i am not fully clear on what this means. it’s a lot of nice-sounding red tape words. if i understand correctly, these vouches will expand HUD-based housing instead of what usually happens: clusters of (often) run down dumps in impoverished areas….
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WASHINGTON – Today Secretary Ben Carson announced HUD’s new “Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration,” which aims to measure the impact of housing choice upon the economic condition of low-income families. Secretary Carson made the announcement at a news conference alongside Senator Todd Young, Former Congressman Sean Duffy, and Assistant Secretary Hunter Kurtz. The demonstration announced today is the result of bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by both Young and Duffy.
“As a compassionate country, when we talk about providing support for families in need, we should also talk about how to provide pathways for low-income families seeking opportunity,” said Secretary Carson. “The Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration aims to show how we can empower people by giving them a real choice.”
“All families deserve the chance to live in communities that best suit their needs, but many live in neighborhoods that perpetuate poverty across generations,” said Senator Todd Young. “Our Housing Choice Voucher Mobility program aims to end this cycle and help families relocate to higher opportunity areas with lower crime, better education, and greater access to jobs, transportation, quality healthcare, and suitable housing.”
“It is a rare occurrence in Washington when a Member of Congress gets to see a program they worked so diligently on, finally come to fruition. I believe that people deserve every opportunity they can get to be successful,” said former Congressman Sean Duffy. “This demonstration helps create a path to break the cycle of poverty for low-income families and move to better areas with more opportunity and put them on a path to achieve the American dream. Thank you to everyone who worked on this legislation with me in the House of Representatives and thank you Secretary Carson for your continued work in advancing the lives of our most vulnerable populations.”
“This new initiative will provide thousands of low-income children and their parents new opportunities for upward economic mobility as well as improved health outcomes,” said Hunter Kurtz, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing.
The Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration will allow participating Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) throughout the country to implement housing mobility programs by offering mobility-related services to increase the number of voucher families with children living in opportunity areas. In addition to offering mobility-related services, participating PHAs will work together in their regions to adopt administrative policies that further enable housing mobility, increase landlord participation, and reduce barriers for families to move across PHA jurisdictions through portability.
The Demonstration is authorized and funded through HUD’s 2019 and 2020 Appropriations bills, which provided $40 million for mobility-related services and $10 million for new vouchers for families with children. The 2019 Appropriations bill also makes available $3 million for a research evaluation.
About HUD’s Landlord Task Force
In 2018, Secretary Carson initiative launched a nationwide campaign to encourage more private-market landlords to participate in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program. Over the past two years, through this initiative, HUD has made significant strides in improving the program for landlords. HUD has talked with hundreds of landlords to better understand challenges they face working with the program. As a result of these conversations, the Department has been exploring opportunities to address these challenges. The HCV Mobility Demonstration will use these lessons learned from Secretary Carson’s task force to recruit more landlords to the HCV program. We anticipate learning even more about how to increase landlord participation through this demonstration as well.
We sold our rental, because the folk renting became headbangers… absolute lunatics.
The last one said they had a ‘setvice dog’ for their disabled kid. Our rules were no dogs. But, because they termed it a service dog, we were not allowed to say no… we put the house up for sale. (Then we get a message from these potential renters saying they have found someone to take the dog!!) Truly, some people have NO morals.
The process to sell should have taken a month, this was a very nice house, it took 8 because the county changed the rules regarding housing inspections – every paint chip notated… almost as if the county did not wish us to sell, to force us to maintain it as a rental… and this was right before the virus revved up…
We spent 8 months paying 2 mortgages, very hard – particularly as we were getting 1 – 2 offers a month on the house.
We had our own engineers reports done at the end (if we had realized, we would have done that right off the bat) and the house sold for asking price.
If we had still had the house, we would now not be able to evict (the virus), and we would still be paying taxes, management fees as well as the mortgage, maintenance, and gardening.
So grateful we sold it in March. What a relief.
This HUD thing, not sure landlords will buy in – a guaranteed rent is one thing, but the higher maintenance, and, having to deal with neighbor and HOA complaints, then the mess when they move on, would more than offset that…
We rented to what I would term middle class, the rent was $1700 a month in Houston, average for the 4 bed single family property in a HOA development.
It seems folk – even those in what I would class as in middle class bracket – did not take the 10 min to read the HOA rules, and as far as the rental rules, ignored those too.
Too lazy or too entitled to read and follow. Cost us $600 to get a roof leak fixed, from a tenant putting a satelite dish up themselves, and not sealing it properly… (when the tenant rules said ‘do not affix anything to the structure’ pretty clear rule there) with all the other things that got damaged the deposit did not cover the costs.
We had neighbor complaints from kids lobbing things over the dividing fence, riding bikes on their lawns, and being beligerent… this was multiple tenants.
So, unless its a slum lord, I do not see landlords being enthusiastic about this… you watch, soon they will be forcing landlords to take them…
We are so glad to be out of it.
it does seem for every slumlord story – there is a story of lousy tenants. both give all a bad name. we need a new system where pay to live, HOA, etc. are removed. at least that is the experience i desire. live and let live. freedom.
We currently live in a non HOA area, and as long as everyone is considerate, this system works… sometimes the incessent barking dogs is a disruption to the peace and quiet, but on the whole, 2ac is enough space that folk can do pretty much what they want, without disturbing everyone around them.
But, in high density housing, people have to restrict themselves more, or be restricted, because proximity makes more things you do, annoying to those around.
If our rental had been in a non HOA, there would have been a drastic decline in the public spaces (noone taking responsibility for them), old and non running vehicles sitting on the street (because noone wants to pay for a lockup to put them in), trash cans out all the time, being blown over, and trash spread about (not my trash, not my problem, that is from someone elses tipped over trash can…)
When the tenant we evicted moved out, one if the bedroom carpets was soaked in urine, either she allowed her child to urinate on the floor, or she had a pet in there… don’t know which, don’t care either, but it cost us new carpet before we could sell (would have cost us new carpet before re renting too, because we always tried to put the house into the best condition possible before new tenants.)
Like the tenants that put the satelite dish up… we also found, after they had moved on, they had the com company dig in the back yard laying a connection, without, of course, telling anyone, and cost us $1200 to get the leak identified, fixed and new irrigation put down when they moved out… and having to placate a neighbor who was trying to sell her brothers house, and complained about the standing water between the houses – this was how we found out about the digging and the satellite dish on the roof…
HOA forces folk to do the things they should do naturally, if they are decent, mature, considerate people… but it has been our experience, there are not too many people like that out there now…
From reading your pieces, I see you have had those experiences too.
Entitled, envious, immature, inconsiderate, these are the folk HOA is designed to deal with, and if they do not want to live under those rules, they do not have to select a property in a HOA, they have a choice…
But everyone likes the way manicured public spaces, neat and tidy houses and yards, no trash, looks, with orderly and quiet neighborhoods, don’t they…
This is attractive, and appealing, and all they have to do is follow a few simple, common sense rules.
I wish there were no need for HOA but, until people grow up and develop mature outlooks and really care about the environments they live in, and those around them, I do not see them going away anytime soon, sad really.