4/3/95 | Index | Next | Back
Photograph: RALLYING SUPPORT: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros comes to town to warn of impending budget cuts to his agency. Photo Credit: Leila Gorchev.

Cuts threaten to up the rent

By Kavita Menon, Staff Reporter

The government is poised to take back money it had already promised the federal housing department, threatening billions of dollars in subsidies that allow low-income residents to pay their rent.

The House of Representatives has approved $7.2 billion in cuts to the department of Housing and Urban Development. Up to $2.7 billion would come from Section 8, the most popular tenant-aid program. The Senate is considering a milder version of the package -- calling for $4.7 billion in HUD cuts. A vote on the Senate plan is imminent.

If the bill is approved, it will be the first time since the government began offering Section 8 payments in 1976 that the number of vouchers will not be increased.

Housing advocates say the consequences of these cuts could be severe in the city, which is dependent on federal subsidies for housing programs, and could be particularly dire in economically vulnerable regions like the South Bronx.

"The South Bronx has been working hard to revitalize itself. Any time community block grants are cut, those efforts suffer," HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros said in Manhattan on Thursday.

Citywide, the biggest losses would be in the Section 8 program. The other major blow would be to the city's housing authority, which receives 90 percent of its budget from HUD.

The South Bronx claims one-quarter of the city's housing projects, accounting for well over 30,000 units. The housing authority could lose as much as $158 million -- one-third of the grant already appropriated for modernization projects in public housing -- and $65 million in operating subsidies for maintenance and security -- more than half its grant.

"We are scared," said Sharon White, president of the tenant association at the Melrose Houses. "It looks like we're going to be losing a lot. We really need some repairs, security for our building, new intercoms, new locks on the doors."

The proposed cuts to the HUD budget are part of a Republican-led drive to curb federal spending, mostly by paring down social programs. Republicans have tied the bill to disaster relief for California, making it difficult for President Clinton to veto.

Representative Jose Serrano (D-South Bronx) criticized the pending legislation as an "egregious attack" on hundreds of thousands of homeless people seeking affordable housing.

Cisneros is upset too. He has been criss-crossing the country to protest the rollbacks and to secure support for an agency that some in Washington have suggested be dismantled altogether.

To fend off such attacks, Cisneros has proposed moving away from public housing and giving tenants the ability to choose their own privately owned housing. Under a system like that used in section 8, tenants will be given certificates, called vouchers, to give private landlords for rent payments.

The secretary conceded that this plan, central to his desire to get HUD out of micromanagement and into "empowerment," would have to be rethought for New York's extraordinarily tight, expensive housing market.

Cisnerous added, "Any time we see cuts in programs like the vouchers which would give people choice in housing,the South Bronx suffers."


The Bronx Beat, April 3, 1995