The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history presents an uncertain situation for residents of low-income housing.
Portions of the federal government have been shut down since Dec. 22 after Democrats and Republicans in Congress reached an impasse in negotiations around funding the government over President Donald Trump’s request for $5.7 billion for a wall along the United States-Mexico border.
Roughly 25,000 households in Hamilton County live in housing subsidized by contracts with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Congress hasn’t appropriated new funding for HUD this year due to the impasse, and more than 7,000 of the department’s 7,500 employees are furloughed, according to contingency plans HUD released last year.
That means that health and safety inspections, called REAC inspections, aren’t happening, nor are investigations into violations of fair housing laws. Local developers can’t lock down financing on new affordable housing developments. The shutdown also means some FHA loans and HUD grants may not be processed right now, and that some federal housing assistance contracts up for expiration are not being renewed until the shutdown ends.
Nationally, HUD failed to renew roughly 650 contracts as of Jan. 5, data from the department shows. Another 500 are set to expire in January. Between the two, those contract lapses could impact as many as 40,000 households across the country. Another 550 expirations loom in February.
Several housing developments in Hamilton County have contracts that are expiring, according to a database of HUD contracts compiled by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Buildings in Northside, St. Bernard, Avondale and other areas look to have contracts that expire in the next few weeks, and it is unclear what will happen if they lapse. CityBeat has reached out to the management of these buildings to learn more.
One of those properties is the Catherine Booth Residence operated by the Salvation Army in North College Hill. That property, built in 2014, provides 96 single-bedroom units for low-income seniors. Its project-based subsidy contract with HUD expires on Jan. 28, but the Salvation Army says its renewal application is ready for approval when HUD comes back. In the meantime, the nonprofit is prepared to operate the facility on reserve funds.
“All of the necessary paperwork for our Catherine Booth Residence is pending approval from HUD,” said Salvation Army’s Jocelyn Summers in an email. “In the interim, we are able to use the reserve for replacement account for any operating expenses.”
The picture is less clear at the handful of other buildings with expiring contracts, however. And the situation could get worse for others who rely on subsidies for housing if the shutdown persists.
HUD also funds the nation’s almost 2,000 public housing authorities, including the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. Those entities own and manage public housing and also administrate Housing Choice Vouchers, colloquially known as Section 8.
Locally, CMHA administers about 11,000 HCVs. Those payments go to landlords, many of whom rely on them to pay their mortgages and make building repairs.
In a letter sent to residents Jan. 22, CMHA said voucher recipients can’t be evicted because of the shutdown. But the letter doesn’t discuss how landlords would be compensated to cover expenses.
“If federal funding is not restored, CMHA would be unable to process Housing Assistance Payments (“HAP”) and Utility Allowance Payments (“UAP”) until it receives funding or other guidance from HUD,” the letter reads. “It should be noted that during a government shutdown, landlords and property owners are prohibited from collecting CMHA’s HAP payments from residents and may not use nonpayment of HAP as a cause for eviction. Residents remain responsible for paying their portion of the rent outlined in their contract with their landlord.”
CMHA says HUD has paid for the vouchers through January.
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is closed as part of the partial federal government shutdown,” CMHA said in a Jan. 10 email. “At this time, CMHA has not been affected since HUD already sent all of its January payments on time. These include housing assistance payments and administrative fees for the Housing Choice Voucher program and the Operating Fund for Public Housing”
A spokesperson for CMHA said the authority “couldn’t answer a hypothetical” about funding beyond January. HUD says February’s payments for HCVs are funded, but beyond that, Congress will need to act.That’s dicey, given the current impasse, advocates for affordable housing say.
“While they are not the highest profile victims of the impasse, low-income people served by HUD affordable housing programs are already being negatively impacted,” Cincinnati-based Affordable Housing Advocates said in a Jan. 18 statement. “The longer the shutdown continues, the greater its harm will be, and the lowest-income people — seniors, people with disabilities and families with children — will suffer the most.”
Here’s the entirety of the Jan. 22 letter CMHA sent to local housing choice voucher recipients:
This article appears in Jan 16-23, 2019.