May 2, 2008
LESS MONEY, MORE PROBLEMS
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HASA clients are ending up at the back of the rental line |
AIDS housing providers are demanding that the city level the affordable-housing playing field for poor people living with AIDS. This week, advocates sent a letter to the New York City Human Resources Administration (NYCHRA) and the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) asking for a long-overdue rate increase for HASA scatter site housing. Because HASA reimburses landlords at woefully outdated rates, HASA clients are losing out to tenants eligible for Section 8 housing.
"HASA's payment standards are now grossly outdated, and their declining value has become a major impediment to securing adequate housing for clients seeking private market apartments," read a letter sent Monday to NYCHRA Commissioner Robert Doar and HASA Deputy Commissioner Matthew Brune and signed by housing providers including the African Services Committee, Gay Men's Health Crisis, Harlem United, Housing Works and the New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN). The Scattersite II Coalition sent a separate letter to HRA/HASA Director of Housing John Ruscillo also asking for a rate increase.
Currently, HASA provides rental assistance at 2002 levels, while Section 8 housing rates have increased 17 percent since 2002. Providers want HRA to peg its level of enhanced rental assistance to 110 percent of the Housing and Urban Development established fair market rents (FMR) and index the rental assistance to FMR levels in the future. The FMR for a one-bedroom in New York counties is $1,185. HASA's current rate for a one-bedroom is approximately $940. If HASA raises its rate according to advocate demands, that amount would rise to $1300 for a one bedroom.
Advocates have long lobbied for the HASA increase, but, according to Marina Oteiza, program director at Weston United Community Focus Program and one of the founders of the Scattersite II Coalition, the city always points the finger at the feds' flat funding. The time for excuses, however, has passed. "For a while, clients were still kind of managing," Oteiza said. "Slowly but surely, we were trying to stay competitive and housing stock kept diminishing and diminishing."
Insiders say that HRA knows its rates for HASA aren't competitive and have to do something—the question is, will they raise rates high enough to remedy the problem?
"We need to make sure it's more than a token increase," said NYCAHN co-director Sean Barry.
For more information about getting involved with this effort, contact Sean Barry at barry@nycahn.org or Marina Oteiza at moteiza@westonunited.org.