[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 81 (Monday, June 14, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1098-E1099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HUD GENERATED SECTION 8 CRISIS CONTINUES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 14, 2004

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in April of this year, the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development promulgated new rules 
regarding the Section 8 program which have caused a great deal of 
distress throughout the country. Essentially, housing authorities 
throughout the United States were told by HUD in April that they were 
getting a retroactive reduction in their Section 8 funds for this 
fiscal year, and many were confronted with the choice of reducing rents 
to responsible landlords, terminating existing Section 8 contracts for 
tenants, raising rents on the lowest income people, and in other ways 
cutting back on this important program. As a result of the nationwide 
outcry, HUD did propose some measures to lessen the crisis, no doubt 
aided by the fact that HUD Secretary Jackson had to testify before the 
Financial Services Committee on May 20 and knew that he would be asked 
about this problem. It is now clear that the proposals that HUD made 
and announced on that day were somewhat helpful in some cases, but have 
left the crisis an ongoing one.
  Paradoxically, while engendering cutbacks in this program--the 
largest single federal housing assistance program--the Administration 
has been claiming credit for a new initiative to combat homelessness. 
Conceptually, this initiative has a great deal to commend it, but any 
good it could do will be greatly outweighed by the damage being done by 
the Administration's Section 8 cuts.
  On May 30, the Journal News of Westchester County, New York, ran an 
excellent editorial pointing out the great inconsistency in the 
Administration's approach here. Note that the date of this editorial is 
ten days after Secretary Jackson testified before the Financial 
Services Committee that he had resolved the problem--and proof that he 
has not in fact done so could be produced by dozens of other well-
documented newspaper stories in various states. As the editorial notes, 
the Executive Director of the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority 
``called the impact on Yonkers `devastating' ''--referring to the 
Administration's Section 8 approach.
  Many of us want to work with the Administration in alleviating 
homelessness and welcome new approaches that bring resources together 
in a thoughtful way. But pretending that we can do this while cutting 
back on Section 8 is the worst form of putting style over substance, 
with devastating results on those people in the country who are truly 
trying to help the homeless, and others in need.

                 [From the Journal News, May 30, 2004]

                            Help, Not Hinder

       President Bush's homelessness czar, Philip Mangano, brought 
     a message to Westchester Tuesday: Create a 10-year plan to 
     end homelessness. What does Mangano think Westchester has 
     been trying to do for the last 20 years?
       Here's a message for Mangano to take back to Washington: 
     Help, not hinder. Stop cutting back federal dollars that 
     assist local communities in providing housing that prevents 
     homelessness.
       Mangano met with County Executive Andrew Spano to outline 
     the administration's vision of a partnership between 
     counties, local municipalities, nonprofit groups, businesses 
     and the homeless aimed at preventing people from losing their 
     homes, providing services to those newly placed in housing 
     and redirecting some of the money spent on emergency housing 
     to permanent housing.
       Sounds wonderful--and we've heard it before.
       Apparently Mangano does not realize the strides Westchester 
     has made since, say, 1990, when the county spent $40 million 
     to house the homeless in motels, and when a

[[Page E1099]]

     county-commissioned study set a goal of developing 5,000 
     affordable housing units. A recent update of the affordable-
     housing study showed how far Westchester still has to go.
       We could use a little federal help here. As director of the 
     Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates 20 
     federal agencies, Mangano could provide it.
       How about increasing, not decreasing, federal aid to the 
     self-help groups and others around the county that buy and 
     renovate abandoned apartment houses? And organizations that 
     help people fallen on hard times to pay their rent and avoid 
     eviction? How about restoring funds for the HOPE VI program 
     that Yonkers and New Rochelle had hoped would assist in 
     renovating older public-housing complexes? And how about 
     reversing the latest federal cutback to the Housing Choice 
     Voucher Program, better known as Section 8.
       Spano's chief adviser, Susan Tolchin, rightly called 
     Mangano on the Section 8 reductions. ``That has stopped our 
     progress and our continued progress in helping fund permanent 
     housing for homeless families,'' she said.
       Indeed, cutting the Section 8 program by $1 billion 
     nationally, which has frozen vouchers, is expected to cost 
     the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority $2.24 million; New 
     Rochelle and its housing authority, $1.46 million; and Mount 
     Vernon, $914,000. That's money that low- and moderate-income 
     people could use to make up the rest of the rent after they 
     paid 30 percent of their income in this high-rent county. 
     Peter Smith, executive director of the YMHA, which 
     administers about 1,750 vouchers and has a waiting list of 
     1,200, called the impact on Yonkers ``devastating.''
       It isn't just homeless or low- and moderate-income people 
     who have difficulty finding housing in a county where the 
     median price of a single-family home was $545,900 at the end 
     of 2003. Some police, fire, emergency medical and Civil 
     Service personnel--all vital to municipal operations--are 
     among those commuting longer because they can't afford to 
     live in the communities in which they work.
       The affordable-housing update issued in April called for 
     providing more than 10,000 units of affordable housing by 
     2015. The county's Housing Opportunities Commission is 
     charged with trying to make that possible.
       Call it an 11-year plan. Call it an opportunity for 
     Washington to help it succeed.

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