Just in time for the holiday season, more than 3,000 low-income county families will be getting a break on their rent.
Three months after the county Housing Authority decreased Section 8 rental assistance for thousands of local households, due to a lack of federal funding, local officials have been given the go-ahead to restore part of the cut.
Most households will be allowed to pay from $50 to $200 less on their monthly rent, depending on the size of the family and the rental housing.
Federal housing officials agreed this month to allow the local Housing Authority to dip into reserves to cover the increased rent subsidies, said authority Executive Director Jim Nakashima.
Once those reserves are depleted by the end of the month, local housing officials will be eligible to apply for additional funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers the program.
Ultimately, Nakashima said, the hope is that Congress will authorize additional funding for federal housing programs.
In the meantime, Nakashima said he believes federal housing officials decided to allow the use of local reserves because they understood the impact of assistance reduction.
"Basically, (HUD) did the right thing," Nakashima said, noting the rising unemployment rate in the county and its impact on low-income families.
"The pain was just too great. It's a lot harder for people without jobs. We know the risk we're going to take. We're going to spend our reserves and hope Congress does the right thing."
The Section 8 voucher program offers subsidies to very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled for private housing, mostly for rentals. Participants find their own qualified housing and pay the difference between the government subsidy and the rental rate charged by a landlord.
Due to a funding shortfall for the Section 8 program, the county Housing Authority trimmed its rent subsidies by about 20 percent Sept. 1. The authority took that step rather than cutting up to 800 families out of the voucher program.
The move meant no new housing vouchers would be issued, and those with vouchers but no housing would be frozen.
Some renters were hit harder by the change than others.
Nakashima said one disabled woman on a fixed monthly income of $850 told him her share of rent rose from $150 per month to $400, an increase she said she simply couldn't afford.
Most Section 8 renters are expected to pay about 30 percent of their income on rent.
Nakashima said the woman and several other Section 8 recipients were able to secure short-term emergency assistance from the Housing Resource Center of Monterey County but that was only temporary. Even with the increased subsidy, the woman's rent share will be about $250 per month, he said.
Nakashima said he hopes Congress will approve funding after the first of the year that will allow the local Housing Authority to fully restore the Section 8 assistance.
But no new housing vouchers will be issued in the immediate future, he said.
Jim Johnson can be reached at 753-6753 or jjohnson@montereyherald.com.
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