Student describes Housing Assistance

Housing Assistance

Housing Assistance programs have a purpose to help clear out houses and neighborhoods with very poor living conditions, and bring families living in such substandard housing into a better home and neighborhood by providing financial assistance for the cost of housing. The Housing Act of 1949 brought forth this government funding to promote community development and eradicate slums that came after The Great Depression.  The largest subgroup of this program today is the Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8.  In 1974, the Housing and Community Development Act was passed which attempted to fix the biggest housing problems vexing low-income families.  

Section 8 housing is administered locally by Public Housing Agencies throughout the nation.  This program is made pretty simple in terms of the processes used; the local agencies provide vouchers to the low-income families, and the low income families try to find landlords who will accept the vouchers.  The initial standard rent contribution from the family who will in the subsidized rental housing is set locally by the Public Housing Agency, then is lowered according to the family’s income and ability to pay.  So, all in all, the voucher program is set in place to put a limit on the amount paid for rent in low-income families.  The bill for monthly rent in Section 8 housing will never be more than 30% of the monthly income of the tenant; the rest is paid for by the voucher.  Families are allowed to choose where they want to live if granted a voucher, but they will need to find a landlord willing to accept them, and landlords are permitted to discriminate against potential renters using the housing rental assistance vouchers; many do.  The housing must meet specific standards set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to ensure that homes paid for (partly) by federal dollars at least meet health and safety requirements.

To qualify for Section 8 housing, the tenant must have an income 50% lower than the nation’s median income, which is around $56,000.  In other words, the tenants’ income cannot be greater than $28,000 to qualify for this Section 8 voucher program.  This voucher program has also been extended to families or individuals who are disabled or elderly.

There are other, smaller Housing Assistance programs to help low income families with housing costs.  Each year, nearly 50 billion dollars is spent in housing assistance programs, with nearly 20 billion being spent on Section 8 housing assistance.  

As you can see, nearly half of the budget provided for housing assistance goes into tenant based programs; which is the Section 8 housing with the voucher program.  Project based housing assistance is very similar to Section 8 housing; this program allows apartment landlords to obtain a subsidy to help lower the rental costs for low-income tenants.  

Across the nation we currently have nearly 43 million Americans living in poverty; however only 4.5 million families are taking advantage of low-income housing assistance programs provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  None of the housing benefits administered by HUD are mandatory spending; everything is part of the discretionary budget.  While generous liberals might well argue that HUD ought to provide vouchers or public housing for 2o million households Americans rather than 4.5 million households, conservatives may appreciate the fact that these programs use so little to serve only a fraction who need the help, thus allegedly putting the fear of homelessness into the souls of low-income persons so that they will be more willing to accept unpleasant or low-paying jobs out of desperation when those are the only sort of jobs available.

The benefits to this program are many; allowing low-income families a chance to get back up on their feet and keep them from drowning in bills and expenses that often have a greater total than their income.  It allows families or individuals to have more money to put food on the table, pay medical bills, go back to school, etc.  The possibilities are almost endless when a large part of the families’ bills is being paid by this voucher program.  This Housing Assistance program helps bring the people and families living in poverty into a place where they are getting help with making ends meet.  Rental assistance can be combined with other anti-poverty government programs such as SANP, WIC, SSI, etc.  These nutritional assistance and income assistance programs also play a large role in breaking down the poverty wall.  Less money to be paid in rent, while nutrition and income assistance programs allow for more money to use on groceries and other expenses.  The biggest negative factor about this program is the wait time, like other governmental programs, is sometimes very long.  There are more people who are living in poverty and applying, than there are workers to keep up with all these applications.  It is also a set amount, much like state funding for SNAP.  Once the well runs dry, there are no more funds to be dispersed to the tenants who are relying on this income.  

I think a solution to this major negative aspect is to somehow “take-away” the monetary value of the voucher program.  So instead of the voucher paying the landlord, the bill could make the landlords lower the prices for those who are at a low-income, as with the project-based voucher system.  A problem that I see with this solution is a type of discrimination; landlords are not going to want to rent properties out to low income families because they would not be making as much money as the amount of money they could earn if someone who with a higher income had been renting.  Then, we would have a greater number of homeless and hungry.  

Overall, the Section 8 Housing Assistance program is very beneficial to millions of Americans throughout the nation.  I feel that without this, we would have a steadily growing number of urban slums and terrible neighborhoods with even worse living conditions.  With this voucher program, we ensure that the renters granted the voucher are living in suitable conditions.