Housing Help for Low Income Families
Not everybody in the United States can afford to pay market rates for housing. As the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) contends, families often either overextend themselves to afford market rate housing or make due with substandard or overcrowded conditions. Housing help of various kinds from several sources, public and private, can help ease the burden for some low-income families.
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Function
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Generally, housing help for needy households comes in two forms--emergency assistance and subsidized housing programs. The function of emergency assistance is straightforward: to get low-income families or others experiencing financial difficulty out of a temporary jam. Subsidized housing initiatives look to offer longer term solutions to the nation's affordable housing crisis. As the U.S. Census Bureau explains, housing experts tend to agree that when a family spends more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, their housing expenditure is not affordable. Data scrutinized by the NLIHC shows that there is not a county in the country where a full-time worker earning the local minimum wage can afford fair market rent on a one-bedroom apartment, as of 2010.
Programs
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The subsidized housing programs offered by most cities are the HUD-sponsored Section 8 and public housing initiatives. Through Section 8, public housing agencies provide low-income renters with a voucher they can use to lessen the cost of rent on a private market unit. As HUD's Housing Choice Voucher fact sheet explains, the voucher covers the gap between market rate rent and between 30 and 40 percent of a family's income. Public housing units are owned and managed by local housing authorities, with rents set at affordable levels. Some cities, including many throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, run their own below market rate housing initiatives, which provide subsidized rental and homeownership opportunities to low- to moderate-income households.
In terms of emergency assistance, nonprofit organizations sustain most efforts. While program availability and particulars vary by place, many nonprofits help families experiencing financial troubles meet basic needs, which can include rent and utility payment assistance, if the family meets program rules and requirements.
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Stipulations
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Subsidized housing programs typically use income as the main eligibility requirement. For instance, HUD points out that families can earn no more than 80 percent of their area's median income to qualify for public housing, while earnings cannot exceed 50 percent of median for Section 8 eligibility. Income caps for local initiatives outside of HUD's purview vary, but are generally similar to what HUD uses for its programs.
To qualify for emergency assistance, nonprofits generally require families to adhere to program parameters. The nonprofit Catholic Charities Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, provides a representative example. When available, the diocese offers rent payment assistance to families as long as they agree to commit to a budget analysis--a process where a non-profit staffer analyzes the family's income and expenses--and work to bring their rent current. Nonprofits that offer rent assistance often also provide other forms of housing help, such as mortgage counseling and homeownership education programs.
Potential
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Not all forms of housing help are safety net programs. Some cities, including the town of Los Gatos near San Jose, California, offer homeownership opportunities for low- to moderate-income families. The Los Gatos program contains a small supply of properties available for sale at below market rate for local families whose incomes do not surpass 100 percent of the area's median. HUD's Section 8 program includes a homeownership component that allows eligible families to put their voucher towards a mortgage instead of a rent payment.
Considerations
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Not all type of housing assistance use subsidies funded directly by government. Some, including San Francisco's Below Market Rate rental program, pass the cost on to for-profit developers. As the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing explains, the city's planning code requires private developers to set aside 15 percent of the units in a development of 5 units or more as affordable to low- to moderate-income families.
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Comments
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I need the help.
