In a chilling example of how federal policy can dramatically harm local residents, a hearing yesterday at City Hall revealed thousands of low-income tenants will see $100-$200 rent increases due to cuts in funding for affordable housing by the Bush administration. The rent hikes will come primarily as a result of cuts to Section 8, a national program designed to provide housing to those who can’t afford it. Section 8 puts roofs over the heads of more than 7,000 people in San Francisco, many of whom live on less than $1,000 a month. Upcoming cuts to the program will not only oust them from their homes, but could force them right out of San Francisco.
Section 8 provides cash vouchers to low-income tenants, which then get turned over to landlords as rent payments. Those vouchers will soon be slashed dramatically, according to Sarah Short, and organizer for the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, causing a crisis that, while caused by the feds, must be resolved on a local level.
“The Bush administration has made it loud and clear that housing poor people is not their problem,” said Short. “So we need to face facts and start problem solving here in San Francisco around the issue, because as we wait for politics to work themselves out on the national level, tenants are losing their homes.”
The Board of Supervisors’ City Service Committee held the hearing in the hopes of that problem solving process. Short presented two potential solutions for the Board to begin working on.
The first, a best-case scenario that Short admitted may not be totally feasible, involves the City of San Francisco providing the Housing Authority with a large enough chunk of money to cover the rent increases for the affected tenants.
The second solution, a more nuanced compromise, involves a variety of actions by the city government to help allay the social costs of displacement. Proposals include providing counseling to tenants to help them find a new home, assisting tenants with security deposits and helping them with moving costs, and increasing case management for displaced seniors.
Over twenty low-income tenants, many Section 8 recipients, testified during public comment upon the affect a rent increase would have upon them. Carl Stokes, an HIV positive man with a Section 8 voucher, said he lived on less than $900 a month from SSI payments, and that a rent increase would force him out of his home.
“I cannot pay it, and I don’t what I’m going to do,” said Stokes.
In a rare move for a government official, San Francisco Housing Authority Executive Director Greg Fortner forcefully decried the cuts, particularly their impact on low-income tenants. Following public comment, Fortner then detailed the methods Bush employed to cut federal funding to Section 8. The first was a $5.7 million cut in funding to the Housing Authority. Fortner then discussed a second, far more insidious method involving the feds decreasing what constitutes ‘fair market rent’ in our city.
‘Fair market rent’ represents the monthly amount housing officials deem as reasonable for landlords to ask Section 8 recipients to pay. Yet the amount is not based on the rental costs of vacant units in the city, as other formulas for ascertaining market rent are. Instead, it’s based on all rental units in the city.
Because of San Francisco’s rent control laws, many renters pay far less than market value for their home. Because their rents are factored in anyway when ascertaining ‘fair market rent,’ the figure represents a price far lower than what market rate actually is. Fortnas noted, for example, that one unit used to help define ‘fair market rent’ was a two-bedroom flat going for $141 a month.
Thus, when Bush decreased fair market rent, he placed the amount of rent Section 8 would cover at well below the actual rental costs of most tenants’ homes.
Supervisor Fiona Ma called the hearing, and expressed concern over the future of the Section 8 tenants facing such an increase. At the end of the hearing, she offered future action should a way out of the crisis not be found.
“I just want to make sure we work closely with Mr. Fortner and Mr. [Matt] Franklin,” said Ma, “in case we want to get an emergency ordinance passed by the Board.”
Should city officials fail to come up with an alternate plan soon, such an ordinance would likely be necessary.
