Audio Federal funding cuts freeze out some who need housing (story audio) Photos A south Minneapolis rooming house Marvin, waiting for housing help Social workers want permanent housing for clients More from MPR Section 8 cuts sow fear among poor families (05/14/2004) Plan to address homelessness takes shape (06/01/2004) Resources HUD's internal auditing office Advocacy group criticizes Section 8 cuts Minneapolis housing official on Section 8 Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

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Federal funding cuts freeze out some who need housing
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
July 21, 2004

This south Minneapolis rooming house is home while residents seek Section 8 help to find permanent housing. Many of the residents have physical and mental disabilities. They share rooms and communal bathroom facilities. (MPR Photo/Dan Olson)

A cutback in federal funds has forced many Minnesota counties to freeze applications for the country's largest housing welfare program. The result is poor people who want housing help, including many with physical and mental disabilities are being told there's none available.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Marvin is a middle-aged man who is mentally and physically disabled. He prefers his last name not be used. He lives in a south Minneapolis rooming house.

Marvin is on general assistance welfare, which pays for his room and board. He receives Medicaid, which pays for treatment of his health problems.

Marvin has Graves disease, a thyroid disorder. It causes insomnia, irritability and muscular weakness.

	Marvin, waiting for housing help

"It messes with your nerves, your eyes. It attacks the body in different kind of ways," he says.

Marvin is affected by one of Graves disease's most noticeable symptoms -- protruding eyeballs. He's had several operations to adjust the muscles around his eyes.

"They had to go in and cut it out, and make room to set my eyes back in my head, because they were poking out real bad," he says.

Marvin is self-conscious about his eyes and wears sunglasses much of the time. He says he's also getting treatment for his addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

When he's not at his medical appointments, he watches TV in the room he shares with another man. There's no private bathroom. Marvin and the others in the rooming house share one -- up a flight of stairs and down a hallway.

"I have an overactive bladder where I have to constantly run to the bathroom, nine or 10 times in the middle of the night, and it's hard on me," he says.

	Social workers want permanent housing for clients

Earlier this year, Marvin's Hennepin County social worker Karen Berg-Moberg says she and her colleagues became giddy, "like kids in a candy store," when they learned a batch of Section 8 vouchers had become available.

The housing vouchers meant that Marvin and her other clients, many of them homeless and with various mental and physical disabilities, might find more permanent housing. Berg-Moberg says the giddiness was short-lived.

"We got as far as getting applications for people, and then we were frozen out," she says.

Frozen out because this spring in Minnesota and around the country, hundreds of local public housing authorities which run Section 8 housing assistance got bad news. Without any warning, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, told them they'd be getting less money than expected.

The reason? HUD officials say Congress told them to rein in costs in the fast-growing Section 8 program.

Some members of Congress replied they said no such thing, and in fact pointed out they approved spending more money, not less, on Section 8.

These are people who tend who have cut relationships, either inadvertently or by their mental illness. It's difficult. And they come from families who are also poor and are trying to survive themselves. - Social worker Karen Berg-Moberg

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Gov. Tim Pawlenty sent letters to the federal agency asking for an explanation. Pawlenty cited Section 8 as a major tool in his strategy to reduce homelessness.

Section 8 is the country's largest housing assistance program, which helps two million poor families, including working poor. Recipients, regardless of their income, pay no more than 30 percent of it for their rent. The Section 8 voucher payment covers the rest. The money goes directly to the rental property owner.

Like Marvin, Bonnie found she is also frozen out of getting Section 8 housing help. The St. Paul native asks that her last name not be used. She is physically disabled with ankylosing spondilitis, a form of arthritis that attacks the spine.

Bonnie receives Social Security Disability, which supplies just enough money for the moment, she says, to rent an apartment. But her hold on housing is tenuous because she and her husband are divorcing.

"Right now going through the divorce, I'm going through my income. (It) is very limited, and I'm not able right now to afford much of anything," she says.

Bonnie is angry at the government for cutting the Section 8 program. She's also angry at people who have Section 8 vouchers. She says too many of them are cheating and don't deserve the help.

"It's not very fair that the counties allow these people to abuse the system, and people like myself -- who are disabled who really need it -- can't get it because of them taking and abusing the system," she says.

There is misuse of Section 8 housing help. HUD's Office of Inspector General every year finds millions of dollars of fraud and abuse in the $28 billion program.

But the most recent audit turns up very little fraud in Minnesota. Public housing officials say, and the federal audit appears to back up the claim, Section 8 in Minnesota is well run.

Social worker Karen Berg-Moberg calls Section 8 a cornerstone of help for the homeless, mentally and physically disabled people.

"We try to get them set up with psychiatrists so they can get on medication, so they can take their meds regularly and get economic assistance if that's appropriate," she says. "But if you don't have a place to live all of that is pointless, because we're talking about the basic survival stuff of having a roof over your head."

Both Marvin and Bonnie have family. His is in Milwaukee. Marvin says his adult children sometimes call him but are in no position to help him. Bonnie's family is in the Twin Cities, but says they can't supply her with a place to live.

"They're barely getting by themselves, and I should not have to depend on my 70-some year old parents to support me," she says.

Berg-Moberg says Section 8 is the last resort for most people.

"These are people who tend who have cut relationships, either inadvertently or by their mental illness. It's difficult. And they come from families who are also poor and are trying to survive themselves," she says.

Instead of sharing a room in a south Minneapolis rooming house, Marvin longs for privacy that he says would help cope with the nervousness that is part of his disease.

"I can just hope and wait that something better comes along. I just hope I can be strong enough to hold and fall back into that old life, old ways I was in," he says.

Public Housing officials say at the moment the likelihood is there'll be less, not more, money for Section 8 housing. The Bush administration has proposed deep cuts in Section 8 and replacement of the program with block grants.

Minnesota officials have responded in the short term by proposing that Section 8 voucher holders pay more of the rental costs, and that property owners lower their rental rates.

In some states, public housing authorities have begun taking Section 8 help away from recipients, an action that Minnesota officials have so far managed to avoid.

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