60,000 Americans to lose their rental assistance and risk eviction unless Congress acts
World
“And then you multiply that by 59,000 households,” she said
DENVER (AP) — Moments after Daniris Espinal walked into her new apartment in Brooklyn, she prayed. In ensuing nights, she would awaken and touch the walls for reassurance — finding in them a relief that turned to tears over her morning coffee.
Those walls were possible through a federal programme that pays rent for some 60,000 families and individuals fleeing homelessness or domestic violence. Espinal was fleeing both.
But the programme, Emergency Housing Vouchers, is running out of money — and quickly.
Funding is expected to be used up by the end of next year, according to a letter from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and obtained by The Associated Press. That would leave tens of thousands across the country scrambling to pay their rent.
It would be among the largest one-time losses of rental assistance in the US, analysts say, and the ensuing evictions could churn these people — after several years of rebuilding their lives — back onto the street or back into abusive relationships.
“To have it stop would completely upend all the progress that they’ve made,” said Sonya Acosta, policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which researches housing assistance.
“And then you multiply that by 59,000 households,” she said.
The programme, launched in 2021 by then-President Joe Biden as part of the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act, was allocated $5 billion to help pull people out of homelessness, domestic violence and human trafficking.
People from San Francisco to Dallas to Tallahassee, Florida, were enrolled — among them children, seniors and veterans — with the expectation that funding would last until the end of the decade.
But with the ballooning cost of rent, that $5 billion will end far faster.
Last month, HUD sent letters to groups dispersing the money, advising them to “manage your EHV programme with the expectation that no additional funding from HUD will be forthcoming.”
The programme’s future rests with Congress, which could decide to add money as it crafts the federal budget. But it’s a relatively expensive prospect at a time when Republicans, who control Congress, are dead set on cutting federal spending to afford tax cuts.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who championed the programme four years ago, is pushing for another $8 billion infusion.
But the organizations lobbying Republican and Democratic lawmakers to reup the funding told the AP they aren’t optimistic. Four GOP lawmakers who oversee the budget negotiations did not respond to AP requests for comment.
“We’ve been told it’s very much going to be an uphill fight,” said Kim Johnson, the public policy manager at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Espinal and her two daughters, aged 4 and 19, are living on one of those vouchers in a three-bedroom apartment with an over $3,000 monthly rent — an amount extremely difficult to cover without the voucher.
Four years ago, Espinal fought her way out of a marriage where her husband controlled her decisions, from seeing her family and friends to leaving the apartment to go shopping.
