Posted on 12/29/2008 10:13:35 AM PST by Between the Lines
The Charlotte Housing Authority is considering giving thousands of public housing residents a choice: Get a job or get out.
Agency leaders are proposing a plan that would force tenants to find work to keep their government housing benefits.
The idea has prompted criticism from some advocates for the poor who say it would be wrong to impose the rule during the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
But backers say it's only right to make able-bodied adults work and try to gain self sufficiency.
“There's never a perfect time to start a change,” said Jennifer Gallman, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority. “This is a positive change.”
Under federal guidelines, recipients generally put 30percent of their household income toward rent. The federal government subsidizes the remainder.
The proposal would require the head of each household to work at least 30 hours a week by April 1, 2011, to keep the subsidy. Elderly and disabled residents would be exempt.
The Housing Authority's Board of Commissioners will decide next month whether to implement the rule.
It would impact many of the 15,000 people in Charlotte who live in public housing apartments or rent homes from private landlords using government-issued Section 8 vouchers.
A recent survey conducted for the Housing Authority found that the head of the household was employed in 31percent of public housing units. The head of the household was working in 43percent of homes rented with Section 8 vouchers.
The employment rule is one of several restrictions the Housing Authority has implemented or weighed in recent years. Residents who move into some newer, recently built developments must now meet work requirements designed to move them out of public housing in five years.
But the latest idea surfaces just as the unemployment rate in North Carolina has reached 7.9percent, the highest figure in 25 years.
Alfred Riley, who lives in the Boulevard Homes public housing complex in west Charlotte, said he has tried hard “for a long time” but can't find work.
The proposed rule “comes at the worst time ever,” Riley said. “People can't even find work at a fast-food restaurant.”
Advocates for the poor fear the rule could add to Charlotte's growing homeless population.
Many public housing tenants cannot afford daycare for their children and don't have needed transportation or job skills, said Ted Fillette, lead attorney with Charlotte's Legal Aid office.
Some 30,000 people in North Carolina are on waiting lists for affordable daycare, Fillette said. Affordable daycare typically costs about $175 a week, he said.
The Housing Authority has not promised to help pay to remove such barriers, Fillette said.
Revoking subsidies is “tantamount to evicting families who have the least capacity to survive in the non-subsidized market,” he wrote in a letter to other local advocates for the poor.
Gallman, the Housing Authority spokeswoman, noted that tenants would have two years to find work.
Those who do not meet the requirement would receive up to two counseling sessions and a 90-day grace period. When the period ends, the agency would reduce an unemployed tenant's housing subsidy by 50percent. After that, officials would take away an unemployed tenant's entire subsidy.
Gallman said the Housing Authority has studied how the rule worked in cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore and Chicago and found that it did not lead to increased homelessness, Gallman said.
Charlotte officials, she said, may create programs or partner with other agencies to help tenants with daycare, transportation, job training or other obstacles.
“They won't just throw people out,” Gallman said.
If anyone is looking for Common Sense, it is in Charlotte, NC.
This should have been a condition from the outset.
I would truly like to find the mandate for public housing in any State Constitution.
There are a lot of people who work the system by claiming to be disabled - it's not a hard label to get. Then, they get SSDI/Medical/etc. forever. So in a few years, we'll probably see an increase in the ratio of disabled people who get the subsidy.
Many public housing tenants cannot afford daycare for their children and don't have needed transportation or job skills, said Ted Fillette, lead attorney with Charlotte's Legal Aid office.
So what? They just get everything for free forever? I'm just not feeling particularly charitable these days...
...When I lived in Charlotte in the late 80s the Earle Village Projects were a mess....the 1990 census couldn’t tell how many people were “staying”* there....so they sent census takers to go door to door and do a physical count...a census taker knocks on the front door, and some black guy runs out the back door....drugs, shootings, illigitimate children, stolen cars, gambling, parole violators, community organizers all contained in public housing just a couple of blocks from down town.
*Q: “Say Jamal, where you stay at?”
A: “Oh I stays down aroun’ Earle Village”
Yeah, throw people and their kids who can’t get jobs into the street in the worst economic times I ever remember. Wow, great people in Charlotte.
“There’s never a perfect time to start a change,” said Jennifer Gallman, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority. “This is a positive change.”
Change we can believe in.
Yep. You're a Democrat.
L
“Yeah, throw people and their kids who can’t get jobs into the street in the worst economic times I ever remember. Wow, great people in Charlotte.”
I understand what you’re saying but what about the overburdened taxpayer that’s paying out 50% of his income in various taxes? There are some people who deserve our help but there are millions in this country that are swindlers.
I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter for families and you would not believe the number of lazy, ignorant, violent and hostile people out there who have no sense of responsibility and breed like flies. They are vermin who are raising another generation of vermin.
I've had several people who were developmentally disabled tell me they would rather work than get a check because they could make more money.
So we should let poor people starve or freeze to death? Should we have a death cart that goes around and picks up the dead in the morning like India used to? with your attitude towards the poor, I have no idea why you volunteer anywhere. I have worked with the poor and found them to be good and bad. Also, in this economy, the people turned out in the street could be you and your family. As a civilized nation, we have a responsibility to the poor.
I would hope that some Republicans -like myself-still do not want to see women and children thrown into the streets to starve-not my kind of conservatism.
Oh knock it the hell off! Your bleeding heart is making a mess all over this thread.
It’s about damned time!
“So we should let poor people starve or freeze to death? Should we have a death cart that goes around and picks up the dead in the morning like India used to? with your attitude towards the poor, I have no idea why you volunteer anywhere.”
Nice personal attack. I was raised poor and no one gave us anything. Of course that was before the rise of the coercive nanny state. I’ve given thousands in charity and even helped build houses for those who were less fortunate but I’m tired of forced charity.
And no, I don’t want anyone to starve or freeze to death. I have yet to see a starving person in this country.
You’re rhetoric suggests that you are pretty much a liberal who doesn’t believe in personal responsibility but instead in the welfare state.
Earle Village is now gone, razed to the ground. The area is now called the Garden District and is one of the more desirable areas to live. There is still low income housing in the Garden District, but it is blended in what they call multi-income homes and not concentrated in one area.
Here is a link to website that shows what most of the Garden District looks like today.
At what point do you feel bad for the taxpayer who is burdened with these people, his own future retirement, his own property taxes, his own local taxes etc etc?????
Because one does not want to be burdened with taxes paying for the welfare of everyone else is NOT tantamount to heartlessness as you imply.
In case you couldn’t tell, the average worker is having a hard time getting by, let alone saving money. So why should they be forced to pay taxes for others to live without working?
Do you have any logic to back up your feel good concerns?
Re: The proposal would require the head of each household to work at least 30 hours a week by April 1, 2011, to keep the subsidy. Elderly and disabled residents would be exempt.
You call this “throwing people into the streets to starve”????? If you do, you need new reading glasses.
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