The Bush Administration has dropped a bomb on affordable housing this year.

After holding off on major cuts in affordable housing programs in their first two years in office, the Bush Gang – led at Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by Alphonso "being poor is just a state of mind" Jackson – has announced that it is slashing the budgets of local Public Housing Authorities for their Section 8 rental voucher program. These cuts are being handed down in the middle of local PHAs present budget year, threatening the housing of over 60,000 very low income families, elderly and people with disabilities with incomes averaging $10,000 a year.

These arbitrary cuts this year are merely a preview of the Bush Gang’s announced budget plan to cut the Section 8 voucher program in fiscal years 2005-09 by 30%, which will force as many as 800,000 Section 8 households into homelessness, substandard housing or doubling and tripling up with family or friends. These cuts will translate into the loss of over 1400 Section 8 homes in Allegheny County alone and 32,000 vouchers statewide.

Meanwhile back on the ranch, the Bush II Crew have proclaimed far and wide that their main priorities are expanding homeownership for low income and racial minority families and ending "chronic homelessness." The problem is that this administration has hardly lifted a finger to control the growing scourge of predatory lending, disinvestment in low income and racial minority neighborhoods, and continued high levels of unemployment in these communities which has led to the highest number of mortgage foreclosures and lost homes since the hallowed days of the Reagan era.

At the same time, the Bush Administration’s warm and fuzzy rhetoric about ending "chronic homelessness" has received little funding and is based on a fundamentally flawed concept about the causes of persistent homelessness among a small sector of people "on the street" in the U.S. This program focuses more on the personal dysfunctions and the value of spiritual uplift for long-term homeless families and people, than on the economic and social roots of homelessness in this country.

Ultimately, the Bush Gang’s agenda and rhetoric serves to undermine publicly funded programs to meet the growing need for quality, accessible and affordable permanent housing for low income families, people with disabilities and elderly. Over 15 million people with incomes of $12,000 or less who are clearly income eligible for subsidized housing are not served by our current system of publicly supported affordable housing. In addition, another 50 million Americans spend more than the national standard for housing – 30% of a household income – or are living in substandard housing.

In spite of these steep challenges in housing, Americans, housing developers, advocates and residents have been successful to date in fighting to preserve and increase the number of Section 8 Vouchers as a safety net against the continuing loss of more permanent public and HUD subsidized housing.

Now, the spiraling cost of the U.S. War and occupation of Iraq, massive increases in the military budget for new weapons having nothing to do with the Bush "war against terrorism," and continuing tax cuts for the rich and comfortable have trumped affordable housing (and other essential human needs) in the federal budget.

Housing advocates believe that the Bush cuts in Section 8 Vouchers this year and continuing neglect of public and privately owned subsidized housing are just a prelude to the Bush Gang launching an across-the-board attack on our federal system of affordable housing and the remaining fabric of tenants rights and public accountability for the administration and management of subsidized housing.

If you are concerned about economic justice and civil rights, its time to join with affordable housing advocates in their campaign to save, improve and expand the Section 8 program as a cornerstone of our federal system of subsidized housing for the lowest income and most vulnerable people in our society.

We know there are resources we can tap to overcome the growing gap in affordable housing. It will just take reversing the Bush Gang’s cruel and inhuman national priorities. The figures don’t lie:

• Cost of the War in Iraq: $115 Billion and growing
  Instead we could build 1.6 million housing units nationwide
• Cost of the War for Pittsburgh: $86 million
  Instead we could build 1,240 housing units in Pittsburgh

For more information on these issues and how to make a difference in housing, please contact the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania/Southwestern PA Alliance of HUD Tenants: 412-441-3080

- Craig Stevens