News about high rent and cuts to housing programs keep grabbing my attention. Three of weeks ago, NPR took a look at the personal toll sequestration is taking on people struggling to secure affordable housing. Sequester Puts Some Needing Housing Aid ‘Back To Square One’ tells the story of two people who waited years to receive their housing voucher, only to have them rescinded due to budget cuts.
One young woman spent seven years on the waitlist for assistance. While she waited, she lost her job, and then her housing. Word eventually came that she was approved for a voucher, but before she was able to secure housing it was revoked due to budget cuts. A Virginia man waited ten years for a voucher. He was finally scheduled for an interview with the housing authority, but it too was canceled due budget concerns. He continues to live on the street.
These dashed hopes are an outcome of sequestration, but the long wait times are part of a bigger problem. As mentioned in another NPR story, recent cuts came on top of a 25% cut to voucher programs in January of 2012.
Both NPR reports, and other sources, have supplied details on how housing authorities around the country are dealing with the loss of funding.
- In Connecticut, the city of Hartford rescinded 88 newly issued vouchers.
- Fort Worth, Texas rescinded 99 vouchers for families who had not yet signed a lease.
- In Minnesota, 160 vouchers were put on hold. (more…)
serve as “debt traps” instead of a simple short-term, emergency loan. The individual who borrows the money may find it necessary to take out another loan to pay off the first, and it creates a cycle of indebtedness.
ese credits encourage employment because individuals must report earned income to be eligible for the credits. They also give workers an incentive to achieve higher wages because the more an individual earns the larger their credit will be, until it begins to phase out at higher income levels. Another key advantage to low-income families is that the tax credits are refundable, meaning that if the credit exceeds the amount of taxes owed by a low-wage worker, the IRS will still refund all or part of the balance. Unfortunately, many Americans are unaware of the EITC. Estimates show that one out of five eligible taxpayers failed to take advantage of it in 2011 alone. It’s like hitting a home run, and failing to tag all the bases; many families earned the tax credit, but never took the necessary steps to receive the benefit.
among the states in Early Childhood Education participation, an especially relevant figure since CAP Tulsa is an early childhood program provider. The state can also boast of a low unemployment rate, the fifth best in the country. However, the high marks do not carry over to other areas of the Scorecard.
bers from the 
states, as thirty states failed to show any improvement in this area. By and large, it was the increase in the number of insured children in states like Texas, Florida and California that drove up the national average, not improvements across the entire country. Georgetown researchers attribute the large gains in those states to new policies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the fact there were so many uninsured children in those three states to begin with.
We know it is 
