November 30, 2007
ACTION ALERT! TELL GOVERNOR SPITZER:CAP RENT AT 30 PERCENT
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"We're not gonna pay rent!" (if it's more than 30 percent of our income, that is) |
With a quick phone call to Governor Eliot Spitzer’s office, you can help poor New Yorkers living with HIV hang onto the benefits they need. Join Housing Works and the New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) in the fight for fair rental assistance on behalf of low-income New Yorkers with AIDS.
Last year, people with AIDS and housing advocates successfully beat back former Governor Pataki’s attempt to raise the rents of citizens with AIDS in supportive housing. That important victory benefited 2,200 people. Now it’s time to fight for the extension of that policy to all low-income New Yorkers with AIDS.
Call Governor Spitzer at (518) 474-8390 or (212) 474-1041 and demand that he include $25 million in his current budget proposal to cover the cost of fair rental assistance for low-income New Yorkers with AIDS. This is the cost of adopting a 30 percent cap on the percentage low-income people with AIDS pay towards their rent. When you’re done, contact Sean Barry of NYCAHN at barry@nycahn.org or (718) 802-9540 and let him know how it went!
While our allies in the Assembly and Senate will work hard again next year to pass 30 percent rent cap legislation, their job will be a lot easier if Governor Spitzer includes money to pay for it in his budget proposal.
More than 10,000 citizens who receive HASA rental assistance for permanent housing have some other income in addition to their HASA benefits such as Social Security Disability (SSD) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). But the state’s current policy only allows them to keep $330/month, or $11 per day, with the rest going to rent.
According to Barry, this policy forces them to make unreasonable trade-offs and threatens the stability that such programs were intended to create. “We know that if people don’t have stable housing, their health is more likely to be compromised, they’re less likely to adhere to treatment and care, and they’re more likely to engage in HIV risk behaviors,” Barry said. Moreover, he said, the 30 percent cap would end the discrimination of the current program. Currently, HASA is the only rental assistance program in the state that doesn’t cap rent shares at 30 percent of one’s income.