Sequestration’s Effects Linger for Housing Agencies

The 2013 sequestration budget cuts caused severe shortfalls at state and local housing agencies that administer federal rental assistance programs, and the cuts are continuing to affect low-income families, as the New York Times reports.  Most agencies sharply reduced the number of families they assisted by not reissuing housing vouchers when the families using them left the program.  These cuts have continued into 2014, despite the fact that Congress partly reversed sequestration this year.  As of March, housing agencies were assisting some 90,000 fewer low-income families due to sequestration.

The agencies are passing the budget strain on to low-income families in other ways, too.  In New York, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is raising the rent for nearly one-third of the 32,000 low-income families using its housing vouchers.  This forces families to make tough choices: either absorb rent increases of as much as several hundred dollars per month or move to a smaller, lower-priced unit, if they can find one in New York’s tight rental market.

Such choices are particularly difficult for seniors, who are disproportionately affected by the rent increases in New York.  Many have lived in their current apartment for many years, and they may have difficulty navigating the process of finding, moving, and adapting to a new apartment and neighborhood.

Housing authorities across the nation — from Napa, California, to Alexandria, Virginia — have continued to make similar changes in response to sequestration.  While Congress partly reversed the sequestration cuts in 2014, many housing agencies have been reluctant to reverse rent increases or cuts in the number of families they’re assisting, due in large part to the uncertain budget outlook for 2015.

Congress has yet to complete the fiscal year 2015 budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which administers the housing voucher program and most other federal rental assistance programs, and it likely won’t until after the November elections.  Moreover, the HUD funding bills approved by the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee would increase housing voucher funding modestly, but not enough to cover the increase in program costs due to rising rent and utility costs.  As a result, they would risk locking in most of the sequestration voucher cuts.

As Congress completes the 2015 budget this fall, it should make a priority of fully restoring the vouchers lost to sequestration, or current voucher holders will face higher rents, while families on waitlists continue to pay unaffordable rents, risking homelessness if they fail to make ends meet.