Middletown officials aren’t backing away from their five-year plan to reduce the city’s complement of Section 8 housing vouchers by more than 1,000 despite objections from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Doug Adkins, the city’s director of community revitalization, said HUD officials “have their own issues to deal with beyond us.” Adkins was referring to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan’s recent testimony before Congress about the impact of the across-the-board federal spending cuts — known as the sequester — on Section 8 vouchers.

Donovan testified the March 1 sequestration “would have devastating effects on homelessness and on other vulnerable groups that HUD works with on housing needs across the country.”

“They would anticipate 125,000 vouchers would be losing funding almost immediately,” Adkins said. “We may be off their radar for a little while.”

The Middletown Public Housing Agency, which consists of all 7 Middletown City Council members, agreed Tuesday night to move forward with cutting the city’s 1,662 Section 8 vouchers to 654 in the next four to five years through attrition.

HUD officials did not like that plan, which city officials originally submitted to the federal agency in October. HUD asked the city to either fill its available vouchers or consider relinquishing control of its housing voucher program to the Butler County Metropolitan Housing Authority. HUD gave the city until Feb. 28 to send a written reply with its decision.

In a draft of a four-page letter to HUD approved Tuesday, city officials point out that transferring the program to the BMHA — which is “willing” to take it over, but would “not prefer” to do so — would not solve Middletown’s Section 8 housing saturation problem and the “strong operational codes” the city has built into its voucher program the past three years would be lost.

“We believe that a smaller, local, well-operated housing agency best serves the city and its low-income residents,” reads the letter signed by City Manager and MPHA Executive Director Judy Gilleland. “A transfer of our program to the Butler Metropolitan Housing Authority has several immediate negative implications.”

City officials contend Middletown has more Section 8 housing per capita than any other city in Ohio. Section 8 vouchers account for 49.8 percent of all subsidized housing and 14.3 percent of all available housing in Middletown, officials say. Too much Section 8 can impact the overall image of the city and hinder progress and economic development, they say.

Section 8 “is not the root of our problems,” it is one area that needs to be addressed, Adkins said.

Section 8 landlords and other supporters of the program argue drastically cutting vouchers will have more of a negative impact on the city than officials think. The program is a revenue generator for many landlords who live in the city, they say, and cutting the program will pull those dollars out of the community and could potentially leave hundreds of properties vacant.

Section 8 landlord Dan Tracy said he’s “never heard of this” course of action in his 30 years in the housing business. And he doesn’t know what will happen.

“This is like Doug said back in October, this is uncharted waters,” he said.

Because of all the jobs lost in recent years, Tracy said the need has increased. And until the need is reduced, the vouchers shouldn’t be reduced.

City officials had challenged HUD to provide them with any statutory reasons why Middletown should not proceed with its plan. The fact that HUD didn’t, or couldn’t, is another reason why city official said they are standing pat.

“We had not received any details on compliance issues, regulatory support of any kind,” Adkins said.

The city’s plan was developed in response to HUD’s request for a corrective action plan as the city was below the minimum required number of vouchers that need to be issued, which would be 95 percent, or 1,579. The city had between 82 to 85 percent of their assigned vouchers issued.