Press Room

The public housing resident received a letter in May saying she'd been picked to receive a rent-subsidy voucher.

She'd been on the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority's voucher waiting list since at least 2000 and was living with her mom.

"I was glad to receive it so I could have my own place, finally," said the woman, who did not want her name published for fear of retaliation.

Finding a place to live was difficult. She lacked her own car and relied on the bus for transportation. After receiving an extension, she finally found a home for her and her son: a brick, three-bedroom house with a fenced yard near Richmond International Raceway in Henrico County.

But before she could sign a lease, hers was among 120 low-income families who received a Sept. 4 letter saying that because of a budget crunch at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "We must void or recapture the voucher recently issued to you."

"All these years I waited and waited . . . It kind of crushes your spirit when somebody does something like that to you," the woman said. "You lose faith. You lose hope."

Last week, RRHA froze rent subsidies for an additional 43 families.

In recent months, AIG, General Motors, Wells Fargo and Citigroup have been handed billion-dollar bailouts by the government. Some of these corporations have hardly handled the largesse responsibly, partying and handing out bonuses like it's 1999.

So where is the bailout for low-income residents who've been promised safe and affordable housing, only to have the rug yanked from under them?

Critics of RRHA view this as yet another example of the agency's mismanagement. To that, I respond: Is anyone arguing that the bailed-out banks and car companies were well-managed?

"You're not going to give them the money to help us, but you're going to give it to the banks, you're going to give it to GM, when we need it more than they need it?" the woman asked. "It's not fair to leave us stranded."

Candice Streett, director of external affairs and asset management for Virginia Supportive Housing, said there's talk in Washington of expediting fiscal 2010 money to alleviate the voucher problem. But what happens this time next year?

"As people have lost jobs in this economy, the pressure on the voucher program is greater," she said.

It will take awhile for jobs to materialize and folks to get back on their feet, Streett said.

"We need what the banks and car companies got. We need a serious infusion in the voucher program, and we need it now."

If not, we're likely to see a spike in homelessness, police calls and emergency-room visits, she said.

"We're going to pay for it as a society if we don't make plans to pay for it now."

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says more than 400 housing agencies need $130 million in supplemental funding to address this problem for the remainder of 2009. That's chump change compared to the billions spent on the bailouts.

A society that bails out big corporate ships while allowing the least of us to sink is flirting with disaster. These vouchers need to be reinstated.