52006200 Families and Social Policy Lecture Eight September 19 2006

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5200/6200Families and Social PolicyLecture
EightSeptember 19 2006
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This week

• ReadingKarger chapter on housing policy
• Today and Thursday
• Why does housing matter
• Brief history of housing legislation
• What is affordable housing?
• Urban blight
• Alternatives?
• Guided discussionMelissa Napier

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Why does housing matter?

• Family stability
• Home ownership has positive effects for children
  re school success
• For welfare/work recipients, housing plus job
  better employment outcomes
• Neighborhood quality
• Cluster of ills/importance of residential
  relocation
• Neighborhood revitalization
• Concentrated pub invest in housing can be 1st
  step to reclaiming nhoods
• Household wealth
• Insulates HH from rising rental costs and build
  equity
• Economic growth and stability
• Est that housing make up 1/3 of nation tangible
  assets

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Brief Highlights of Housing Legislation

• 1990 National Affordable Housing Act (NAHA)
• Decentralizing housing policystates administer
  own housing policies
• Expand the use of non profit to implement
  programs
• Link housing with social services (mental health)
• Home ownership for low and moderate income
• Preserving what is already there (cabrini)
• Cost sharing among fed, state, and on down

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Parts of 1990 NAHA Legislation

• HOME
• Increase supply of affordable housing by
  providing federal grants
• 90 of HOME assisted units in a jurisdiction must
  be affordable for families with incomes below 60
  of area median. The rest affordable for families
  with incomes up to 80 of area median.
• HOPE
• Facilitate home ownership by low inc families
• Sale of public housing to residents (1)
• Sale to low inc of other apart. held by feds (2)
• Sale of single family homes held by
  feds/state/local (3)
• Combine social services w/housing assist to
  elderly and disabled (4)
• 1998Clinton passed changes to housing that are
  the equiv of tanfincreased local control
• Employment history in tenant decision
• Sanctions for lack of work effort on tanfcould
  lose section 8/public housing benefits
• Use of middle class role models

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Section 8/Housing voucher program

• Gov assistance in housing never an entitlement
• Housing Assistance Payments Program, authorized
  by the Housing and Community Development Act of
  1974.
• Federally subsidized housing administered by HUD
  where the tenant pays up to thirty percent of his
  or her adjusted monthly income and HUD pays the
  difference between that amount and the market
  rent. Property owners are not required to
  participate
• provides rent subsidies, either rental
  certificates or vouchers, on behalf of eligible
  tenants.

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson
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Section 8 Voucher Program At Risk?

• Section 8 is an important HUD subsidy program
• Assists 2 million households
• Assists 440,000 disabled households majority
  are likely to be people with mental illness
• Federal government has proposed to alter Section
  8 by
• Cutting Section 8 spending
• Converting Section 8 to a block grant
• Block grant would negatively affect people with
  mental illness receiving Section 8 and waiting
  for Section 8
• Current HUD policy implemented in 2004 already
  causing problems for people with mental illness

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Barriers to home ownership
Cost of housing is the biggest single
expenditureoccurs before other food, clothing,
medical. 68 in 2003/49 for minority Homes
bigger and more expensive Movement out of
central cities
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Affordable Housing---HUD

• HUD defines as affordable housing that costs
  30 or less of a familys income. A fulltime
  worker earning minimum wage (which is 5.15 per
  hour or 10,712 annually) would need to find a
  place to rent at 267 per month or less.
• 43 units per 100 renter HH

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Application

• Housing crunch in Vermont
• www.burlingtonhousing.org
• 2000 Census data, 35.3 of households in Utah pay
  in excess of 30 of their income toward rent

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Urban Renewal WHY and how
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Urban Renewal why and HOW
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Implications of urban renewalwhat is at stake

• Application in Philadelphia
• www.pha.phila.gov