8.4 % cut to housing and community development programs that would occur in Jan under sequestion
would result in: a $1.6 billion cut in tenant-based rental assistance, with 185,000 households losing assistance; an $830 million cut in project-based rental assistance, with more than 92,000 households losing their housing if the cuts aren’t restored; a $180 million cut to homeless assistance grants—nearly 146,000 people would be homeless instead of housed; a $32 million cut to housing for the elderly, with 114,000 households receiving reduced unit maintenance and supportive services; a $28 million cut to housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, resulting in more than 4,700 households losing their housing; and a $13 million cut in housing for persons with disabilities, leading to more than 24,500 households receiving reduced unit maintenance and supportive services.
At a time when there are only thirty affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low income households, and low-income housing programs serve only about one of four people who qualify for them, sequestration would negatively affect more than 440,000 households currently receiving assistance.
Further, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes in a paper released this week, funding for housing has already been cut by 6 percent, or $2.5 billion, since 2010. Meanwhile, the number of low-income renter households paying housing costs of more than 50 percent of their income—a financial burden associated with an increased risk of homelessness—has risen by 14 percent over the past two years.
“Federal rental assistance programs have been treading water, while the need for assistance has been climbing dramatically since 2007,” report author Douglas Rice, a senior policy analyst at CBPP, told me.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/02-2