This much Maliki Bey has always known: The high-rise apartment he calls home is also an exercise in social policy.

"I don't want to lose it," he said.

But time, money and political support are running out for much of the city's, and the nation's, public housing.

The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority wants to tear down six of its largest and oldest public-housing communities and give the residents Section 8 vouchers so they can rent privately owned places.

The five-year plan hinges on approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which regulates public housing and issues the vouchers. Nearly 1,700 units, or about half the CMHA-owned total, would disappear, including historic Poindexter Village.

Dennis Guest, CMHA executive director, said he sees little choice. "We're bleeding," he said.

Double-digit percentage cuts by HUD have drained more than $7 million from the authority's operating subsidy since 2003. Nationally, advocates say, housing authorities have been underfunded by nearly $12 billion over the past seven years.

"Columbus is clearly a harbinger of what is to come," said Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities. "Housing authorities across the country are struggling. They are in a very deep hole."

Guest said the plan, approved Friday by the CMHA board, would be rolled out gradually for the approximately 2,700 people who live in communities slated for demolition.

Sawyer Towers tenants would go first, moving between March 2009 and June 2010. Lincoln Park would begin emptying in December 2009 and clear by March 2011; Riverside-Bradley, from June 2010 to March 2011; Sunshine Terrace, from December 2010 to December 2011; Marion Square, from December 2011 to March 2013; and Poindexter, from September 2011 until March 2013.

CMHA also is asking HUD for permission to sell about 130 units at Canonby Court, Reeb Hosack and other scattered sites to a private owner, with relocation being an option for residents.

Maplewood Heights and Bollinger Towers, both senior public-housing complexes with a total of 171 units, probably would be sold to a CMHA nonprofit affiliate and converted to Section 8. Residents would not be affected.

The city supports the restructuring, according to a letter from Mayor Michael B. Coleman to Guest.

"We know there are going to be long and hard discussions, and the city of Columbus will be sitting at the table," said Boyce Safford, city development director. "But I think deconcentration has good economic benefits for the community."

Councilwoman Charleta Tavares said families who want out of impoverished, crime-ridden complexes probably will welcome the change. "My concern is whether there are going to be enough units available. Are there enough landlords who accept the vouchers?"

Recent HUD policies have forced a shift toward vouchers, which Guest said is not necessarily a bad thing. The difference in program cost might be "a wash," he said, but "what we pick up with Section 8 is more flexibility."

Problems arise because no formal process has accompanied the change. Rather than getting adequate funding, public housing has been choked of support and left to die slowly, he said. "It's haphazard. That prolongs the pain."

Zaterman said the nation undoubtedly needs a "mixed public policy" on low-income housing, in the form of a split between authority-owned units and vouchers. The Bush administration, she said, is "stepping away from the mission. We don't have a process. What is happening is a consequence of underfunding."

The administration also is imposing new accounting regulations for housing authorities that will make it impossible to transfer money from relatively stable complexes to shore up aging money-losers, Guest said.

CMHA officials have notified communities of the demolition plan and met with all the residents' councils. "While there has been some resistance, there have also been many residents who said, 'OK. Give me my Section 8 voucher and let me go,' " Guest said.

Diane Scott said she and her husband want to leave Poindexter as soon as possible. In the two years they've lived in the East Side public-housing project, the city's oldest, they have seen roaches, bricks flying through their window and a body in the nearby trash bin.

"I want out," Scott said.

Bey feels differently about his home at Sunshine Terrace, a Franklinton high-rise. Disabled and dependent on a wheelchair, the 58-year-old likes his apartment and the on-site social services.

"It seems that there's an avalanche of people who are against low-income housing," Bey said. "But public housing has helped a lot of people. Where would we go?"

rprice@dispatch.com