(Read more on the multifamily market.)
WASHINGTON, DC-FEMA, HUD and the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding are extending the temporary housing assistance programs put in place after the 2005 hurricanes for another 18 months. The current FEMA extension had been set to expire on Aug. 31. This new extension will provide housing assistance until March 1, 2009.
Also, the FEMA rental assistance program will transition to a new FEMA-HUD Disaster Housing Assistance Program, which, beginning in September 2007, will be managed by HUD and administered by local public housing agencies.
Another element to the extension is the requirement that residents of the rental housing assistance program and FEMA trailers begin to pay a portion of the cost of their housing in March 2008. The tenant portion will increase incrementally by $50 each month for the rental assistance program through the end of the extension. Residents of FEMA trailers and mobile homes will have their portion of housing costs determined by a formula based on income.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition applauded the government agencies for extending assistance but questioned the additional financial burden on residence.
"It's terrific to see the administration finally acknowledge that Hurricane Katrina was not the typical disaster and that the needs of people affected by the storm are much greater and longer lasting than the average disaster," says NLIHC President Sheila Crowley. "But the rapidly rising rents that residents will have to pay could very quickly make this an impossible situation for the lowest income renters.
One solution proposed by the NLIHC is to have affected households transferred to HUD's Section 8 voucher program.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
