Authority stops taking names for waiting list

With a waiting list of 5,600 people, the Spokane Housing Authority has stopped taking names for federally subsidized Section 8 rental housing, citing cutbacks and an ever-growing number of families in need.

Today, a person signing up for Section 8 rental assistance – the largest federal program of its kind in the country – will not receive help for at least four years in Spokane.

“It’s gotten to the point where we’re giving them a false sense of hope that there might be assistance in the near future,” said Justin Vest, the program’s director of assisted housing.

The Section 8 program helps the very poor, elderly and disabled afford rental units owned by private landlords. Typically about 30 percent of a recipient’s adjusted gross income goes to pay for rental housing while the vouchers make up the difference.

“Cuts in domestic spending are hitting the very low-income families,” Vest said. “Resources are so meager and subsidies are so low that many can’t afford rental housing.”

In Washington state, public housing authorities lost $9 million in funding this year, down to $312 million, according to data released earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In North Idaho, about 750 households rely on the vouchers, a number that will be gradually reduced through attrition. The Idaho Housing and Finance Association, the largest of four program administrators in the state, lost about $300,000 in funding this year.

Spokane’s share of the funding dropped about 4 percent, or $800,000, this year. The housing authority, which administers nearly $20 million in Section 8 funds annually, provided housing assistance to more than 4,300 low-income households in Spokane County last year. Each month, the program helps about 30 new families, Vest said.

“We’ve lost funding to assist about 200 families over the last two years,” Vest said.

In the shadows of a real-estate boom, thousands of urban residents continue to struggle to pay rent.

Among them are Debra Staudenmayer, who was one of the last to add her name to Spokane’s waiting list for federally subsidized rental housing.

For the past several months, the 36-year-old mother of three and her boyfriend have parked their aging camper near a friend’s house.

Staudenmayer, who has bipolar disorder, organizes her children for school each morning, shuttling them to the adjoining home for showers. In the afternoon, she goes to her job as a telemarketer, where she earns $8.25 an hour – enough to feed her family but not enough to purchase her company’s health insurance plan.

Because her name is toward the end of the waiting list, she knows what her family is facing.

“It is not a quick fix for people,” said Staudenmayer.

Congressional studies of several public housing initiatives have found the Section 8 program to be the most flexible and cost-effective, but Bush administration officials argue the cost of the program, which serves 2 million households across the country, has spun out of control in recent years, pushed by rising rents and inflation.

With its announcement last week, Spokane became the last major housing authority in the state to close its waiting list, Vest said.