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Housing Action Alert and Update
Submitted by Kathy Kregor
Update:
Rental Housing Support Program has passed in both the senate and the house.
Rental Housing Support Program SB75, which creates a state- funded rental assistance program, passed out of the house today on a vote of 72 to 43. It had previously passed out of the senate. Representative Hamos dedicated the legislation to long time housing advocates, Les Brown and John Donahue, for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Thank you everyone for your
past calls to legislators on this piece of important legislation.
Alert:
Calls are needed to federal senators and representatives asking them to oppose the State and Local Housing Flexibility Act of 2005. (S.771 & H.R. 1999) Call Senators and Representatives toll free at 888-818-6641. (Ask to speak to staff person who covers housing) Tell them you oppose the State and Local Housing Flexibility Act.
Background
The State and Local Housing Flexibility Act (SLHFA) will drastically change how affordable housing programs operate and reduce the number of extremely low income families and individuals - those with incomes below 30% of Area Median Income (AMI) – who will benefit from public housing and the Section 8 voucher program.
SLHFA will make the following changes in Public and Assisted Housing among others:
Income Targeting:
SLHFA allows 90% of vouchers to go to households with incomes up to 60% of area median. Nationally, 84% of severely cost burdened households have incomes below 30% of area median income. Today, at least 75% of voucher must go to households with incomes below 30% AMI. The bill represents a mismatch between known housing needs and use of federal resources.
Rents:
In both the public housing and voucher programs, the bill would allow rents to no longer be tied to incomes, which currently keeps rents affordable to low income people. The bill would allow housing authorities to establish their own rent policies, which may or may not be affordable to people with low income households.
Time Limits:
The bill allows housing authorities to establish time limits for participating in the voucher program.
Portability (ability to move out of the area served by the Housing Authority issuing the voucher):
The bill greatly restricts portability and poses other serious fair housing and civil rights problems. On portability, only certain housing authorities could port voucher to other authorities, and even then only with a written agreement.
Enhanced Vouchers:
Currently, residents are protected with enhanced vouchers if owners of HUD multifamily properties prepay on their mortgages or opt out of renewing project-based Section 8 contracts, Under SLHFA, enhanced vouchers will only be good for one year then they are converted to
regular tenant-based vouchers. Over 60,000 tenants with enhanced vouchers would be forced to move and find housing they can afford with a regular voucher.
Moving to Work:
Any housing authority could apply to be a Moving to Work site. As such, most housing requirements would no longer apply or could be waived (except for public housing demolition/disposition rules). A housing authority’s funds could be transferred and/or merged between the public housing operating and subsidy funds and the voucher program.
Catholic Social Teaching
Faithful Citizenship states that “The Church calls on all of us to embrace this preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, to embody it in our lives, and to work to have it shape public policies and priorities.” In their 2006 Federal Budget Impact Report, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference opposed “changes to the housing voucher program which could force public housing agencies to choose among three unacceptable options: cut families from the program,: charge higher rents to low-income families already struggling to make ends meet; or transfer vouchers from poorer to higher income families.”
Based on action alert issued by Bob Palmer
Statewide Housing Action Coalition
www.statewidehousing.org
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