Budget woes affect affordable housing

Arizona landlords who provide public housing and their tenants face uncertainties in the wake of the federal shutdown, and with the threat of another looming.

That’s because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget has not been approved on a yearlong basis. That funding becomes a question mark when shutdowns occur.

Local housing authorities, administered by cities and Maricopa County, rely on that HUD funding to help people pay rents. Without certainty, some have warned landlords they may not be able to make payments or renew tenant leases that happen to come up during this time.

Metro Phoenix housing authorities provide about $9.6 million in Section 8 housing vouchers to 12,515 lower-income households. One woman told The

Arizona Republic that she was concerned her sister, who has developmental disabilities, would be unable to renew her lease as her federal subsidy hangs in limbo.

The last few months have been uncertain, especially for smaller and newer housing authorities that may have smaller savings accounts, as housing authorities have waited week to week to find out if monthly HUD funding would keep rolling in.

On Friday, a HUD spokesman said they would send letters to assure housing authorities that they will receive their payments through April.

While HUD sent checks on its regular schedule for January and February, as of Thursday, many housing authorities in the Valley were uncertain they would receive their March funding. A few, including those of Glendale, Scottsdale, and the county, sent letters to landlords in the last few weeks warning them they might not get their payments.

On Friday morning, a HUD spokesman told The Arizona Republic that the department was sending a letter out to all housing authorities confirming that the department could fully pay for housing choice vouchers through April.

Hearing that, Scottsdale housing su-

pervisor, Kristy McDonald, said it provided a bit of relief.

Scottsdale was getting calls from concerned landlords and tenants, she said.

Scottsdale’s housing authority had put all lease renewals and new leases for March on hold for all Section 8 vouchers. If HUD does fund through March and April, McDonald said that the housing authority would approve March leases.

But McDonald said Scottsdale had yet to receive the HUD letter as of noon Friday, and didn’t plan to update its landlords and tenants until it did.

Trust ‘broken’ with landlords

While housing money may be secured at least for the immediate future, the trust between the federal government and the landlords who choose to participate in this program has been broken, said Camaron Stevenson, spokesperson for the Arizona Housing Coalition.

It is already hard enough to convince landlords to participate in the program, at a time when that’s crucial since affordable housing has reached a crisis across the state, Stevenson said.

With uncertainty that they will receive their funding in a timely manner each month, landlords may be inclined to stop participating in the program, and not renew the leases of their residents, he said.

“It becomes a chilling landlords,” Stevenson said.

Irma Hollamby, director of administration and housing services for the Maricopa County Housing Authority, said it is already hard for them to recruit landlords to participate in the program, and this makes it worse.

“When these things happen, it makes them think twice about participating or adding more units,” she said. effect for