a finding with which the housing authority disagrees, that’s part of the process. Protecting the health of the tenants should be the overriding focus.
The shift to HUD long predates the arrival of Sarah Jones, who took over as head of the county Community Development Agency in April. The county Environmental Health Division is part of her agency.
She told the IJ that the county and the housing authority decided to put the county back in charge of supervisor inspections to add an “extra layer of accountability and objectivity” in the performance of that important job.
It’s the right thing to do.
It is a responsive action and strategy that set a strong standard for local protection of public housing conditions and its tenants in Marin, today and as the authority moves forward with its plans to renovate and repair the Golden Gate Village complex.
