Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Bush sets sights on housing vouchers
The Bush administration is changing the nation's largest program of housing assistance so that, for the first time, the government no longer is promising to pay the full cost of rent vouchers that help nearly 2 million poor families.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is putting into place the new payment method for the program, a cornerstone of federal housing policy known as Section 8, before Congress decides whether to endorse a broader proposal by the administration that would eliminate many longtime federal rules governing which people get rent assistance and how much they must pay.
The payment change, which is infuriating congressional Democrats and advocates for affordable housing, is essentially a different route for the administration to accomplish a central goal of its larger proposal: to constrain rapid growth in the program's spending.
Section 8 is a form of housing assistance that was created three decades ago and traditionally has been more popular among Republicans than the nation's network of public housing, because it relies on the private market. The program allows poor families, disabled people and the elderly to obtain a rent voucher -- 1.9 million are available this year -- from a local housing authority and take it to any private landlord in the community who is willing to accept it.
Until now, the government has allotted each of the nation's 2,500 participating housing authorities a specific number of vouchers each year, set rent limits for every community and then reimbursed their costs. Under the new method, HUD pays each housing authority based on its costs last August, adjusted by an inflation formula. That formula is not guaranteed to keep pace with rent increases.
Story.
posted by chris at 5:23 PM
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