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The more than 4.5 million families which rely on federal housing assistance should be paying a lot more in rents, says Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Three times as much, in fact. That's what he's proposing in his agency's reauthorization request.
Currently, tenants generally pay 30 percent of their adjusted income toward rent or a public housing agency minimum rent—which is capped at $50 a month for the poorest families. The administration’s legislative proposal sets the family monthly rent contribution at 35 percent of gross income or 35 percent of their earnings working 15 hours a week at the federal minimum wage. Under the proposal, the cap for the poorest families would rise to approximately $150 a month, three times higher than the current minimum.
The Trump administration has long signaled through its budget proposals and leaked draft legislation that it seeks to increase the rents low-income tenants pay to live in federally subsidized housing.
The White House budget proposal for the 2019 fiscal year indicated that it would “encourage work and self-sufficiency” across its rental assistance programs. The reforms would require adults who are able to work to “shoulder more of their housing costs and provide an incentive to increase their earnings,” budget documents said.
The proposal has to get through the Congress, which is currently embroiled in a fight over imposing more stringent work requirements for many people receiving food stamps. Many of whom will be the same people receiving housing subsidies. So the working poor can look forward to more homelessness and hunger, should Republicans prevail. They probably won’t, but it’s not going to stop Trump and the rest of them from trying.
