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KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
Thu Aug 29, 2013, 12:26 PM Aug 2013

While Boner and Yertle squabble over the sequester, real people are about to end up on the street

and I know one of them.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23967084/rents-soar-santa-clara-countys-most-vulnerable

Krystal Bearden got out of the hospital earlier this summer to find a shock waiting in the mailbox from the Santa Clara County Housing Authority. Her portion of rent in a federal subsidy program would increase a whopping $910 a month starting on Sept. 1....

All 18,000 households in the county's Section 8 voucher program -- consisting of working poor, the elderly and people on disability -- are bracing for steep rent hikes. Some, like Bearden, fear they will have to move in a tight housing market that has seen skyrocketing rents.

When Liz Bowen, 61, of San Jose, received her letter that she would have to pay an additional $130 a month, "I thought it was a typo." Now Bowen, who lives on $1,000 in a month in disability income, desperately is looking for ways to save money such as raising her car insurance deductible and doing some knitting projects to sell.

"I haven't even turned on the heat the last three winters," Bowen said, choking up. "I keep thinking: 'How am I going to do this?' It's just dawning on me now that I'm in survival mode."


Say, wasn't defense money supposed to be sequestered, too? How are we supposed to pay for war with Syria? Oh, right, because war.
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