Is Affordable Housing On The Verge Of Disappearance?

Hey, welcome back to the channel. Hey, we're gonna, you know, look at a video here on Section 8. And with all the talk about Doge coming into town and cutting and slashing Section 8 and all these programs that the federal government has been sending to the states, we're gonna do a deep dive into one particular state and what's going on there. So stay tuned and here we go. People using Section 8 housing programs, voucher holders locally have received letters warning them of federal funding being halted and potential rent increases. Western Mass News reporter Matt Price did some digging for us on this, and he joins us live from downtown Springfield with more. Matt. Let me explain real quick what Section 8 is. Section 8 is a housing voucher program provided by the US government and sent to the states to dole out. Each individual state either adds to those funds or subtracts from those funds and qualifies the people that receive this money. People that may have been having hard times, you know, things like that. And Matt here is going to go over a little bit of what's going on with Section 8 and where he lives. I think Matt just graduated from high school last year, but we'll listen to see what Matt has to say.

Chris, this just adds to the drama of so much uncertainty many face across this country. That includes those who rely on these vouchers for safe and affordable housing. On March 13th, the Commonwealth's Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities sent a letter to Section 8 voucher holders warning them that their rent in the next year or 2 might go up because of, quote, rising costs and insufficient federal funding. And the—

Oh, let me stop there. Um, you know, make sure you, you heard what I heard. Is they sent the letter out. They said, we're not going to give you a lot of these benefits that we've been giving you before. But that really has nothing to do with the federal government. The federal government says, okay, we're sending all the states this money, and then you guys decide what to do with it. If you want to increase the funds, that's on you. If you want to decrease it, I don't know why you would do that. But the money coming from the federal government does not look at least from this report, that it's getting lowered. You know, let's, let's listen to the video, see if we learn more.

The agency will have to stop its flexible tenant policies. Here's some of what is stated in this letter obtained by Western Mass News this afternoon. It says, quote, unfortunately, we can no longer afford to offer many of these special policies to our participants and will have to return to using many of the same policies that most other housing authorities use.

Isn't that what I just said? Yeah, they were giving them more benefits than the federal government had given the state, and now they're going to cut back. And hopefully they don't blame the federal government for this.

The letter goes on to say, we understand that will increase costs for many households, but we made these choices to ensure that our program can serve as many households as possible given limited federal funding. Now, for context, here are some of those policy changes. EOHLC will no longer pay for a household security deposit, no more earned income deduction in rent calculation, no utility allowances for hot water and cooking, no extra grace period for lower payment standard changes, and $480 of a full-time student's income will be counted. Advocacy groups are keeping their eyes on these recent developments, including Arise for Social Justice here in Springfield. Housing and economic justice advocate and organizer Liz Busey says She says these changes will have a strongly negative impact and fears current Section 8 voucher holders are scared and are currently looking for other resources to survive. 30 days' notice is not enough to try and supplement your income, um, and supplementing your income is going to get you in trouble because—

Sounds like 30 days' notice in that state. In California where I'm at, it's 60 days' notice. And if you're wanting to evict a tenant or stop offering housing, it's 90-day notice. So we are way more restrictive here than it sounds like other states.

You can't, not legally anyways. And so people are going to be suffering left and right. They're already looking for food pantries. I've had 3 calls about whether we have any utility money to help people pay. And that's just this morning. Busey says this move could also mean an increase in evictions and homelessness. She also tells us the number of people sleeping in cars at the moment is going up. Right now, Arise for Social Justice is collecting tents in case people need to sleep outside, and they are collecting information about services in the area.

Now, the Section 8 housing voucher is to Stop all this stuff that they're touting here, and I think they're just scaring people mostly. You know, they're buying tents. There are people living in cars that you know that's that's where they come from. That's where the Section Eight folks come from, and you know once they have their housing voucher, it's pretty much protected. I have one client that's on a housing voucher that— and remember, we're in California— they're paying— the rent is $3,000 a month for a 2-bedroom condo, and Section 8's paying $2,800 of that. So, you know, I can't imagine that if The state started cutting back on some of that stuff, it would really affect that tenant, you know, knowing that they're only getting $200 a month from— or only paying $200 a month.

But— EHLC says the changes will go into effect on or after May 1st at the voucher holder's next regular or interim rent certification. We tried reaching out to EHLC, uh, or excuse me, EOHC, uh, for comment on this matter, but we did not hear back. Stick with us both on air and online as we continue to follow the latest. Reporting live in downtown Springfield.

Yeah, um, honestly, I, I don't think that, uh, the federal government has, uh, really any blame in any of this. It's money that's being sent, and they're going to continue to send the money. To the locals and states, and if they were offering different programs, then you know if they don't have the money to do that, which I can't imagine why they wouldn't because they weren't getting it from the federal government to begin with. So they have to have been getting it from someplace else in the state. That's not drying up. You know, Doge is not coming into the states, just federal government. And you know, like I said. That money is not being cut off in any way. It's still flowing. They're still going to get what they were supposed to get before. So I don't honestly know what they're talking about other than maybe they just want to scare everybody thinking that federal government's coming after you. And you shouldn't listen to a lot of stuff that's out there like this. So anyway, we'll, uh, catch you on the next one. Thanks for watching the video. Make sure you like and subscribe and share this video so that other people can get informed. We'll see you on the next one.