NLIHC Gives Mixed Reviews to Administration’s Extended Gulf Coast Housing Response Plan
April 26, 2007
WASHINGTON, DC - The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) said the Administration's announcement regarding its plans for continuing housing assistance for Gulf Coast hurricane survivors was both good news and bad news.
NLIHC President Sheila Crowley said, "The good news is that rental assistance will be extended, which will give some sense of stability to residents who have been in limbo for far too long, and that a housing agency will be administering it. The bad news is that the Administration continues to create new, complicated and complex programs rather than using existing housing programs, which are proven effective and already in place, such as the Section 8 voucher program. The bad news is also that the rent increase proposal could end up pushing people out of the program."
Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), HUD and the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding announced that the temporary housing assistance programs for Gulf Coast hurricane victims have been extended by 18 months until March 1, 2009. The current FEMA extension ends on August 31, 2007.
The FEMA rental assistance program will transition to a new FEMA-HUD Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP). Beginning in September 2007, DHAP will be managed by HUD and administered by local public housing agencies (PHAs).
Most residents of the rental housing assistance program and FEMA trailers or mobile homes will begin to pay a portion of the cost of their housing in March 2008. For the rental assistance program, the tenant portion will increase incrementally by $50 each month, through the end of the extension. Residents of FEMA trailers and mobile homes, however, would have their portion of housing costs determined by a FEMA formula based on income. FEMA will fund the rental assistance extension.
"It's terrific to see the Administration finally acknowledge that Hurricane Katrina was not the typical disaster and that the needs of people affected by the storm are much greater and longer lasting than the average disaster," Crowley said. "But the rapidly rising rents that residents will have to pay could very quickly make this an impossible situation for the lowest income renters.
"Why does the Administration continue to ignore the simplest and best solution? Affected households should be transferred to HUD's Section 8 voucher program, and why the Administration isn't doing that remains a mystery."
Crowley noted that NLIHC and many other national and Gulf Coast housing and poverty advocacy groups have made multiple recommendations to the Administration that it transfer households remaining in FEMA housing assistance programs into HUD's Section 8 voucher program.
A press release announcing the extension can be found on both FEMA's and HUD's websites: www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=35729 and www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr07-051.cfm.
