A Presidential Assault On Housing

Community Commentary by Jeffrey Freiser


It is said that there is a charitable institution with a plaque that
reads, "This hospital a pious person built, but first he made the poor
wherewith to fill't." Although that inscription is likely apocryphal, the
reality of President Bush's policies on housing and homelessness offers
similarly cruel irony.

The Bush Administration trumpets its commitment to ending homelessness
in America, such as its proposed $70 million Samaritan Initiative. Yet
the president's budget for federal fiscal year 2005, announced in
February, would provide $1.6 billion less than is needed to serve all those
currently receiving Section 8 housing assistance, according to the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The sweeping changes he seeks in
the Section 8 program might best be labeled "The Homelessness Creation
Act of 2004."

The Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8, has
been an essential and effective tool to help low-wage families, the
elderly and disabled to maintain safe and decent housing. Typically,
participants in the program pay 30 percent of their income toward an apartment
and the Section 8 program pays the balance, up to an established rent
standard. The program began in 1974 under the Nixon Administration,
designed to harness the private market to provide housing for the poor.
Today, nearly 2 million households rely on Section 8, including 34,000 in
Connecticut.

The need for housing help is stark, particularly in our high-cost
state. A national study called "Out of Reach" found that, on average across
Connecticut, a worker needs to earn $18 an hour to afford a modest,
two-bedroom apartment. That's more than two-and-a-half times the minimum
wage. Housing is so expensive in lower Fairfield County that someone
making only minimum wage would have to labor an incredible 162 hours a
week to afford a two-bedroom rental there. Fortunately, that computes to
working over 23 hours a day, seven days a week — virtually eliminating
the need for a home at all.

The Washington D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
analyzed the Bush budget, concluding that up to 250,000 families nationally
could lose Section 8 assistance next year. If the funding cut is carried
out solely by eliminating vouchers, over 4,000 Connecticut families
would be dropped from the program, including 74 in Meriden and 14 in
Wallingford.

To soften the blow, President Bush seeks to convert Section 8 into a
block grant, promising increased flexibility in exchange for decreased
funding. Public housing authorities, which administer the Section 8
program locally, would be allowed to save money by throwing out current
rules. For example, the housing authority could substantially increase the
rent portion paid by Section 8 families, or might instead choose to
serve higher income households which would need smaller subsidies.

The assault on Section 8 became more virulent in April, when the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development abruptly announced a new
funding rule in the middle of the current fiscal year. HUD told housing
authorities that they would now be paid based on a formula using the
number of last year's vouchers, without regard to their actual costs this
year. Crisis and confusion followed — many landlords were threatened
with lower rent payments; voucher holders feared losing their homes.

The plot thickened further last week, when the House Appropriations
Committee passed its version of the 2005 HUD budget. Responding to
widespread outcry, the Republican-controlled committee added nearly $1.5
billion to Section 8 above the amount sought by President Bush. It did so,
unfortunately, by cutting over 4 percent across-the-board from the rest
of HUD's programs — including those serving the homeless, the elderly,
people with AIDS and families with lead-poisoned children. Of course,
it's all about priorities. Our most vulnerable families struggle to pay
the rent, while our country's largest housing program — tax benefits
for homeowners — remains sacrosanct. To be sure, these tax advantages —
such as mortgage interest and property tax deductions and capital gains
exclusions — are real subsidies from the federal government. If a
homeowner and renter have identical incomes and housing costs, only the
homeowner will receive a big tax refund check.

Tax expenditures for housing, benefiting primarily middle and
upper-income homeowners, will cost the Treasury $119.3 billion this year. In
comparison, the entire HUD budget, serving mostly lower-income households,
is $30.4 billion. Meanwhile, the president's tax cuts for the
wealthiest individuals and largest corporations have ballooned the deficit and
extinguished hope for meeting domestic needs.

We should not have to make such choices among urgent housing
priorities. In America, we once believed that if you worked hard and played by
the rules, you would be able to put a roof over your children's heads.
That can still be true today, if we have the political will to make it
so.

Jeffrey Freiser is executive director of the Connecticut Housing
Coalition and a Meriden resident. He is currently a guest member of the
Record-Journal's Editorial Board.

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