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Indybay Feature

Low-Income Renters Of Marin Unite

by Lynda Carson (tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com)
The Section 8 Crisis Has Been Instrumental In Uniting The Low-Income Renters Of Marin Into A Force To Oppose The Bush Administration's Proposals To Gut The Section 8 Program!
Low-Income Renters Of Marin Unite
By Lynda Carson September 23, 2004

Though disabled, Marion Brady of Marin County stood before the packed community center meeting to say, "It is the first time that I ever tried to organize a tenants group. I am doing this out of fear because I know that the Bush Administration does not care about disabled people in this country. They are trying to take our housing vouchers from us to give away to wealthier tenants that do not need assistance to pay their rent. We must fight back to stop the Bush proposal known as the Flexible Voucher Program, which will make hundreds of thousands of us homeless during the next few years if it is ever carried out."

On Sunday September 12, it was a hot sunny day as several hundred Section 8 renters poured into San Rafael from all over Marin County, in an effort to defeat the Bush administration's proposal to end the Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly known as the Section 8 program.

As most people took their leisurely Sunday stroll downtown San Rafael, for an ice cream cone or sidewalk cup of tea and chat with friends, the poor people of Marin were streaming into the Whistle Stop Community Center for their first meeting to learn more about the Section 8 crisis taking place across the nation.

The meeting was such a success, the first 200 people got into the door, and many others unfortunately had to be turned away because the meeting room was not large enough to accomodate them all. The line of people stretched outside the building long after the community center was packed.

Whether you are in San Francisco or Oakland, the diversity of the poor needing assistance to pay their highly inflated rents in the region is unmistakable, and Marin is no exception. This was a very diverse crowd of all kinds including many beautiful children.

This first began when Marion Brady, a disabled Section 8 tenant, received a call from a friend and was told to tune into a KPFA radio show that had a discussion going on about the Section 8 crisis.

Inspired to organize the Section 8 tenants of Marin in an effort to save the Section 8 program, Brady started making calls to learn more about the crisis, and she soon realized that she could not do this alone. She received help from Val and Evelyn Schaaf of the Marin Social Justice Center.

With more help from Betty Pagett of Ecumenical Housing Association (EAH) and Kimberly Caroll of the Marin Housing Authority, Brady was able to send out a letter about the crisis to over 2,000 Section 8 renters of Marin County, and invited them to the September 12 meeting. It took hours for Marion Brady and Rene Rushin to stuff over 2,000 envelopes with the information that was sent out to all the Section 8 renters of Marin.

Betty Pagett of EAH was also one of the speakers at the Marin meeting to denounce the Section 8 cuts by the Bush administration and she urged the listeners to continue in their efforts to organize and tell their representatives to save the Section 8 program.

The Section 8 program has been around since 1975, and is a government subsidy program meant to assist low-income and disabled renters pay their monthly rents. The program currently serves more than 2 million people, and was fully funded by Congress for fiscal year 2004 to make sure that all vouchers in use were fully funded.

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently sabotaged the Section 8 Program now known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program. During April 2004, HUD held back $200 million from the Section 8 voucher program, resulting in funding shortfalls across the nation. Suddenly there was not enough funding for thousands of housing vouchers that were already in use.

In May 2004, HUD held back another $200 million in administration fee's needed to operate the Section 8 programs. Thus, on average per state, the nation's Public Housing Agency's (PHA's) immediately were short16.8% in funds to operate the Section 8 programs, according to the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the combined cuts meant that 90,000 poor and disabled people were immediately put at risk of losing their housing due to HUD's actions.

Protests and meetings started taking place around the nation to convince local representatives that HUD's actions must be reversed to keep this disaster from becoming worse. Nearly 400 housing authorities filed appeals with HUD to request that full funding be restored for the vouchers already in use.

As a result of the appeals, wide spread protests and letter writing campaigns that took place, during the first week of September 2004, HUD funneled $156 million back into the Section 8 program to 379 of the 398 housing authorities that appealed the funding shortfalls created by HUD back in April.

By then the damage was already done, which wreaked havoc among the renters, lending institutions and landlords across the nation. Many Section 8 tenants lost their housing vouchers and more may still lose their housing vouchers since many of the housing authorities never botherd to appeal the HUD decision which created the funding shortfalls in the first place.

The Bush administration still wants to gut the Section 8 program another $1.6 billion during FY 2005, and wants to continue gutting the program by $4.6 billion by 2009. The CBPP estimates that 250,000 vouchers may be terminated in FY 2005, and 800,000 vouchers may be terminated by FY 2009, if the Bush proposals are implemented.

On September 9, New Jersey's Governor McGreevey signed a bill into law which is the first in the country to offer rental assistance to low-income residents affected by the cuts of the Bush administration. The landmark legislation allocates $10 million annually to support the program, and $3 million of the funding will be reserved for senior citizens that need assistance to pay their rent.

The Section 8 renters of Marin County are not waiting around hoping for the best from California's governor who has just recently vetoed the latest minimum wage bill, and they are active in letter writing campaigns and phone calls to their representatives to save the Section 8 program.

In a letter to George W. Bush, of the White House, Daisy J. Fitzgibbon wrote, "Before getting my HUD housing subsidy, I was homeless. During my youthful homelessness, I was in rat infested alleyways with starving people and drug addicts. I received my housing opportunity (Section 8 voucher) after my daughter, Kayla Cheri, was born in April of 2000, and for the last three years I have held a steady job. The HUD program is our protection from devastation. Thank you for the opportunity to express how essential this program is to me, as well as to many others in similiar conditions and situations."

Daisy J. Fitzgibbon was just one out of the many people showing up at the Marin meeting that wanted to volunteer their time and energy to let the public know how important the Housing Choice Voucher Program is to the 2 million people that are being served by the beloved program.

The Marin Section 8 renters also sent letters to their landlords and to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Britt Strader of Marin County, wrote a letter to his landlord and sent a copy to the Marin Housing Authority, which in part reads, "Dear Charlie: It is my understanding that you are charging the Section 8 people more than new people moving into 1118 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Kentfield, so that you can get more money from the State of California and from these Section 8 people because Marin Housing will do nothing because there is a shortage of Section 8 Housing. Charging the poorest people in this building higher rents than the higher income renters are charged must not bother you."

Indeed, it has become a common practice for many landlords to charge higher rents to Section 8 renters across the nation, and as the funding shortfalls have been taking place more renters are speaking out against the gouging of the Section 8 program by their landlords.

Making matters even worse is the new established Fair Market Rents that go into effect on October 1, 2004. Section 8 renters are not allowed to pay more than the Fair Market Rents and they are about to receive a shock when they learn that in the Oakland/San Francisco/Marin area the Fair Market Rents are being lowered for those that reside in 3 and 4 bedroom apartments.

As an example, presently the Oakland Housing Authority offers the landlords as much as $1,947 for a three bedroom Section 8 unit. After October 1, 2004, the Housing Authority will lower that amount by as much as $77 for 3 bedroom units. The affected tenants eventualy will have to move at some point to a cheaper location or be allowed to pay the difference out of pocket.

In San Francisco, landlords receive as much as $2,435 for a three bedroom Section 8 unit, but after October 1, 2004, the San Francisco Housing Authority will lower that amount by as much as $43, and four bedroom units will receive $48 less monthly. Again the affected tenants will eventualy have to move to a cheaper location, or be allowed to pay the difference out of pocket.

The Section 8 renters held their latest meeting on September 22, and will be holding more meetings at the Marin Peace and Justice Center in San Anselmo.

For more information, call Marion Brady; 415/847-1663
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