THE CITY FAILED to meet its legal obligation to poor people last year, according to a complaint by Sharon Lee, executive director of the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI).

In an e-mail to Mayor Schell, city council members, and other housing officials last week, Lee explained that city policy directs the Office of Housing (OH) to spend 50 percent of its housing dollars on units for the homeless and for households living at 30 percent and below the median income. This would include housing for families of four with an income of about $18,600 a year or lower. But only 32 percent of OH-funded units were affordable to households at that level on a long-term basis, Lee says. OH couldn't demonstrate exactly what percentage of total dollars those units represented.

"What's scary is, I think they were not aware of this policy," she says.

"They're also not following policy in terms of providing homeless units," she says. OH's policy states that all low-income housing is required to include some units for homeless people. But of the seven projects funded by OH in 1999, none included homeless units, she says. LIHI's own project for very-low-income households was the only one in 1999 that included homeless units.

Bill Rumpf, deputy director of OH, thinks Lee's complaint is sour grapes. Rumpf says Lee is disappointed that OH only funded one of LIHI's four funding requests last year. Rumpf, however, wouldn't discuss specific numbers, saying only that the office is doing the best it can with the dollars it has -- $2.7 million for low-income housing projects.