Will Hurricane Katrina Force the Bush Administration to Rethink Its Housing Policies?

For the last several years, the federal Housing Choice Voucher, or Section 8, program faced a barrage of fiscal and programmatic attacks from the Bush administration. What could not be accomplished legislatively was carried out by its administering agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The new officials at HUD, however, do not seem to believe in subsidized housing for very low-income families or the basic concept of government stepping up to serve as a safety net for those in need.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit, rendering more than a half million people homeless, and millions without access to employment, health care, cash assistance, or other aid. While there are ongoing debates as to how comprehensively to rebuild communities and lives, many, including conservative ideologues such as Newt Gingrich, agree that the most effective form of housing assistance for displaced families is the Housing Choice Voucher program.

The Bush administration’s plan will in part concede the program’s effectiveness. The Katrina Disaster Housing Assistance Program will provide Housing Choice Vouchers covering three months’ rent to evacuees who were receiving public housing assistance, had Housing Choice Vouchers, and were homeless before the hurricane or otherwise ineligible for other FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) assistance.

Eligible homeowners and renters will receive three months of rental assistanc e payments totaling $2,334 per household. Other families who were not a part of a federal low-income housing program may be housed in travel trailers, mobile homes, hotels, or cruise ships.

But does the Bush administration need to create a new type of temp orary voucher program, or can it rely upon the existing attributes of the Housing Choice Voucher program? Under the administration’s plan, existing voucher holders will be shifted temporarily into the Katrina Disaster Housing Assistance Program, rather tha n accessing the portability features—the ability to move at least theoretically anywhere in the United States with your voucher—of the regular voucher program. Rather than ramping up a new program, enrolling families, and disbanding the program several mon ths later, the existing program could temporarily suspend certain eligibility requirements (i.e., paying 30 percent of your income toward rent).

Many advocates and journalists note that the government has a history of successfully housing thousands of peo ple with regular Housing Choice Vouchers in the wake of other natural disasters. The federal government responded to the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake that rendered thousands homeless by quickly tapping the program to house over 11,000 people in private rental apartments. Why was this initiative a success? Because the government accessed a government program around since the mid-1970s, there was no “trial and error” period typically part of any new bureaucratic venture. More important, the program provided permanent relocation assistance, not temporary trailer cities or cruise ships, and allowed the displaced families to decide where they wanted to restart their lives.

The housing dilemmas caused by Katrina also underscore the importance of maintai ning the voucher program in its current form, although with the funding levels in place before 2003. A program block granted to the states or run exclusively by local housing authorities without federal oversight will cause the same headaches played out wi th other block-granted aid programs post-Katrina.

The Bush administration may find it difficult to admit that a federal housing program they are determined to destroy actually works. But if they want to provide effective assistance to the victims of Hurri cane Katrina, the administration may just have to recognize that.