Apartment costs seem to be trending flat to slightly higher these days for many renters.
But new calculations from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development say rents in the Chicago area will be mostly lower starting next month. And that could make life tougher for low-income families in need of assistance from the federal housing choice voucher program, according to critics, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Chicago Housing Authority officials.
“Especially for the larger bedroom units, it hurts families because it limits the areas they can get access to,” said Meghan Harte, the CHA’s managing director for housing vouchers.
At issue are new benchmark rents that HUD proposes to implement nationwide Friday.
The agency uses the benchmarks to determine the maximum subsidies that vouchers will provide for modest one-, two-, three- or four-bedroom apartments.
Housing choice vouchers generally are worth less when the benchmarks, called “fair market rents,” are reduced.
The voucher program, formerly known as Section 8, already has been hit by funding changes this year that have forced public housing authorities across the country to cut spending and, in some cases, to limit the number of people receiving assistance.
HUD’s new benchmark rents won’t change the number of vouchers available nationwide or reduce the program’s $14 billion budget. But if the fair market rents go down in the six-county region, low-income families may be faced with a choice when their leases expire between paying more out of their pockets or moving into cheaper apartments, say affordable-housing advocates.
Advocates also say that lower benchmark rents discourage landlords from participating in the voucher program.
“Illinois landlords face rising utility, property tax and insurance costs,” wrote Blagojevich in a letter last week to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. “They cannot be expected to remain in a program that not only will not pay them their increased costs but reduces the rental subsidy available to low-income tenants.”
In urging HUD to delay implementation of the new fair market rents, the governor also said poor families don’t have the extra income to pay the difference between actual rents and the benchmarks.
In Cook, Kane, DuPage, McHenry and Will Counties, HUD’s benchmark rents would drop to $919 a month from $951 for two-bedroom apartments and to $1,114 a month from $1,189 for three-bedroom apartments. The benchmark for a one-bedroom apartment would increase $23 a month to $820 from $797.
In Chicago, the impact could be widespread, officials say, because most of the 35,000 families who hold housing vouchers from the CHA require units of two or more bedrooms.
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“If you take $50 off the fair market rent on a four-bedroom unit, in most cases it would not allow families to move to a place like Lakeview or some other area of opportunity,” Harte said.
In Lake County, HUD’s benchmark rents would drop by about $80 a month for one-, two- and three-bedroom units because the federal government decided to remove the county from the Chicago region and pair it with Kenosha County in Wisconsin, where housing costs are lower.
HUD’s proposed benchmark rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Lake would be $715 a month beginning Friday, down from the $797 set last year.
Alon Jeffrey, executive director of the Lake County Housing Authority, said market rents in Lake actually seem to be holding steady or increasing at most of the apartment complexes surveyed by his staff.
“For poor people to find another buck is tough, especially for those on fixed incomes,” Jeffrey said.
A spokeswoman for HUD said the proposed benchmarks are not the final numbers and that the department is taking seriously the comments from local officials and advocacy groups.
She also said HUD is doing its own rental market surveys in some areas and could revise the benchmarks as those are completed.
Begun in the mid-1970s, the voucher program provides rental assistance to about 2 million households, including the elderly, the disabled and the working poor.
Tenants usually pay no more than 30 percent of their incomes in rent, with vouchers picking up the rest of the cost.