Proposed budget cuts at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development could leave thousands of low-income Chicago-area residents without the vouchers they need to stay in their apartments and halt construction of affordable housing, advocates warn. Chicago and Illinois housing groups are already lobbying Congress to reinstate the funding.
“This is very serious,” said Andrea Traudt Inouye, executive director of the Illinois Housing Council. “People who have been getting vouchers could end up losing their homes.”
Vouchers allow individuals and families to get rent discounts if they meet income limits. In Chicago, a family of four with household earnings of $61,500 or less is eligible for voucher assistance. A single person could earn up to $43,050 and still collect the assistance.
While the exact impact of the budget cuts on vouchers is unclear, the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has calculated that Illinois could lose 8,298 vouchers. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has calculated that 200,000 people could lose the vouchers nationwide.
Housing voucher cuts were not explicitly spelled out in the Trump administration’s preliminary proposal, which calls for cutting $6.2 billion out of the department’s overall budget, but advocates are bracing for them. The Trump administration has outlined only about $4 billion in specific cuts, so to reach the $6.2 billion target, additional cuts — including voucher cuts — will have to be made, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
“We are extremely concerned,” said Bob Palmer, policy director for Housing Action Illinois. “The unmet need is so severe.”
“Using a voucher allows me to keep a roof over my head,” said Reco Swift, who attended a rally at Federal Plaza in Chicago this week to protest voucher cuts. Before getting assistance, Swift, 66, was homeless. “When you have a place to live you take the little things for granted — taking a shower, running water or laying down to take a nap in the middle of the day — something you might need to do at age 66,” he said.
While it remains uncertain just how far the voucher program will be cut, the administration’s proposal makes clear that two other programs that work in different ways to support development will be eliminated entirely. According to HUD, the Chicago area received more than $141 million from the Community Development Block Grant program and the Home Investment Partnerships Program last year.
The block grants are used by cities and counties to make a range of improvements, such as street repairs, in principally low and moderate-income areas. The home program provides grants to developers building affordable housing. The home program is considered essential in getting new affordable apartment buildings built because developers typically can’t raise enough construction funding for such projects with private lenders alone.
“The cost of construction is high,” said Traudt Inouye. “Developers can’t build and recoup their costs at the income level renters can afford to pay in the building.”
The Chicago area, along with many cities throughout the nation, is facing an increasing shortage of affordable housing for both low and middle income people. Since people lost homes in the housing crisis of 2008, there has been a surge of renters. That has pushed rents up.
According to research by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 36.6 percent of households in the Chicago area face housing costs that are too high to handle without burdening the rest of their budget. About 28.5 percent of homeowners and 50.47 percent of renters are paying more than they should, according to the Harvard research.
gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
