Housing agencies bracing for cuts
Changes in federal housing policy will boost the rents of poor, disabled and elderly residents on voucher programs in Spokane County, according to local officials and a recent national survey.
The changes, enacted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this spring, will increase rents about $25 a recipient, according to the Spokane Housing Authority.
“For someone on a fixed income, it’s a significant amount,” said Justin Vest, director of the housing authority’s voucher program. “But if HUD’s formula continues, we’re going to look at even more cuts next year. This is just kind of the beginning of it.”
Similar changes are expected in Idaho, although an official said exact figures were not yet available. A spokesman for the Idaho Housing and Finance Association said his agency, which serves 34 counties, anticipates a 10 percent funding cut.
“Our goal is to keep people housed,” said spokesman Reed Hollinshead. “We don’t want to kick people to the street. But you also have to work with the budget you have.”
HUD officials enacted the changes because of the escalating cost of Section 8 vouchers, which help pay the rent of very low-income households. The federal agency defended the new policy, saying it would “more closely reflect actual funding needs and local rental market changes.” HUD estimated that fewer than half of the nation’s 2,500 public housing authorities will experience changes.
The cuts are expected to affect 1,755 households in Washington state, according to the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, a Seattle group.
Spokane fared better than many other metropolitan areas because it spread $20 million in annual spending to a greater number of people, rather than focusing large grants on a few households. In Spokane, a recipient pays an average of $150 a month in rent, and federal grants cover the rest. Advocates say it’s a crucial step to help homeless and poor families gradually move toward homeownership.
In Spokane, a minimum-wage worker must clock 62 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom home, according to a 2003 study by a national housing coalition.
Those who can’t buy, rent, officials say.
More than 4,000 Spokane households are on the waiting list for rental assistance.
Spokane’s housing authority, which spends $370,000 a month subsidizing the city’s poor, faces a $500,000 budget shortfall this year.
Vest said the housing authority would also cut payments to private-property managers, raising fears that some may pull their subsidized apartments from the program.
In Tacoma, housing officials recalled vouchers to 180 families because of a $2.6 million shortfall.
“It’s akin to someone having a limited number of life preservers in the boat,” said Peter Ansara, executive director of the Tacoma Housing Authority.
Other cities, including Portland, have shelved vouchers, gradually dropping their enrollment through attrition, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.
HUD announced the policy change in April, but local officials are only now learning the impacts.
The Bush administration has proposed a sharp cut to the housing voucher program in 2005, the center said.
Barbara Sand, director of the center’s housing policy, said the cuts are “an illustration of the kind of harm likely” to be seen if the administration’s 2005 proposal passes.