"The rent proposal would make life even harder for struggling families and could drive up the costs to taxpayers, by pushing more people into shelters, which cost far more than permanent apartments. The provision should be dropped before the draft bill moves into final form."
I simply do not understand where people who make these kinds of policy decisions get their information about the impact of poverty from. It's as if they don't exist in the same reality as the rest of us. It's not just maddingly frustrating to have to continually educate people about the challenges associated with being poor, it's also damned "angrifying" to know that behind so many of these crazy policies lies some secondary or ulterior agenda/motive, typically driven by the chance to earn some money.
Greed has become such a pervasive accoutrement for some public officials and administrators that it has begun to poison my own thought processes about how to help. I constantly have to wonder who is making a dollar on the backs of all this misery while listening over and over to the "we don't have the money" mantra when it comes to providing more or better services.
Worse, I know damned good and well that if the "product" was something that could be either turned for a profit or that would work to help us go "collectively" in and simply take the product from another country or nation who has more of it than we do, those who can
would throw more money at it than Carter has pills.
Such skewed priorities we have....
A Recipe for More Homelessness
Published: December 5, 2011
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| (Shanti Devi and Ram Sakhi fixing a handpump in the Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, India. Photo by WaterAid/Marco Betti) |
The draft version of the Section 8 Savings Act released earlier this year by the majority staff of the
House Financial Services Committee includes several excellent proposals that would cut administrative costs for public housing authorities, allowing them to more efficiently manage the programs that subsidize rents for more than three million of the country’s poorest families. But one damaging provision that crept into the draft would undo all of that good.
The provision would allow housing programs to raise rents on nearly 700,000 of the households that receive federal rent assistance, most by a minimum of $300 a year,
according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.
This would be a severe and unjustifiable burden for these extremely poor families, the majority of whom subsist on less than $3,000 per year. The report argues that higher rents would force some poor families to divert resources from basic needs like food, clothing and medicine. Others would be unable to cover the new costs forcing them to double up with relatives, move into shelters or into the streets.
The goal of the proposed Section 8 Savings Act is to reduce costs for cash-strapped public housing authorities so that they can do more to help the poor in these tough times. The rent proposal would make life even harder for struggling families and could drive up the costs to taxpayers, by pushing more people into shelters, which cost far more than permanent apartments. The provision should be dropped before the draft bill moves into final form.
From the
Center Budget and Policy Priorities:
Proposed Change in HUD’s “Minimum Rent” Policy Could Raise Rents for Several Hundred Thousand Poor Families
Revised November 28, 2011
Leadership of the House Financial Services Committee recently circulated draft legislation that could increase rental costs for several hundred thousand extremely poor families that receive federal housing assistance. Families in every state could face rent increases that could total $300 a year or more (see Appendix 1).
The change would fall on the poorest housing assistance recipients. Currently, families that receive assistance are generally required to pay 30 percent of their income for rent, but public housing agencies may require families to pay a minimum rent of up to $50 per month if 30 percent of their income is less than that amount. The minimum rent thus affects only the most impoverished recipients, including many who would be at high risk of homelessness in the absence of rental assistance.
The new proposal, included in a revised October 5
th draft of the Section 8 Savings Act (SESA),
[1] would increase the minimum rent that families can be charged from $50 a month to either $75 a month or 12 percent of the local Fair Market Rent (FMR), whichever is higher. (The FMR is HUD's estimate of the amount needed to cover the rent and utility costs of moderately priced housing units in a given local area.) The increase would affect the most destitute people receiving housing assistance (since those are the people who pay the minimum rent), with the largest rent increases falling on very poor families with children, as a result of the 12-percent-of-FMR component of the proposed minimum rent standard.
An increase in monthly minimum rents from $50 to $75 would raise annual housing costs by $300, a difficult burden for destitute families with little or no income. Moreover, most of the families affected by the new policy would face rents of
more than $75 per month, as a result of the proposal's linkage between rent contributions and prevailing rents in the area (i.e., the 12-percent-of-FMR provision). Families in high-cost metropolitan areas and with three or more children would face the highest minimum rents and be at the greatest risk of hardship. Moreover, the rent floor would rise further each year as market rents increase.
At a time of persistent, high unemployment, it is not clear what the rationale is for increasing the rent floor by 50 percent or more; the committee has not provided one. The change would generate some added rent revenues that would lower costs in the housing assistance programs, but as noted,
those higher rents would be paid by some of the nation's most vulnerable people. Raising rents on the very poor as a way to cut expenditures and reduce deficits also would contradict the principle, set forth in the report of fiscal commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, that deficit reduction should not make the nation's poorest people still poorer.
[2]
The higher minimum rents in SESA would be optional for housing agencies, but most agencies — 73 percent of those surveyed for a 2010 HUD-sponsored study — currently set their minimum rents at the maximum level permitted, and the share of housing assistance recipients paying rents at that level has risen sharply in recent years.
[3] Moreover, even the minority of agencies that previously have not set minimum rents at the maximum level permitted could face considerable pressure to impose higher rents to make up for funding shortfalls. Congress recently enacted 2012 appropriations legislation that cut public housing funding deeply, and the long-term caps on domestic appropriations adopted as part of the recent Budget Control Act increase the chances that funding for both public housing and vouchers will be tight in future years.
Raising minimum rents could significantly harm some of the poorest recipients of housing assistance. Housing agencies are required to provide hardship exemptions from minimum rents in certain situations, but the 2010 HUD-sponsored study found that these exemptions were very rare. Among agencies that had adopted minimum rents above zero, 82 percent reported granting exemptions to fewer than 1 percent of families subject to the minimum rent, and only 5 percent of agencies said that they had exempted more than 10 percent of families.
HUD has not assessed the level of hardship experienced by families that are required to pay the minimum rent, but it is likely that many families at risk of homelessness or other serious hardship do not receive exemptions. Exemptions are available only to families that apply for them, so if a housing agency does an inadequate job of making families aware of the exemption policy or if households (many of which will include people with mental and physical disabilities or very low education levels) do not manage to apply for them, some families that qualify for a hardship exemption will not receive one. In, addition, some of the most destitute households — such as the chronically homeless — may not even qualify for an exemption, which typically requires a showing of a change in circumstances.
[4] Moreover, families with temporary hardships who are exempted still must pay the accumulated rent arrears when their situation improves, and they may be evicted if they cannot make the extra payments.
SESA contains important improvements to the Section 8 housing voucher program and other federal rental assistance programs that would ease administrative burdens, make it easier for private owners to participate in the voucher program, establish voucher funding rules that would help local housing agencies use funds more efficiently, and generate more than $700 million in federal savings. SESA's core provisions are needed at a time when budgets are tight and housing needs are high, and Congress should move promptly to enact them.
[5] But the House Financial Services Committee should reject the proposed increase in the minimum rent.
Families in Every State Could Face Increased Rents
Families receiving federal rental assistance typically pay 30 percent of their adjusted income toward rent and utility costs. Public housing agencies are permitted to set a "minimum rent" for public housing residents and families participating in the Section 8 Housing Choice voucher (HCV) program that is
higher than that 30 percent level. This rent floor, however, may not exceed $50 per month.
[6] In the project-based Section 8 program, current law requires HUD to set the minimum rent rather than leaving the decision up to the thousands of private owners that administer the rental assistance attached to the properties. HUD has set the minimum rent for residents of these properties at $25 per month.
In a draft of SESA dated October 5, 2011, Rep. Judy Biggert, Chair of the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity, included a proposed amendment to the minimum rent provision of current law. The proposed change would:
- Raise the cap on the minimum rent — i.e., the rent that may be charged regardless of income — to $75 or 12 percent of the applicable Fair Market Rent, whichever is higher; and
- Allow HUD to permit private owners to set the minimum rent for assisted residents of their properties at up to the same cap that applies to public housing agencies.[7]
The October 5
th SESA draft contains a separate provision that limits the application of the minimum rent increase and a number of other changes in the bill to public housing agencies (PHAs) that receive approval from HUD to implement an agency-designed self-sufficiency program. If this limitation (intended as an incentive for agencies to establish self-sufficiency programs) were enacted as written, the increase in the minimum rent cap would apply to some, but not all,
housing agencies and would not apply
to the project-based Section 8 program, as those properties largely are not owned by public housing agencies.
Congress could modify or eliminate these limitations, however, as SESA moves forward, and the feature of the bill that does not permit the higher minimum rents in project-based Section 8 may have been inadvertent. Moreover, groups representing private assisted owners are already objecting to that limitation.
We have estimated the impact of the policy change if Congress were to apply the increase in the minimum rent cap to all PHAs and private assisted owners.
[8] These are our major findings.
- Some 13 percent of assisted households — more than 505,000 families — paid less than $75 per month toward their rent and utility costs in 2010, according to HUD administrative data. All of these families could face a rent increase under the new minimum rent policy.
- The new policy also could affect an additional 173,000 families that paid modestly more than $75 per month for rent and utilities in 2010 but could face higher rents under the FMR-based minimum rent.
- In all, 685,000 families could face a rent increase, or 17 percent of the assisted households for which we had sufficient data to include in the analysis.
Table 1:
Households at Risk of Rent Increase due to SESA Minimum Rent Proposal, By Program |
| Housing Choice Vouchers | Public Housing | Project-based Section 8 | Total |
| National | 308,255 | 179,955 | 196,783 | 684,993 |
| Source: CBPP analysis of HUD administrative data. |
- A large share of the affected families — some 100,000 households — could have to pay more than $150 per month under the proposed policy. For nearly two-fifths of the potentially affected families, the rent permitted under the new policy would be at least double the maximum their housing agency or owner could require them to pay today.
- In nearly the entire country, the rent floor could exceed $75 for at least some units or vouchers. The higher FMR-based rent floor would affect three-bedroom units in 506 out of 514 metro areas and 3,112 out of 3,228 counties. For two-bedroom units or vouchers, the minimum rent could exceed $75 in 74 percent of metro areas. Appendix 2 shows the applicable minimum rent cap for the highest-cost FMR area in each state.
- About 70 percent of public housing and project-based Section 8 units and 83 percent of vouchers are located or used in areas where the minimum rent could exceed $75 under the FMR-based rent floor.[9]
Most Families Affected Have Children
Seventy percent of the households that could face a rent increase under the proposed policy — 475,000 families — have minor children. Research has found that homelessness, crowding, and housing instability have serious harmful effects on children's health and development. Adults in 77,000 of these families worked in 2010 or received unemployment insurance based on recent work but would have to pay more than 30 percent of their income at the newly allowed rent floor. Some 17,000 of these families with children are headed by a person who is elderly or has disabilities.
More than 124,000 of the families with children that would face a rent increase receive modest cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. In nine states, TANF benefits are sufficiently low that all
TANF families with two children or more who do not have other income could have to pay more than 30 percent of their very small incomes for rent under the proposed policy.
[10] Moreover, many states are cutting TANF benefit levels and imposing other restrictions on benefits due to budget shortfalls.
[11] (See Appendix 2 for a state-by-state table of minimum rents and TANF benefit levels.)
Families that face rent increases under the proposed policy would be forced to divert resources from other basic needs, such as food, medicine, or clothing. Some families would be unable to cover the increases and would be displaced from their homes. These families would often be compelled to double up in crowded conditions or live in hotels, shelters, or on the streets. It is likely that a significant number of this group of households were admitted to one of the federal housing programs because they were homeless; the proposed policy could cause a number of these households to rejoin the ranks of the homeless.
Conclusion
The draft Section 8 Savings Act includes a number of well-considered, non-controversial policy changes that would improve the effectiveness of the federal rental assistance programs and reduce administrative burdens without harming vulnerable families. Unfortunately, the inclusion in the latest draft of an increase in the allowable minimum rent does not meet these key tests. Congress should delete the minimum rent proposal as it considers this important bill.
Appendix 1:
Households At Risk of Rent Increase Due to SESA Minimum Rent Proposal
by State and Program |
| State | Housing Choice Vouchers | Public Housing | Project-based Section 8 | Total Number of Households at Risk |
| Alabama | 6,283 | 7,393 | 3,373 | 17,049 |
| Alaska* | 0 | 0 | 126 | 126 |
| Arizona | 4,728 | 1,581 | 1,053 | 7,362 |
| Arkansas | 2,927 | 1,946 | 1,754 | 6,627 |
| California* | 32,941 | 5,912 | 10,232 | 49,085 |
| Colorado | 5,914 | 1,463 | 2,781 | 10,158 |
| Connecticut* | 4,819 | 1,594 | 2,030 | 8,443 |
| Delaware* | 723 | 314 | 738 | 1,775 |
| District of Columbia* | 0 | 0 | 3,379 | 3,379 |
| Florida | 16,239 | 5,994 | 8,936 | 31,169 |
| Georgia* | 10,482 | 5,839 | 6,883 | 23,204 |
| Hawaii | 2,025 | 1,212 | 378 | 3,615 |
| Idaho | 942 | 84 | 563 | 1,589 |
| Illinois* | 7,407 | 5,554 | 9,470 | 22,431 |
| Indiana | 7,829 | 3,572 | 6,801 | 18,202 |
| Iowa | 2,278 | 241 | 1,059 | 3,578 |
| Kansas* | 1,416 | 1,148 | 1,362 | 3,926 |
| Kentucky* | 3,849 | 2,895 | 5,296 | 12,040 |
| Louisiana | 7,670 | 2,304 | 3,013 | 12,987 |
| Maine | 922 | 218 | 355 | 1,495 |
| Massachusetts* | 5,600 | 1,364 | 4,106 | 11,070 |
| Maryland* | 5,415 | 2,655 | 4,204 | 12,274 |
| Michigan | 7,168 | 2,483 | 5,716 | 15,367 |
| Minnesota* | 3,033 | 1,626 | 3,330 | 7,989 |
| Mississippi | 3,910 | 1,480 | 4,471 | 9,861 |
| Missouri | 8,870 | 2,987 | 4,812 | 16,669 |
| Montana | 832 | 340 | 456 | 1,628 |
| Nebraska* | 1,554 | 934 | 656 | 3,144 |
| Nevada | 2,984 | 929 | 750 | 4,663 |
| New Hampshire* | 624 | 179 | 210 | 1,013 |
| New Jersey | 9,209 | 3,921 | 5,541 | 18,671 |
| New Mexico | 1,458 | 530 | 607 | 2,595 |
| New York | 20,114 | 16,772 | 8,672 | 45,558 |
| North Carolina* | 8,357 | 8,586 | 5,258 | 22,201 |
| North Dakota | 953 | 211 | 412 | 1,576 |
| Ohio* | 18,106 | 11,332 | 16,214 | 45,652 |
| Oklahoma | 5,035 | 2,996 | 4,048 | 12,079 |
| Oregon* | 2,858 | 353 | 985 | 4,196 |
| Pennsylvania* | 6,287 | 4,480 | 6,374 | 17,141 |
| Rhode Island | 1,121 | 1,124 | 976 | 3,221 |
| South Carolina | 4,707 | 3,541 | 5,619 | 13,867 |
| South Dakota | 1,011 | 151 | 842 | 2,004 |
| Tennessee | 7,449 | 8,535 | 8,448 | 24,432 |
| Texas* | 25,217 | 8,990 | 12,402 | 46,609 |
| Utah | 1,746 | 344 | 670 | 2,760 |
| Vermont | 277 | 46 | 118 | 441 |
| Virginia | 8,858 | 5,392 | 7,079 | 21,329 |
| Washington* | 2,398 | 387 | 1,167 | 3,952 |
| West Virginia | 2,716 | 1,023 | 1,633 | 5,372 |
| Wisconsin | 2,508 | 753 | 2,660 | 5,921 |
| Wyoming | 283 | 81 | 328 | 692 |
| Puerto Rico | 16,996 | 34,400 | 7,768 | 59,164 |
| Other Territories | 1,207 | 1,766 | 567 | 3,540 |
| Source: CBPP analysis of HUD administrative data. States marked with an asterisk have one or more agencies participating in the Moving to Work Demonstration. We excluded families served by MTW agencies from these estimates because those agencies have broad authority to raise minimum rents under current law. |
Appendix 2:
Rents for 2 Bedroom Units in Highest Cost Area of Each State,
Compared to TANF Benefit Levels |
| State | Fair Market Rent (FMR) for 2 Bedroom Unit in Highest Cost Area | Monthly Minimum Rent Cap for 2 Bedroom Unit in Highest Cost Area, Under Proposal | TANF Benefit for 3-Person Family |
| Alabama | 754 | 90 | 215 |
| Alaska | 1,429 | 171 | 923 |
| Arizona | 887 | 106 | 278 |
| Arkansas | 717 | 86 | 204 |
| California | 1,905 | 229 | 638 |
| Colorado | 1,244 | 149 | 462 |
| Connecticut | 1,769 | 212 | 674 |
| Delaware | 1,075 | 129 | 338 |
| District of Columbia | 1,506 | 181 | 428 |
| Florida | 1,419 | 170 | 303 |
| Georgia | 842 | 101 | 280 |
| Hawaii | 1,767 | 212 | 610 |
| Idaho | 888 | 107 | 309 |
| Illinois | 985 | 118 | 432 |
| Indiana | 818 | 98 | 288 |
| Iowa | 751 | 90 | 426 |
| Kansas | 754 | 90 | 429 |
| Kentucky | 723 | 87 | 262 |
| Louisiana | 948 | 114 | 240 |
| Maine | 1,004 | 120 | 485 |
| Maryland | 1,587 | 190 | 574 |
| Massachusetts | 1,799 | 216 | 618 |
| Michigan | 874 | 105 | 492 |
| Minnesota | 904 | 108 | 532 |
| Mississippi | 753 | 90 | 170 |
| Missouri | 792 | 95 | 292 |
| Montana | 751 | 90 | 504 |
| Nebraska | 757 | 91 | 364 |
| Nevada | 1,024 | 123 | 383 |
| New Hampshire | 1,369 | 164 | 675 |
| New Jersey | 1,515 | 182 | 424 |
| New Mexico | 944 | 113 | 380 |
| New York | 1,682 | 202 | 798 i |
| North Carolina | 1,064 | 128 | 272 |
| North Dakota | 686 | 82 | 477 |
| Ohio | 790 | 95 | 434 |
| Oklahoma | 732 | 88 | 292 |
| Oregon | 891 | 107 | 506 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,075 | 129 | 421 ii |
| Rhode Island | 1,123 | 135 | 554 |
| South Carolina | 874 | 105 | 216 |
| South Dakota | 714 | 86 | 555 |
| Tennessee | 751 | 90 | 185 |
| Texas | 989 | 119 | 260 |
| Utah | 897 | 108 | 498 |
| Vermont | 1,124 | 135 | 665 iii |
| Virginia | 1,506 | 181 | 389 |
| Washington | 1,098 | 132 | 478 |
| West Virginia | 908 | 109 | 340 |
| Wisconsin | 904 | 108 | 673 |
| Wyoming | 888 | 107 | 577 |
| i The TANF benefit level is for residents of Nassau County, NY to correspond with the highest cost area. ii The highest cost area in Pennsylvania is the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA and includes the counties of: Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester and Bucks. The TANF benefit listed is for the counties of: Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, Lancaster, and Pike. iii The highest cost rent area in Vermont is the Burlington-South Burlington MSA and includes the counties of Chittenden, Grand Isle and Franklin. The TANF benefit listed is for Chittenden County. |
End Notes:
[1] This second draft of SESA, dated October 5, 2011, is available at
http://www.cbpp.org/files/SESA-draft2_10-6-11.pdf. The change in the limit on minimum rents is on p. 16 of the bill, lines 7-19.
[2] See Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, "Our advice to the debt supercommittee: Go big, be bold, be smart,"
Washington Post, September 30, 2011,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-advice-to-the-debt-supercommittee-go-big-be-bold-be-smart/2011/09/30/gIQAPzjBBL_story.html .
[3] Abt Associates et al,
Study of Rents and Rent Flexibility, prepared for HUD Office of Public and Indian Housing, May 26, 2010,
http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/Rent%20Study_Final%20Report_05-26-10.pdf .
[4] Families who would be evicted due to inability to pay the minimum rent should be granted an exemption, but only if they request one. See 24 C.F.R. § 5.630.
[5] See testimony of Barbara Sard and of Will Fischer submitted to the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity of the House Financial Services Committee on June 23, 2011 and October 13, 2011,
http://www.cbpp.org/research/index.cfm?fa=topic&id=143.
[6] HUD allows agencies participating in the Moving to Work demonstration to set a minimum rent at any level. Some agencies have used this discretion to set a minimum rent above $50 or eliminate income-based rents entirely for certain types of families.
[7] The increase in the cap on minimum rents is new in the October 5
th SESA draft. The flexibility for HUD to delegate the setting of minimum rents was included in the earlier draft of SESA (as well as the last draft of the predecessor Section 8 Voucher Reform Act) in order to facilitate the adoption of uniform rent policies for all of HUD's major rental assistance programs.
[8] To estimate the impact of the proposed minimum rent policy change, we used HUD's 2010 extract of administrative data gathered through the PIC and TRACS systems for the programs currently subject to the minimum rent policy under the U.S. Housing Act — Housing Choice (Section 8) vouchers, project-based Section 8 (except Moderate Rehabilitation units), and public housing. For the FMR-based component of the proposed policy, we compared the HUD-determined 2012 FMR for the appropriate location and unit size (based on the actual unit occupied or the bedroom size of the Housing Choice voucher used by the family) to the tenant rent contribution ("total tenant payment") shown in the HUD administrative data. These estimates are conservative. Data were missing for about 317,000 of the 4,253,000 households that received rental assistance under these programs in 2010, so we excluded them from the analysis; we did not try to extrapolate the results of our analysis to the missing households. In much of New England, HUD sets FMRs for individual towns rather than for entire counties; we used the lowest FMRs applicable to any town within each county. Finally, we excluded families served by PHAs in the Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration from this estimate because MTW agencies are allowed by HUD to set minimum rents at any level. Exclusion of MTW agencies from the analysis reduced the number of affected families by at least 63,000. (In 2010, MTW agencies served 165,000 voucher households omitted from the analysis due to missing data.)
[9] More families could be impacted by the minimum rent policy than we estimate if larger families replace smaller households when vouchers are reissued as families leave the program (since FMR-based minimum rents are higher for units with more bedrooms), or if families who leave the program are replaced with poorer families, on average.
[10] Under current law, a family of one adult and two minor children would pay an income-based rent of less than $75 per month if it received TANF benefits of $279 or less per month. In 2010, the TANF benefit level was this low in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. See Liz Schott and Ife Finch, "TANF Benefits Are Low and Have Not Kept Pace with Inflation," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 14, 2010,
http://www.cbpp.org/files/10-14-10tanf.pdf .
[11] Liz Schott and LaDonna Pavetti, Ph.D., "Many States Cutting TANF Benefits Harshly Despite High Unemployment and Unprecedented Need," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, revised October 3, 2011,
http://www.cbpp.org/files/5-19-11tanf.pdf. Families' income losses in these states are not reflected in this analysis as the HUD data is for the period ending December 31, 2010.
