This Week in Poverty: A Wake-Up Call on Housing and Homelessness

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171534/week-poverty-wake-call-housing-and-homelessness

***SNIP

Indeed, the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF)—a group of seventy-four national organizations across the country—estimates that the 8.4 percent cut to housing and community development programs that would occur in January under sequestration would result in: a $1.6 billion cut in tenant-based rental assistance, with 185,000 households losing assistance; an $830 million cut in project-based rental assistance, with more than 92,000 households losing their housing if the cuts aren’t restored; a $180 million cut to homeless assistance grants—nearly 146,000 people would be homeless instead of housed; a $32 million cut to housing for the elderly, with 114,000 households receiving reduced unit maintenance and supportive services; a $28 million cut to housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, resulting in more than 4,700 households losing their housing; and a $13 million cut in housing for persons with disabilities, leading to more than 24,500 households receiving reduced unit maintenance and supportive services.

At a time when there are only thirty affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low income households, and low-income housing programs serve only about one of four people who qualify for them, sequestration would negatively affect more than 440,000 households currently receiving assistance.

Further, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes in a paper released this week, funding for housing has already been cut by 6 percent, or $2.5 billion, since 2010. Meanwhile, the number of low-income renter households paying housing costs of more than 50 percent of their income—a financial burden associated with an increased risk of homelessness—has risen by 14 percent over the past two years.

“Federal rental assistance programs have been treading water, while the need for assistance has been climbing dramatically since 2007,” report author Douglas Rice, a senior policy analyst at CBPP, told me

[marmar]

1. k/r

[xchrom]

2. it's not a very interesting topic on du.

but there's at least a couple of us interested.

[marmar]

3. True. The topic of poverty is almost as absent here as it is from Official Washington.

nt

[OneGrassRoot]

4. word

K&R

Thanks, xchrom

[xchrom]

5. which is weird because it's a dangerous numbers game.

grow the ranks of the poor enough -- and everybody will start to feel it in some very bad ways.

[99Forever]

6. What the hay..

... they're just poor people, they don't really count.

[BanTheGOP]

7. Thank Reaganomics and the rest of the republicanist bastards

This is not the fault of anyone on the Democrat side. In fact, they have for YEARS tried to stand up to the GOP, but in fact the overwhelming hate that they have for non-white, non-rich people have led to this condition. Just think if President Obama had lost in 2008; EVERYONE but the rich republicanist elite would be in poverty.

It is NOT a time to ignore, but to put the blame SQUARELY where it lies. First, on the US House of Representatives, who have blockaded any legislative relief, forcing President Obama to start using the Executive Order directives more fully. Second, this is for all the selfish, inherently repressive red states, or states controlled by the Nazis. THEY steal federal monies for themselves, so cities in blue states which give to society are forced to house more impoverished progressive citizens.

It is TIME to DOUBLE DOWN on DESTROYING the GOP, any way possible. Voting is not enough; we must enact laws that make it difficult, if not impossible, to remain republican and have any sort of economic liability toward oneself.

Destroy the GOP...NOW!!