Affordable housing

The government shutdown has hit the one-month mark, and subsidized housing programs are reeling.

Between December and January, the contracts of 1,150 Section 8 units expired, putting in jeopardy the housing of tens of thousands of people enrolled in the project-based rental assistance subsidy program (over half of whom are elderly or disabled). Another 500 contracts are set to expire if the shutdown continues into February.

For affordable housing developers who need to move federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects forward, January has been frustrating. Calls and e-mails to HUD are met with the “sorry we’re furloughed” soundtrack of the government shutdown.

Patrick Greene could soon see his rent double.

The 70-year-old man lives with his wife, Karen, in a two-bedroom apartment in Montgomery, Alabama.

He pays $460 a month for the apartment, and the rest of his $940 rent is normally covered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Due to the stalemate in Washington, D.C., however, his landlord informed tenants that she hasn't received the government funds.

"We literally have no idea what's going to happen," Greene said, adding that he and wife live off around $1,500 a month.

Hundreds of low-income tenants at housing complexes in four states now face rent hikes thanks to the government shutdown.

A property management company told the tenants in a letter this week that because of the shutdown, the federal government is no longer subsidizing their rent.

“As of February 1, 2019, all tenants will be responsible for full basic rent,” said the letter, an image of which was tweeted Friday by a low-income housing advocate.

Tiffany Brown tells Spectrum New 1 when she rewinds back to 2008 her life was full of chaos.

Addiction, homelessness and not being able to see her children on a regular basis haunted her life.

A decade though later she's reinvented herself and what she sees for her future.

A Miami campaign called Smash the Slumlords started years ago when low-income tenants were fighting absentee landlords who had let their property devolve into a moldy, leaky health hazard. But the name reflects the fighting spirit that is needed to get any sort of affordable housing done in a hot real estate market.

Los Angeles has adopted sweeping regulations that will restrict how long people can rent out their homes using Airbnb, as well as which properties they will be allowed to list with the home-sharing service.

Fifty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the US housing market is anything but fair. In stark contrast to the racially and economically integrated neighborhoods envisioned by 1960s-era reformers, the United States housing market today is characterized by striking inequality: precipitously rising rents accompanied by high rates of eviction and homelessness in US cities, along with exploding luxury construction marketed to the wealthy.

Adrianne Todman remembers sitting across the table from landlords and hearing what they really thought of the Washington, D.C., Housing Authority. "We asked, 'What drives you nuts?'" Todman says, and the landlords had been willing to answer.

The City’s transit agency is telling RV dwellers to drive off into the sunset.

It’s a major reversal for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which previously pushed back against banning oversize vehicles where homeless people slept. Now, with The City exploring new ways to help that specific homeless population, the SFMTA is preparing signage saying “no” to oversize vehicles on specific city streets.

And the tiny street where the latest round of the battle over homeless residents living in RVs began, De Wolf Street, is among them.