Budget proposals place thousands of poor tenants at risk of losing their housing

Budget proposals place thousands of poor tenants at risk of losing their housing

By Lynda Carson - November 11, 2023

Oakland - A November 6, 2023, report released recently by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) reveals that thousands of low-income tenants or families with Housing Choice Vouchers (a.k.a. Section 8 vouchers) being subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are at risk of losing their housing vouchers. This is a result of recent budget proposals that lack enough funding from the federal government to subsidize all of the existing housing vouchers in use presently, for future use.

In part, the November 6 report from the NLIHC states, “House Republicans proposed significant cuts to – and even the elimination of – many HUD programs in their draft FY24 THUD spending bill. However, thanks to the hard work of advocates and our congressional champions, both the House and Senate FY24 draft bills provide increased funding for many of NLIHC’s priorities, including Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs), native housing, and Homelessness Assistance Grants. Still, because of dramatic rent increases last year, neither bill provides sufficient resources to renew all existing HCV contracts. At the Senate’s funding levels, an estimated 6,000 vouchers would be lost upon turnover, and under the House proposal, 40,000 vouchers would be lost upon turnover.”

This is very bad news for many of the low-income tenants, families, seniors, and those with disabilities, residing in rental units being subsidized by housing vouchers, who may lose their housing vouchers as a result of a lack of funding.

Making matters worse, reportedly many low-income renters and seniors in the Bay Area are already very concerned and worried about the major rate hikes P.G. & E. is currently pushing for again with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

P.G. & E. has been flooding the airwaves with their multi-million dollar “propaganda campaign” in the form of commercials 24/7 on TV and the radio, including PBS, that may be an effort to hoodwink the public into believing that a pushback against more proposed P.G. & E. extreme rate hikes may be futile. For more about the excessive rate hikes P. G. & E. is pushing for, click here for some information from the The Utility Reform Network (TURN).

Reportedly, back around 1621, Pope Gregory XV, whose committee of cardinals - the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide - was the first known entity to give the world the term ‘propaganda’. Many years later the German Nazi known as Paul Joseph Goebbels, and the madman Nazi, Adolf Hitler, specialized in the use of propaganda during their reign of terror, mass murder, and war crimes. Former President Donald J. Trump, and his on-going lies and propaganda claiming that he won the election against President Joe Biden, is similar to the propaganda tactics used by the Nazis. Trump appears to be a right-wing extremist neo-Nazi white supremacist, who admired Goebbels and Hitler’s use of propaganda while millions of lives were being slaughtered during their brutal reign of terror.

HUD’s subsidized tenants in the Bay Area.

According to HUD’s subsidized housing records during January of 2023, for some of the local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs), there are around 14,011 section 8 units in Oakland, plus 1,970 other subsidized low-rent housing units. San Francisco has around 15,878 section 8 units, plus 640 low-rent units. South San Francisco has 80 low-rent units. Alameda has 1,893 section 8 units. Berkeley has 2,080 section 8 units. Richmond has 409 low-rent units. Alameda County has 7,013 section 8 units. Marin County Housing has 2,384 section 8 units, plus 496 low-rent units. And Contra Costa County has 9,417 section 8 units, plus 963 low-rent units.

Additionally, if a longtime partial government shutdown occurs in the near future, it may make matters much worse for the low-income tenants with subsidized housing vouchers in the Bay Area. Reportedly, federal agencies may already be preparing for a partial government shutdown to occur in the very near future. Meanwhile, MAGA Mike Johnson, the new extreme right-wing fascist Christian Nationalist, Speaker of the House, is reportedly (ABC news) making a pitch for a far fetched scheme to set two deadlines to keep parts of the federal government open.

Recently, there are numerous reports revealing that evictions have been on the rise in the Bay Area.

Reportedly on November 8, 2023, in the Mercury News, in part it states, “Amid a spike in evictions as cases pile up following the end of a nearly three-year moratorium, a group of progressive elected officials from across Alameda County gathered Wednesday in front of the Hayward Hall of Justice to call on the county’s superior court to slow the flood of people being pushed from their homes.

“Decrease the number of cases that we’re seeing here on a daily basis,” said Oakland City Council Member Carroll Fife. “It’s a factory, and we need to stop it.”

Since the end of Alameda County’s eviction moratorium in April, cases have skyrocketed. The court has seen more than 400 cases every month since May — a number it did not surpass in any month in 2019, before COVID-19 eviction protections were put in place.” The full report may be found by clicking here.

Additional reports about a spike in evictions locally may be found by clicking here, and by clicking here.

Meanwhile, reportedly many large greedy for-profit landlords trying to bring an end to rent control, including the unscrupulous California Apartment Association (CAA), are hoping to bring an end to rent control with a case that may, or may not be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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