San Francisco families protest Bush’s Section 8 de-funding

San Francisco families protest Bush’s Section 8 de-funding
by Tiny

Poor News Network

PNN - "Well, I'm sorry. There's just no money left in the Section 8 program." The words sliced into my head slowly like a dull knife wielded by a murderer without proper tools.

"But that will render my family homeless within three months," I started to say, but I couldn't quite listen to the response - something about how I waited too long to find a place. Families are given 90 days to find a landlord who will take the voucher, which in my case fell right in between the high-risk birth of my son and my mom getting a very serious heart condition. Therefore, I was unofficially dropped off the program and told my chances at reinstatement were slim.

The whole conversation, which permanently closed the lid on my chances at permanent homefulness, lasted all of three minutes. Homelessness, my "at risk" status and the viscous cycle of poverty for poor families can last a lifetime.

"In San Francisco, we have over 18,000 families on the Section 8 waiting list. Many of these families are homeless. The proposed cuts will eliminate their chances of getting housing, insuring that those who are homeless will stay homeless and those who were able to get vouchers will become homeless," said Jennifer Friedenbach from the Coalition on Homelessness, shouting into the morning wind that circled around the small but determined group of families and advocates from the Family Rights and Dignity Project of the Coalition on Homelessness holding an urgent press conference in front of the federal building on the current very serious crisis hitting the Section 8 program locally and nationally. "All of this from a president who vows to end chronic homelessness," Jennifer noted.

For the last three weeks, PNN community journalists have been reporting on and supporting the resistance by hundreds of tenants from the city of Alameda, who in June were given three weeks notice by the Alameda Housing Authority that the Section 8 vouchers which were keeping them housed would be rescinded, thanks to the HUD budget cuts Jennifer referred to. With those cuts, the 264 low-income families, elders and disabled tenants in Alameda would join hundreds of thousands of poor folks across the nation from New York to Los Angeles facing this same unbelievable crisis.

Over $1.92 billion has already been cut from the existing Section 8 program, prompting the San Francisco Housing Authority to stop issuing vouchers to families like mine. Another $1 billion in cuts are proposed for fiscal year 2005. All of these homeless-making policies are courtesy of the Bush administration, which just diverted more than $22 billion of taxpayers’ money to “homeland security” - $2 billion of that amount coming from HUD's budget, making this the largest raid on a public program used by the poor in the past 20 years.

"But the joke gets worse: Bush's so-called Section 8 reforms will introduce the very dangerous Flexible Voucher Program," Jennifer explained. She outlined the elements of this odd "reform," which will eliminate the rule that 75 percent of the vouchers go to extremely low-income families and individuals, i.e. disabled elders, children and families who are way below the poverty line and usually homeless.

"We are demanding that Congress restore $1.92 billion to the existing Section 8 budget and oppose the flexi-voucher program," Jennifer concluded, making the correlation between budget cuts to HUD and local housing authorities and the burgeoning of homelessness. "In the early ‘80s when the federal housing budget was cut by 80 percent, San Francisco opened its first homeless shelter."

"Without Section 8, I will never have the chance to have a place of my own," said Laya Hill, a very pregnant fierce young woman speaking truth to the crowd. "As it is now, I am paying over 80 percent of my income on a tiny place I have to share." Laya highlighted the reason that the Section 8 program is - and was pre-Bush - a great program for very low-income folks, allowing tenants to pay just 30 percent of their income for rent, even if that income is very low as it is for working poor folks like me or from meager welfare grants. Section 8 insures that poor families won't become homeless when they become unemployed or go on welfare and can't afford market rate rent.

"Between July 2002 and July 2003, 597 new homeless families signed up to get shelter," said advocate Bianca Henry, founder of Family Rights and Dignity. "We will never be able to solve the so-called ‘homeless problem’ in San Francisco and across the nation if we cause more homelessness through these cuts. The point is, it’s cheaper to keep families together rather than separating them into foster care and CPS (Child Protective Services)." PNN has documented the stories of hundreds of families who due to poverty and homelessness have lost custody of their children to these racist, classist "systems."

After Bianca, we heard from Dan Bernal of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's office, who read a statement from Nancy denouncing the "outrageous" housing policies of the Bush administration and her commitment to join Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts in co-sponsoring a bill, HR 4263, that will direct HUD to fully fund housing vouchers as they have during each of the past 30 years.

"This is the plan to end chronic homelessness,” said Angela Alioto, as she waived the thick glossy covered plan in the air above her head. “It takes care of 3,000 chronically homeless people in San Francisco." Angela is working for the mayor on implementing this plan, which I personally have serious reservations with, as it only reinvents the Continuum of Care policy created by homeless and formerly homeless folks but never really funded.

But she did make a very good point which I was happy to hear: "A principal part of this plan is prevention. How do you prevent homelessness? By NOT cutting Section 8," she said, outlining the connection between jails, mental institutions and the foster care system as the new ways of "housing the homeless."

"Ain’t nobody gonna be homeless but a bunch of children and families like me. I am a homeless mother of three, and these cuts are affecting somebodies like me who just need a chance," said Arieanne Harrison, who closed out the conference.

I began to feel hopeless again. I hadn't heard back from Section 8, and although we are currently pursuing an appeal for reinstatement, Arieanne was right: these horrendous cuts are just gonna affect a lot of somebodies like her and me who just need a chance - a chance at being housed.

To read more work by poor folks on issues of poverty and racism, go on-line to http://www.poormagazine.org.

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No eviction for 108 Alameda Section 8 tenants

Just as the Bay View goes to press, renowned tenant advocate Lynda Carson reports that Alameda Housing Authority Director Michael Pucci, in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, secured an extra $600,000 from HUD to prevent the eviction of 108 Section 8 families whose vouchers were scheduled to be terminated July 31.

Testifying on a pending homelessness bill, he told the Finance Committee that HUD’s sudden, drastic cuts in Section 8 funding will vastly increase homelessness.

Go to http://www.sfbayview.com for Lynda’s comprehensive update, “Stealing from the poor: the Section 8 scandal,” on how Section 8 cuts are threatening tenants around the country with homelessness.