Nation’s Poorest Wait (And Wait) for Housing Help
by Kathleen McGowan

Poor and working-class tenants are about to get some economic juice out of the seven-year expansion—or so the story goes. Last month, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development released a report that shows just what boom times mean for the country’s poor. Waiting lists for federal housing assistance are up 10 to 25% from last year, and there are now 12.5 million Americans—an all-time high—lingering on the list for public housing. Plus, the wait will probably be getting worse for the poorest: The new public-housing law is allowing working-class people to cut the public-housing line.

That’s what happens, explains Linda Couch of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, when you match a gangbusters economy with cutbacks in public housing. “What was surprising was how dramatic [the increase] is,” she says. “If you are on the list, how can you ever expect any assistance from the government?”

The wait in New York City is now eight years long for both Section 8 vouchers and public housing. According to the Feds, there are 318,508 New Yorkers trying to get federal housing help—three times as many as are waiting in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC combined. The waiting list to get into New York City’s projects grew by 11% over the last year. The Section 8 voucher list only stopped swelling because it’s now closed to everyone except the homeless or disabled.

Public-housing observers think the wait will soon get worse. “We’ve yet to see the impact of new public law on waiting lists,” says Dushaw Hockett, chair of the city’s Public Housing Resident Alliance. “There’s a provision that allows for the deconcentration of poverty, and an income-mixing provision that allows housing authorities to skip over families on waiting lists in order to reach another family with a lower or higher income.” Furthermore, the New York City Housing Authority is under pressure from the new law to increase its cash flow. The quickest way to do that is to start accepting richer tenants who pay higher rents. The law says that only 40% of public-housing tenants have to be very poor (earning less than 30% of local median income). As apartments become vacant, the housing authority can simply bring in wealthier tenants.

But in New York City, more than half of all public-housing tenants make less than $10,000 a year, and there are few apartments available for them on the private market. Figures from the city Rent Guidelines Board reveal that stabilized rents citywide went up by 15% between 1993 and 1996. The hikes aren’t limited to rich neighborhoods. Rents climbed 17% in East Harlem and 16% in Crown Heights.

Reprinted with permission from City Limits Weekly.