This chapter presents the budget estimates and program justifications for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD’s core mission is to promote adequate and affordable housing, economic opportunity and a suitable living environment free from discrimination. The 2001 Budget for HUD reflects the successful implementation of a multiyear comprehensive reform effort which has helped restore the effectiveness and financial integrity of the Department’s critical affordable housing and economic development initiatives. Building on the success of these reforms, Congress and the Administration have provided significant increases in key HUD programs over the past two years. The 2001 Budget will continue these historic successes by providing the Department with the tools to fulfill its fundamental strategic goals: increasing the availability of decent, safe and affordable housing in American communities (including the enhancement of homeownership opportunities, especially for minorities and first-time homebuyers, the transformation of public housing and the expansion of housing assistance to alleviate severe housing needs); ensuring equal housing opportunity; promoting self-sufficiency and asset development of families and individuals (including moving homeless families to self-sufficiency through locally-developed continuum of care strategies and contributing to the success of welfare-to-work efforts); and improving community quality of life and economic vitality through locally-driven initiatives and programs. The 2001 budget provides increases for two successful block grant programs which serve HUD’s fundamental affordable housing and economic development missions—the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the HOME Investment Partnerships programs. These programs provide states and localities with formula funding pursuant to locally-developed consolidated plans for a wide variety of activities which benefit low and moderate-income families. The Community Development Loan Guarantee program (under Section 108 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974) will be continued with level funding and a slightly increased loan guarantee limitation. The Economic Development Initiative will also be maintained. Grants for Urban Empowerment Zones will continue support for ten-year plans to provide new job opportunities and community revitalization in 15 urban areas. The Rural Housing and Economic Development program will be continued at an increased level. HUD’s Homeless Assistance programs will be funded at an increased level to enable communities to continue their development and implementation of comprehensive coordinated continuum of care systems to address the needs of homeless people and families. This funding includes 18,000 rental assistance vouchers designed to provide affordable permanent housing for formerly homeless individuals and families in order to provide a stable living environment, a critical necessity for maintaining access to needed services and providing access to employment opportunities. HUD’s Continuum of Care approach recently received the prestigious 1999 Innovations in Government award from the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation. The 2001 Budget maintains the Federal commitment to replacing distressed and obsolete public housing with attractive, mixed-income communities and creating new economic opportunities for residents. Consistent with this commitment and with a special focus on replacing projects that have been determined to be non-viable, the HOPE VI program will receive a significant increase from last year’s enacted level. The 2001 Budget provides $3,192 million for the Public Housing Operating Fund, which helps to maintain good quality housing, and provides a slight increase for the Public Housing Capital Fund, which helps modernize and improve the housing stock. The 2001 budget includes 120,000 incremental vouchers that will help address the severe housing needs of low-income households. These vouchers are necessary to address the continued increase in the number of families nationwide which have worst case needs for housing assistance, including extremely-low income families currently paying more than half their income for rent or living in severely inadequate living conditions. The Administration reaffirms its long-held commitment to renew all expiring Section 8 contracts, to protect residents from displacement by substantially increasing funding for Section 8 renewals, to provide Section 8 tenant-based assistance for displaced families, and for the replacement of affordable housing due to opt-outs from the project-based Section 8 program. The Administration also continues its support for the Department’s successful Housing for Persons With HIV/AIDS program (HOPWA) by providing increased funding to prevent thousands of persons with HIV/AIDS from becoming homeless. This increase is necessary to continue to provide stable housing and services in existing local programs and fund new jurisdictions as they become eligible for formula funding due to the continued increase in the number of AIDS cases. Building on last year’s successful adoption of the Housing Security Plan for Older Americans, the Housing for the Elderly program (under Section 202 of the Housing Act of 1959) will receive a substantial increase, including an increase in capital funding to convert existing housing to assisted living with services and an increase for construction of new affordable assisted living. The Housing for Persons with Disabilities (under Section 811 of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990) will receive additional funding. In support of the Administration’s strong commitment to increase homeownership opportunities, the 2001 budget includes major support to help lowand moderate-income American families become homebuyers. The budget will increase the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) maximum mortgage loan limits, allowing Single Family insurance to cover loans up to the same level as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) limits. (Currently FHA can insure home mortgages only up to 87 percent of the GSE limits in high cost areas and only up to 48 percent in low-cost areas, including approximately 2,200 rural counties throughout the Nation). In addition, the budget authorizes FHA to develop new adjustable rate mortgage products. These provisions will provide much-needed assistance to first-time homebuyers, minorities, and other underserved populations. Increased funding for the Fair Housing Assistance and Fair Housing Initiatives programs (FHAP and FHIP) will strengthen the ability of public and private fair housing groups, and partnerships between them, to enforce the laws protecting all Americans against illegal housing discrimination. In order to ensure the effective implementation of its programs, the Department’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) will be provided with a budget increase. These additional funds are necessary to ensure timely provision of data, research and analysis of national housing and economic conditions, and to measure the performance of pro-

The Department of Housing and Urban Development

Abstract This purpose of this study is to understand the nature of rent exploitation, or the cost burden that marginalized renters bear in an unequal housing market. I ask how rent exploitation is related to neighborhood characteristics and facilitated by residential segregation, and is further associated with housing problems including rent burden and eviction. Using the American Community Survey, I analyze rent exploitation and rent burden in neighborhoods by how they relate to neighborhood characteristics and residential segregation. I also use eviction records for a case study of Harris County, TX to analyze how rent exploitation impacts eviction rates. I find that neighborhoods with higher percentages of racially minoritized households and households below the poverty line experience higher levels of rent exploitation. Furthermore I find residential segregation is associated with more unequal levels of rent exploitation. Regression and GIS analysis together reveal that Black, Latinx, and poorer neighborhoods experience the highest levels of rent exploitation and eviction in Harris County. These findings reveal the conditions under which renters are more vulnerable to rent exploitation. Residential segregation is a mechanism of racial capitalism that makes inequality durable at the expense of Black and Latinx renters and renters below the poverty line.

Renting under racial capitalism: residential segregation and rent exploitation in the United States

In Buffalo, organizers are fighting for development without displacement, parcel by parcel. This is an article on PUSH Buffalo's efforts and building community control of land.

Gentrification Can't Be the Theme of Rust Belt City Recovery

Much like the foreclosure crisis and Great Recession before it, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing levels of racial, social, and economic inequality – widening already outsized gaps between the wealthy elite and members of the middle and working classes. Among the many concerning processes being reinforced by the current crises is growth in demand for rental housing (e.g., as families face new prospects of foreclosure or unaffordability due to un- or under-employment brought on by the pandemic, many will likely transition to renting). While rising rentership is not a problem in and of itself, there is broad consensus that economic and social conditions for most renter households are worsening. Coupled with stagnant growth in living wage jobs and the long-term, uncertain nature of economic recovery from COVID-19, one consequence of these dynamics is that renters are “paying more with less.” A growing class of renters is facing a shrinking degree of housing security. 

Situated in a public health and economic crisis that is deepening and expanding existing racial, social, and economic inequities, there is an urgent need to advance housing security for vulnerable households, particularly renters for whom precarious, burdensome, and/or exploitative tenancy conditions contribute to further marginalization, further limiting their access to opportunity, security, and autonomy. This report studies and documents such conditions for Erie County, New York, to inform strategies and actions for creating a more equitable, democratic housing landscape. We synthesize and analyze data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the New York State Office of Real Property Tax Services, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Erie County’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) portal, drawing on a diverse and robust mix of descriptive statistics, regression modeling, spatial analysis, and big data scraping. We also review selected local policies and programs, as well as examples of best practices for advancing housing security from communities across the map. We find that, in Erie County, relative to homeowners, renters are: (1) overburdened, (2) under-served, (3) subject to exploitation, and (4) relatively disempowered. To address these issues, we propose a five-part policy program and action strategy – consisting of twelve specific policy proposals – for advancing housing security.

Knight J

Papers

Advancing Housing Security: An Analysis of Renting, Rent Burden, and Tenant Exploitation in Erie County, Ny