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Thanks for your reply and suggestion to move. We are already planning to return to Massachusetts, but I'm having a problem with the portability of our Section 8 voucher.

It's been explained to me that, in the two years since we moved to Louisiana, the HUD regulations have changed for the worse. It didn't pose a problem for us to move from an area where the rents were high (about $1,400 for a 2 BR unit) to another part of the country where the rents were low (only $400 for a very similar 2 BR unit).

However, trying to do the move in reverse is very complicated. A Louisiana housing authority simply will not reimburse a Massachusetts housing authority for that extra thousand dollars per month. Moving back requires going from town to town in Massachusetts (each municipality has its own housing authority) and begging them to completely re-absorb the voucher into their budget. I finally found a city which could take just one voucher, and now I'm in the process of transferring it back up North.

I'm explaining this in detail because it's very important to debunk the myth that people who were issued Section 8 vouchers can literally take them anywhere they want.

For example, I also considered going back to my hometown in New Jersey. While the county housing authority had no problem with absorbing the voucher from Louisiana, the caseworker advised me that the trick is to find an apartment within their price range. The cap is only $1,132 for a 2 BR unit, but almost every landlord I contacted wanted $1,800 and up. Several rental agents said that they did not accept Section 8 because their criteria was that a prospective tenant's monthly income had to be at least three times the rent. I finally did track down a couple of landlords willing to take Section 8, but since I'm from the area, I don't need TV cameras to tell me those particular complexes are probably submerged at the moment. After the hurricanes in Louisiana, I don't need to go home to New Jersey and deal with floodwaters, too, sigh...

But to answer your question, as soon as I resolve some pending insurance settlements, I'll have enough money to leave Louisiana and not look back. Still, I don't regret the two years we've spent here, because it was a tremendous learning experience that made me appreciate just how good we had it in the Northeast. It's just time for the spaceship to airlift us back to our "home planet" -- ET, phone home!!!