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Section 8 tenants fight eviction
On May 14, 1,659 families and over 600 landlords received notice from the Alameda Housing Authority informing them that there may not be any rent money for the month of June. Tenants and landlords were advised to use their security deposits to pay the rent and to negotiate a way for the renters to repay back the spent security deposits.
Section 8 tenants fight eviction
by Tiny
Poor Magazine/PNN
Landlord Greedy
Made a deal with the government
Rent been paid
Bed been made
Bags never should have been unpacked
Just keep them poor people rolling, rolling rawhide
- from the poem “Landlord Greedy” by Po Poet A. Faye Hicks in the book “Houzin Project: Words, Art and Resources on Eviction, Displacement and Homelessness” by POOR Magazine
Alice Kennedy on the steps of Alameda City Hall
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“They sent me a letter three weeks ago saying that they weren’t going to be able to pay my rent. I have nowhere to go.” Alice Kennedy, a disabled African American tenant and Section 8 recipient in Alameda stopped mid-sentence to hold back a flood of tears while she tried to outline her situation at a rally for Section 8 tenants in Alameda, called because of the most recent brutal attack on the poor by the Bush administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“After they (Alameda Housing Authority) gave me the notice they gave me a list of other places I could move in the state of California. I called all of those cities. All of them told me, don’t bother coming here ‘cause we don’t know what’s happening with the (Section 8) program.”
On May 14, 1,659 families and over 600 landlords received notice from the Alameda Housing Authority informing them that there may not be any rent money for the month of June. Tenants and landlords were advised to use their security deposits to pay the rent and to negotiate a way for the renters to repay back the spent security deposits. As well, tenants were given vaguely written “vouchers” that didn’t list any guaranteed rental assistance amount along with lists of referrals to other counties that apparently weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.
The origin of this assault on poor folks across the nation began on April 22, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the leadership of Bush appointee Alphonso Jackson announced unexpected - and retroactive – current year cuts to the Section 8 housing voucher program. The cuts left housing authorities across the country scrambling to make up serious funding shortfalls and forced them to take actions like the ones impacting Ms. Kennedy and thousands of other Section 8 tenants locally and nationally.
On May 20, HUD announced it was fixing the problem by providing $150 million to housing authorities and making slight changes to how it determines housing authorities’ funding. Unfortunately, this “fix,” while badly needed, provided less than half of the funding required to solve this crisis.
“I pray every night that things will be ok, ‘cause I have a six-year-old, my neighbor has a seven-year-old, my cousin has a 15-year-old and we are all working. And since we got this notice three weeks ago, we are essentially living here homeless,” Martina Knox, a young soft spoken woman said quietly about her impossible situation. “I wrote Alphonso Jackson and Barbara Boxer so many letters, and they have done nothing.”
To hear Ms. Knox explain the situation of all of these working poor mothers who are left with nowhere to go, I reflected on my own impending homelessness as a Section 8 recipient in San Francisco. Was the Bush administration trying to incite class war? Where will we all go? Maybe the White House has some extra room.
And how is this legally possible? I was told at my Section 8 orientation meeting that as long as I followed the “rules” I had just received a lifetime rental assistance voucher. Isn’t that illegal termination of a contract?
As many as half of the nation’s housing authorities are facing these imminent cuts, primarily in communities where rents or incomes have changed significantly since August of 2003. All communities are affected, though, to the extent that the cuts increase the number of people who can’t afford housing, generally undermine the voucher program and set the stage for future cuts.
These drastic cuts are really just the preview of the larger Bush administration plan to cause widespread homelessness. They already plan to cut funding for 250,000 existing vouchers in fiscal year 2005. And I wonder did HUD have mass homelessness in mind when they demolished countless housing projects in the ‘90s and gave people a useless Section 8 voucher in exchange.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” said Charlie Jammer, a blind African American man who transferred his Section 8 voucher from another county so he could move to a safer location in Alameda. Now he is losing his voucher because he doesn’t have “Section 8 seniority,” which is just more lies, as he has been on Section 8 since 1995 in other counties.
“This is the richest country in the history of the world, and people who are poor should not be discriminated against and deserve housing!” As the horror of this situation was beginning to terrify me beyond belief, I was awakened by the determined voice of Rob Rook, who along with other tenant activists from the Campaign for Renters Rights was outlining the reasons for an action they organized later that day.
“With approximately 40 tenants, we invaded the Alameda mayor’s office and several of the Board of Supervisors’ offices and wouldn’t leave until they agreed to meet with us. After that we picketed the neighborhoods of the mayor and the director of Alameda Housing Authority. Our message was clear: We are not leaving. And if they proceed with these evictions, we will be setting up a tent city at City Hall,” he declared.
“People need to be aware that they have rights, that they shouldn’t be intimidated by landlords and their attorneys and that they have the right to stay in their apartments and pay their portion of the rent,” said Lynda Carson, the fierce and dedicated tenant organizer, explaining the legal recourse of tenants who were given these illegal notices.
“You see, as Section 8 recipients, we have a three-way contract between the tenant, the landlord and the Housing Authority. The contractual requirement of the tenants is to pay their portion.” She went on to explain that tenants should stay in their units and force the landlords to take legal action for the missing rent from the people not paying - the Housing Authority.
Poor News Network is calling for civil rights attorneys to contact us at (415) 863-6306 if you are interested in launching a class action suit against the Housing Authority for illegally breaking the Section 8 contract with tenants.
It is very urgent that Congress hear the people. Call 1-888-818-6641 and urge Congress members to protect housing vouchers.
For more information on the Section 8 crisis, go to http://www.nlihc.org or http://www.rollbacktherents.org. To get involved in the resistance, call the Campaign for Renters Rights at (510) 595-5545.
For more journalism on issues of poverty and racism or to get a copy of “Houzin Project,” go to http://www.poormagazine.org or call (415) 863-6306.
by Tiny
Poor Magazine/PNN
Landlord Greedy
Made a deal with the government
Rent been paid
Bed been made
Bags never should have been unpacked
Just keep them poor people rolling, rolling rawhide
- from the poem “Landlord Greedy” by Po Poet A. Faye Hicks in the book “Houzin Project: Words, Art and Resources on Eviction, Displacement and Homelessness” by POOR Magazine
Alice Kennedy on the steps of Alameda City Hall
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“They sent me a letter three weeks ago saying that they weren’t going to be able to pay my rent. I have nowhere to go.” Alice Kennedy, a disabled African American tenant and Section 8 recipient in Alameda stopped mid-sentence to hold back a flood of tears while she tried to outline her situation at a rally for Section 8 tenants in Alameda, called because of the most recent brutal attack on the poor by the Bush administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“After they (Alameda Housing Authority) gave me the notice they gave me a list of other places I could move in the state of California. I called all of those cities. All of them told me, don’t bother coming here ‘cause we don’t know what’s happening with the (Section 8) program.”
On May 14, 1,659 families and over 600 landlords received notice from the Alameda Housing Authority informing them that there may not be any rent money for the month of June. Tenants and landlords were advised to use their security deposits to pay the rent and to negotiate a way for the renters to repay back the spent security deposits. As well, tenants were given vaguely written “vouchers” that didn’t list any guaranteed rental assistance amount along with lists of referrals to other counties that apparently weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.
The origin of this assault on poor folks across the nation began on April 22, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the leadership of Bush appointee Alphonso Jackson announced unexpected - and retroactive – current year cuts to the Section 8 housing voucher program. The cuts left housing authorities across the country scrambling to make up serious funding shortfalls and forced them to take actions like the ones impacting Ms. Kennedy and thousands of other Section 8 tenants locally and nationally.
On May 20, HUD announced it was fixing the problem by providing $150 million to housing authorities and making slight changes to how it determines housing authorities’ funding. Unfortunately, this “fix,” while badly needed, provided less than half of the funding required to solve this crisis.
“I pray every night that things will be ok, ‘cause I have a six-year-old, my neighbor has a seven-year-old, my cousin has a 15-year-old and we are all working. And since we got this notice three weeks ago, we are essentially living here homeless,” Martina Knox, a young soft spoken woman said quietly about her impossible situation. “I wrote Alphonso Jackson and Barbara Boxer so many letters, and they have done nothing.”
To hear Ms. Knox explain the situation of all of these working poor mothers who are left with nowhere to go, I reflected on my own impending homelessness as a Section 8 recipient in San Francisco. Was the Bush administration trying to incite class war? Where will we all go? Maybe the White House has some extra room.
And how is this legally possible? I was told at my Section 8 orientation meeting that as long as I followed the “rules” I had just received a lifetime rental assistance voucher. Isn’t that illegal termination of a contract?
As many as half of the nation’s housing authorities are facing these imminent cuts, primarily in communities where rents or incomes have changed significantly since August of 2003. All communities are affected, though, to the extent that the cuts increase the number of people who can’t afford housing, generally undermine the voucher program and set the stage for future cuts.
These drastic cuts are really just the preview of the larger Bush administration plan to cause widespread homelessness. They already plan to cut funding for 250,000 existing vouchers in fiscal year 2005. And I wonder did HUD have mass homelessness in mind when they demolished countless housing projects in the ‘90s and gave people a useless Section 8 voucher in exchange.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” said Charlie Jammer, a blind African American man who transferred his Section 8 voucher from another county so he could move to a safer location in Alameda. Now he is losing his voucher because he doesn’t have “Section 8 seniority,” which is just more lies, as he has been on Section 8 since 1995 in other counties.
“This is the richest country in the history of the world, and people who are poor should not be discriminated against and deserve housing!” As the horror of this situation was beginning to terrify me beyond belief, I was awakened by the determined voice of Rob Rook, who along with other tenant activists from the Campaign for Renters Rights was outlining the reasons for an action they organized later that day.
“With approximately 40 tenants, we invaded the Alameda mayor’s office and several of the Board of Supervisors’ offices and wouldn’t leave until they agreed to meet with us. After that we picketed the neighborhoods of the mayor and the director of Alameda Housing Authority. Our message was clear: We are not leaving. And if they proceed with these evictions, we will be setting up a tent city at City Hall,” he declared.
“People need to be aware that they have rights, that they shouldn’t be intimidated by landlords and their attorneys and that they have the right to stay in their apartments and pay their portion of the rent,” said Lynda Carson, the fierce and dedicated tenant organizer, explaining the legal recourse of tenants who were given these illegal notices.
“You see, as Section 8 recipients, we have a three-way contract between the tenant, the landlord and the Housing Authority. The contractual requirement of the tenants is to pay their portion.” She went on to explain that tenants should stay in their units and force the landlords to take legal action for the missing rent from the people not paying - the Housing Authority.
Poor News Network is calling for civil rights attorneys to contact us at (415) 863-6306 if you are interested in launching a class action suit against the Housing Authority for illegally breaking the Section 8 contract with tenants.
It is very urgent that Congress hear the people. Call 1-888-818-6641 and urge Congress members to protect housing vouchers.
For more information on the Section 8 crisis, go to http://www.nlihc.org or http://www.rollbacktherents.org. To get involved in the resistance, call the Campaign for Renters Rights at (510) 595-5545.
For more journalism on issues of poverty and racism or to get a copy of “Houzin Project,” go to http://www.poormagazine.org or call (415) 863-6306.
For more information:
http://www.sfbayview.com/062304/section8te...
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