By Xenia Pamulaklakin, Staff Reporter
Margie Ortanez was close to tears as she sat in the reception area of a tenant advocacy office recently. She had just learned that she might have to wait until 1997 to be eligible for a rent subsidy from the Housing Authority.
Ortanez has been waiting for three years now, and she is desperate to move her three small children out of her cramped one-bedroom apartment on Avenue Saint John. It is not safe, she said, and she needs a good place for her children.
But the wait may be even longer. She shares the fate of 300,000 other applicants on the list for the 61,000 apartments offered through Section 8 housing, a rent subsidy program funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Approximately a third of these applicants come from the borough.
Last December, the Housing Authority refused to accept applications for the program, and now only processes applications filed between 1990 and 1994. The homeless, those living in shelters and victims of violence are given priority.
Section 8 apartments are privately owned, managed by landlords and leased at regular market value.
Rent subsidies HUD gives to tennants vary with income and the number of dependents.
Along with public housing, Section 8 provides alternative affordable apartments for the working poor and people on welfare. But with the threat of deeper budget cuts from Congress aimed at slashing funds for rent subsidies, HUD is unlikely to expand the program.
"We're discouraging people from applying any more," said Allen Monczyk, a Housing Authority spokesman. "If we're going to take an application today, it'll be five to six years from now before we can do anything about it."
At present, the authority is dealing with a five-year backlog, and housing counselors say that for many it has been an excruciating wait.
"Sometimes they just get so frustrated," said Luz Rosado of Davidson Community Center, a tenant advocacy group in the borough. "They have to come back here every six months to renew their application. Some of them do not come back after three years."
Between public housing and subsidized rent, some said they would choose Section 8 any time, in part because the buildings are located in safer places.
"Housing projects are not as well maintained," said Luz Rosado. "And Section 8s are definitely more secure."
Unlike public housing, Section 8 is regularly inspected every year, tenant advocates say. Landlords also have to comply with strict housing regulations.
But even housing in projects is becoming limited. About 186,000 people are on the waiting list for public housing, and only 8,000 apartment units are vacated [in] a year.
Still, some people refuse to give up. Orlando Martinez, 28, has been waiting for Section 8 housing for seven years. He's been out of work for two years now, and said he soon would not be able to afford the $570 monthly rent when his two roommates move out.
But he just shrugged when the housing counselor in the South Bronx Action Group told him that he, too, had to wait.
"I'll wait," Martinez said. "If it is really for me, then it'll come."