Permanent Homelessness

by Tiny/PNN

"Well I'm sorry there's just no money left in the Section 8 program" The words sliced into my head slowly like a dull knife wielded by a murderer without proper tools.

"But that will render my family homeless within three months…", I started to say, but couldn't quite listen to the response I was given, something about how I waited too long to find a place (families are given 90 days to find a landlord that will take the voucher which in my case fell right in between the high-risk birth of my son and my mom getting a heart condition) and therefore I was unofficially dropped off the program and was now told my chances at reinstatement were slim. The whole conversation, which permanently closed the lid on my chances at permanent homefulness lasted all of three minutes. Homelessness, my "at risk" status and the viscous cycle of poverty for poor families can last a lifetime.

"In San Francisco we have over 18,000 families on the section 8 waiting list, many of these families are homeless, the proposed cuts will eliminate their chances of getting housing insuring that those who are homeless will stay homeless and those that were able to get vouchers will become homeless," Jennifer Friedenbach from The Coalition on Homelessness shouted into the morning wind circling around the small but determined group of families and advocates from The Family, Rights and Dignity Project of The Coalition on Homelessness holding an urgent press conference in front of the federal building on the current very serious crisis hitting the Section 8 program locally and nationally. Jennifer continued, " All of this from a president who vows to end chronic homelessness"

For the last three weeks PNN community journalists have been re-porting and supporting on the resistance by hundreds of tenants from the city of Alameda who in June were given three weeks notice by The Alameda Housing Authority that the Section 8 vouchers which were keeping them housed would be rescinded thanks to the budget cuts Jennifer referred to. With those cuts the 264 low-income families, elder and disabled tenants in Alameda would join hundreds of thousands of poor folks across the nation from New York to Los Angeles facing this same unbelievable crisis thanks to the fact that there were already cuts of over 1.92 billion to the existing Section 8 program causing San Francisco Housing Authority to stop issuing vouchers to families like mine and that there are another 1 billion in cuts being proposed for Fiscal year 2005. All of these homeless-making policies are courtesy of the Bush Administration who just diverted more than $22 billion dollars in federal money to homeland security with $2 billion dollars of that amount coming from HUD's budget, making this the largest raid on a public program used by the poor for the past twenty years!

"But the joke gets worse, Bush's so-called Section 8 reforms will introduce the very dangerous Flexible Voucher Program, " Jennifer concluded by outlining the elements of this odd "reform", which among other things will eliminate the rule that %75 of the vouchers go to extremely low-income families and individuals, i.e. disabled elders, children and families who are way below the poverty line and usually homeless.

" We are demanding that Congress restore 1.92 billion to the existing section 8 budget and oppose the flexi-voucher program." Jennifer concluded with these necessary demands and by making the correlation between cuts to HUD/Housing Authority budget and the establishment of homelessness "In the early 80's when the Federal housing budget was cut by 80% San Francisco opened its first homeless shelter."

"Without Section 8 I will never have the chance to have a place of my own, " Next up was a very pregnant fierce young woman, Laya Hill who spoke truth to the crowd" As it is now I am paying over %80 of my income on a tiny place I have to share " Laya highlighted the reason that the Section 8 program is, as it was pre-Bush, a great program for very low-income folks, as it allows you to pay 30% of your income even if that income is very low as it is for working poor folks like me or from the meager cash grant received from welfare. This insures that poor families won't become homeless when they become unemployed or go on welfare and can't afford market rate rent.

"Between July 2002 and July 2003 597 new homeless families signed up to get shelter," Advocate Bianca Henry outlined the existing numbers of homeless families in San Francisco and how they will be impacted by these cuts, "We will never be able to solve the so-called "homeless" problem in San Francisco and across the nation if we cause more homelessness through these cuts , the point is, its cheaper to keep families together rather than separating them into foster care and CPS" PNN has documented the stories of hundreds of families who due to poverty and homelessness have lost custody of their children to these racist, classist "systems"

After Bianca we heard from Dan Bernal, a representative from Nancy Pelosi's office who read a statement from Nancy denouncing the "outrageous" housing policies of the Bush Administration and her commitment to join Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts in co-sponsoring Legislation (HR 4263) that will direct HUD to fully fund housing vouchers as they have during each of the past 30 years.

"This is the plan to end chronic homelessness, it takes care of 3000 chronically homeless people in San Francisco", one of the last speakers we heard from was Angela Alioto who is working for the mayor on implementing The "Plan to end Homelessness", which I personally have serious reservations with as it only reinvents the wheel already created with the Continuum of Care policy document created by homeless and formerly homeless folks but never really funded so we keep having new mayors creating new programs on top of an old problem, but she did make a very good point which I was happy to hear as she waived the thick glossy covered "Plan…." in the air above her head, "A principal part of this plan is prevention, how do you prevent homelessness? by NOT cutting Section 8" she continued by outlining the connection between the jails, mental institutions and the foster care system as the new ways of "housing the homeless".

"Aint nobody gonna be homeless but a bunch of children and families like me, I am homeless mother of three and these cuts are affecting somebodies like me who just need a chance" as Arieanne Harrison closed out the conference I felt hopeless again. I hadn't heard from Section 8 again and although we are currently pursuing an appeal for reinstatement, Arieanne was right, these horrendous cuts are just gonna affect a lot of somebodies like her and me who just need a chance…a chance at being housed.