Prometheus 6

Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, is explaining in the NY Times why the Feds want to freeze Section 8 (rental assistance) funding.

In reading it I see two problem, requiring two different analyses.

Over three decades, Section 8 has grown into an overly prescriptive and unwieldy program. It has separate rules for more than a dozen different types of housing vouchers, along with 120 pages of regulations. Costs have spiraled out of control, without a corresponding gain in benefits.

Five years ago, Section 8 consumed 36 percent of HUD's budget; today, it absorbs more than half. In the past four years, the financing needed for the program has increased by 41 percent, to $20 billion a year. This growth rate is not sustainable, and it has already begun eating away at other essential HUD programs.

Okay, this works out to about ten pages of regulations per housing type which really isn't bad as federal regulations go. But I DO know costs are greater than they need be.

There's been a lot of rental development but very little for family-sized families. If you've got one boy and one girl, be prepared to pay out the nose anywhere in NYC. So low income families have a very hard time finding affordable housing. Section 8 has applied a typical economic solution: signing bonuses for landlords.

Now, had Section 8 focused on home ownership instead of rentals, at least five years worth of participants would be home owners.

In voting on the department's fiscal year 2005 budget last month, the House Appropriations Committee cut funds from almost every other department program in order to keep Section 8 going. Our HOME Investment Partnerships program, which gives states block grants to help people purchase, build and renovate homes, was cut by more than $85 million. President Bush's Samaritan Initiative, a vital part of the plan to end chronic homelessness by 2012, received no money at all. Neither did the Prisoner Re-entry Program, an effort with the Labor and Justice Departments to help the 600,000 people who leave prison each year make the transition to society.

In addition, HUD's supportive housing programs for the elderly and people with disabilities or AIDS were cut by a total of $56 million. And because that still wasn't enough to maintain Section 8, Congress even had to look beyond our budget and take money from the National Science Foundation.

The second problem I see is…mendacity.

To claim the Nation Science Foundation budget was cut to shore up Section 8 programs is pretty bizarre. I mean, how do you make that connection?

"Gee, we're short money for housing."

"Let's take if from the NSF."

A claim that any of these cuts were made for any reason other than as symbolic offset to a massive transfer of wealth to the upper classes strikes me as pure propaganda. Remember, this is the crew that thinks tax cuts are more important than children:

According to an analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, there are 11.9 million children nationwide -- or one of every six children under age 17 -- who would have benefited from the Senate provision that was cut in the compromise.

About 8 million of these children will receive no benefit from the child tax credit provisions of the new legislation. The rest will receive a smaller benefit.

Republicans said the cut, which saved $3.5 billion, was necessary to keep the bill under a 10-year cap of $350 billion.

However, critics said there were plenty of other areas that could have been cut instead.

For, example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that room for the child care benefit could have been included if the capital gains/dividend provision had been scaled back slightly.

And as the right Reverend Mykeru said at the time:

When the Republicans got a $350 billion tax cut in which 60% of the population would only get 8.5% of the tax benefits, while the top earning 1% would get the remaining 40%, they cut out a provision to prove a child credit to those making just above minimum wage. They saved 3.5 billion doing so. They could have saved the same amount of money if they had reduced the top rate to 35.3% instead of 35% for the first three years. They, of course, didn't do that, deciding to screw over poor kids rather than reduce the windfall for the wealthiest people in the wealthiest country in the world by a minuscule amount.

No reasonable explanation for that sort of Republican behavior exists except when you factor in character, and a character that displays dark pathology at that. It is the behavior of people who derive sadistic pleasure from punishing the weak, the poor, the hungry, even at the expense of children. It is the behavior of people who derive an orgasmic thrill from their own power and unfairness.

As I said, as twisted as it may be, it takes real conviction to hurt children simply for the mean-spirited hell of it.

The other interesting thing is he said last month Congress decided the Prisoner Re-entry Program would get no money at all.

Last month l'il Georgie stood in front of the National Urban League and spoke thus:

But there's more than just fighting crime. We need to help the 600,000 men and women who are being released from prison each year. I went to the Congress in my State of the Union, I talked about a prison reentry program. I said, put some money up to help these souls come out. Let's make sure we're the country of the second chance. Let's make sure people have got a chance to get an education and a job. Let's make sure there's -- if need be, let's make sure there's church families available to welcome a person back in community. (Applause.) And so this prison reentry program is a vital part of making sure America is a safe country. (Applause.)

Did l'il Georgie know this vital part of making sure America is a safe country was totally unfunded when he touted it to the NUL? Most likely…praise from Bush seems to be the kiss of death for federally funded social programs.

Mendacity.

Here's the problem: under Section 8's current rules, Washington provides money to local public housing authorities around the country for a precise number of units each year, without regard to the number of families that could benefit from the same amount of money if it was used more effectively. This doesn't make sense.

The precise number of units each year is determined with regard to the precise number of people that apply and have income low enough to qualify. This, of course, make no sense to a member of the Bushista administration.

If a housing authority is limited to providing a specific number of vouchers no matter how efficient it is with the financing, what incentive does it have to control costs and serve more families? None. That's one reason the waiting lists are so long for Section 8 housing in many cities.

The waiting list wouldn't be long because there are more people who need help than there used to be, would it?

Moreover, under the current rules, the dollar amount of vouchers for rental payments in every housing market is prescribed by a system known as "fair market rent.'' Based on imprecise government data, these figures rarely reflect true market value. Over the past few years, most rental markets have softened and vacancy rates are the highest in decades.

Really? I didn't know Section 8 applied to commercial real estate.

Under our proposal, the authority could pay the actual market rent and would save enough money to aid 200 additional low-income families in that Washington neighborhood alone. Imagine what such a change would mean nationwide. And Washington is on the low end of the scale - in other cities, the disparity in rents is far more egregious.

THAT WHY YOU SHOULD BE FUNDING MOTGAGES.

You're paying just as much for just as long…

There is another major change we would like to see. In 1998 Congress enacted a quota system that gives Section 8 vouchers almost exclusively to families making less than 30 percent of a given area's median income. This has had the unintended consequence of shutting the door for voucher assistance on men and women who are working hard and raise their income above the quota level, but remain too poor to afford a home. This is precisely the wrong message to send. The flexible voucher program, while still serving low-income families, would remove the quota system. Housing agencies would no longer have to discriminate against those moving up the economic ladder.

This needs to be done right, which is to say you let people in the same way but don't throw them off until they hit, say 60% of the local median income. And continue to adjust their contribution.

Congress needs to realize that the failed policies of the past are becoming more expensive than our proposed solution would be, and it should bring our proposal to a vote when it returns from summer recess. Our program would be more effective, efficient and flexible than the current Section 8 - and, most important, it would better meet the needs of the low-income families who depend on it.

I doubt it (see mendacity, above)