Rent Costs to Rise Under Budget Proposal
By Scott Brooks
WASHINGTON –Many of the Bay State’s poor and unemployed may have to dish out more for rent if Congress approves new federal housing aid standards that the Bush administration has proposed.
President Bush asked Congress in his budget to set a minimum rent level of $50 per month for recipients of federal housing aid. The new level, designed to “promote work,” would force about 400,000 households nationally to pay higher rents, according to Donna White, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Currently, federal law bars local housing agencies from setting minimum rent at more than $50 per month but leaves them free to set rent levels as low as zero.
In Massachusetts and across the country, federally assisted tenants who have lost their jobs would no longer be exempt from rent payments and could be evicted for failing to pay the minimum rent. The proposed new standards would not apply to the elderly or disabled.
The administration’s plan could cause more pain than good in New Bedford, said Joseph S. Finnerty, executive director of the city’s Housing Authority. About 3,450 New Bedford tenants and their families benefit from federal housing programs, either living in public housing or accepting federal vouchers. Only a few would have to increase rent payments as a result of the proposed change.
Mr. Finnerty estimated that fewer than one-half of one percent of the city’s federal housing beneficiaries are currently paying less than the proposed minimum. About 15-20 New Bedford residents would be forced to pay more in rent or find other accommodations.
“It’s not going to generate a lot of money, but for some people, it’s going to create a lot of hardship,” Mr. Finnerty said.
Right now, New Bedford has a rent minimum of $25 per month. Fall River, where the minimum monthly rent is $50, would not be affected by the proposal.
Close to half of all New Bedford families living in public housing are currently working, Mr. Finnerty said.
“It’s not as if public housing is loaded with people in some kind of assistance program. But there are also people who just have a difficult time finding work,” Mr. Finnerty said. “There are many who don’t have the skills, but they have to have a place to live. They have to have a place they can afford to live in.”
Mr. Finnerty said the city rarely houses residents who are unlikely to find work. But naturally, he said, some tenants face hard times, and the city does not want to send them out onto the streets.
Current federal law bars agencies from evicting tenants for failing to meet the minimum rent requirement. It further allows local agencies to grant exceptions for many tenants who can prove “financial hardship,” such as a recent job loss or a death in the family. Bush’s proposal would eliminate these exceptions and require the federal government to decide on evictions on a case-by-case basis.
Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, a non-profit housing advocacy group in Boston, said President Bush is taking housing “in the wrong direction.” He criticized the proposal for stripping power from the local housing authorities and placing a burden on low-income renters.
“It would affect the poorest families in the commonwealth at a time when we’re facing a housing crisis of huge proportions. There just aren’t many other housing options for low-income people,” Mr. Gornstein said. “I think it would just contribute to the problem of family homelessness we’re facing in this state.”
Ms. White, the HUD spokeswoman, however, said the initiative is meant to “foster accountability and responsibility” among renters.
Half of all housing authorities in the country would be forced to increase their minimum rent requirement, Ms. White said. About 70 percent already have a rent minimum of at least $25.
“This is not something that’s unheard of,” she said. “It’s something that’s out there.”
Housing authorities across the country are expected to get less federal money in future years and therefore will be under additional fiscal pressure to boost minimum rents.
“I’m sure our situation in New Bedford is probably the same as what you’d find in the other 3,000 housing authorities in the United States,” Mr. Finnerty said.
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
