Housing facts of life

Most of us don't understand the housing dynamic at work across the nation and how it drastically affects low-income Americans .  Here's a description of  part of the reality we face in urban areas:

"Nationwide, even as the rental market is growing across all income levels and homeownership has decreased for eight years running, new apartments are predominantly built for the rich. Only about 10 percent of rental apartments coming into the market are affordable to people who make less than $35,000 per year — that is, the group that encompasses half the total number of rental households. The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University reports that the median asking rent for a new unit in 2013 was a startling $1,300 a month. Meanwhile, the rate of both subsidized and “naturally occurring” affordable units is shrinking, because owners are either raising rents in strong markets or, in weak markets, they let the units deteriorate until they become unlivable."

Source here.

Something to watch. . .to understand

Housing and the "shutdown"

For your information (From the Texas Homeless Network’s Newsletter):

Effects of Shutdown on HUD

On the morning of October 1, federal employees were required to show up for work to implement steps to close down federal activities. HUD’s shutdown contingency plan left fewer than 400 employees “excepted” from the shutdown to ensure that basic activities occur. The criteria for an activity to be excepted is “where the failure to address issues result in a threat to safety of life and protection of property.” Excepted activities include most functions of homeless assistance programs, the distribution of HUD block grants, and FHA insurance programs.

HUD’s largest rental assistance programs (tenant-based rental assistance, public housing, and project-based rental assistance) appear to have previously-obligated funding or advance appropriations funding to continue normal operations through October and, for the project-based program, “into November,” according to an October 2 update of HUD’s Contingency Plan. HUD also says in the October 2 update that it will continue to process project-based contract renewals during the shutdown to the extent there is available funding into November.

An October 4 memo from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that since funding for the public housing and housing choice voucher programs are made for calendar years, Congress has already appropriated these resources. It is now a matter of whether or not HUD will have sufficient staff due to the shutdown to administer these funds. The administration of funds may fall under HUD’s plan to deploy staff excepted from the shutdown to prevent imminent threats to the safety of human life or the protection of property.

For tenant-based rental assistance, HUD has disbursed October housing assistance payments and administrative fees, but there are no payments beyond October scheduled at this time. HUD is not processing requests for tenant protection vouchers for public housing or multifamily actions.

HUD’s contingency plan predicts that most of the country’s 3,300 public housing agencies (PHAs) have the necessary funds to continue providing public housing assistance for the remainder of the month. Funding beyond October will depend in part upon the resources of individual PHAs.

Homeless Assistance activities that “protect against imminent threats to the safety of human life” are continuing, including housing for people with AIDS and supportive housing for veterans.

HUD will disburse HOME Investment Partnerships program, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and other block grants for which funds have already been appropriated.

View HUD’s contingency plan for additional details on agency functions that will continue or have already halted at: http://www.hud.gov

View the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ October 4 Memo on the shutdown’s impact on housing programs at: http://bit.ly/176QLiz

  

Paula Maroney

Director - Continuum of Care

Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA)

2816 Swiss Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204