Landlords might not wait to find out what comes of budget hearings and negotiations, however. Some landlords may point to the uncertain funding and late payments from HUD as a reason to shortchange building maintenance and upkeep, housing advocates say, while others may want to opt out of the program altogether. According to Dina Levy, organizing director at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, eight New York City landlords, providing homes for over 700 families on Section 8, opted out of the program in the weeks after receiving the initial letter from HUD. The CBPP report estimates that a total of 9,500 families, or 10 percent of all project-based Section 8 recipients in New York City, are at “high risk” of displacement because they're in gentrifying neighborhoods where landlords will be particularly eager to capitalize on a hot market Recipient families have a median income of $11,664, and 82 percent of them are people of color, according to the housing advocacy group Tenants and Neighbors. The crowd at last week's rally reflected the diversity of New York’s Section 8 tenants, with nearly as many participants speaking Chinese as Spanish.
Though displaced families are guaranteed a Section 8 voucher to use elsewhere, Levy said, it is unlikely they’ll be able to afford to stay in their current locations.
Tenants' fate should become clearer when Appropriations, the House committee that will ultimately decide the House’s funding for the program, holds its budget hearings next month. “We are confident this will be resolved," says Brian Sullivan of HUD. "It will require that Congress approves the budget in a timely manner, or if not possible at least acts promptly with a continuing resolution to keep government operating. We’ve made commitments to landlords and we respect those commitments.”
But Kane of the HUD tenants' group says, "Unless there's an emergency appropriation of $2.4 billion this year, we're afraid HUD's going to run out of money again." Although landlords received the HUD letters over the summer, and the Congressional hearing was held last fall, Kane said the complexity of the issue is one reason the nationwide protests just took place last week. "Part of it is, it's a very difficult thing to explain," he said.
Many ralliers seemed to draw strength from the crowd and showed that they were ready for the upcoming struggle. “We have to keep fighting, fighting, fighting. I am,” said Mattie Mercer, a 37-year Section 8 resident of a Harlem apartment building that has announced plans to go market-rate. “You know how hard it was on these knees of mine to get up and down those stairs? But they did. You just have to keep fighting.”
Additional reporting contributed by Karen Loew.
Disclosure: City Limits is a sub-tenant of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, mentioned above.
