The New York Times
April 8, 2005
U.S. Plans New, Deep Cuts in Housing Aid
By David W. Chen
If the changes sought by the administration take effect, they will result in one of the biggest cuts since Washington first began subsidizing housing: as much as $480 million, or 14 percent, of the $3.4 billion federal budget for day-to-day operations, including labor, maintenance, insurance and utilities, at the nation’s 3,100 housing authorities.
“I’ve never seen anything this devastating occur in public housing,” said Stephanie W. Cowart, executive director of the Niagara Falls Housing Authority.
Michael Liu, HUD’s assistant secretary for public and Indian housing, said in an interview that housing agencies had been warned for months that “there was always the possibility of changes,” especially “in an era of tight budgets on the domestic front.”
“For a housing authority that has been on a particular diet for, say, 40 years, facing a different kind of diet, cutting out fats and sugars and other stuff that tastes good – well, it’s tough to change, and that’s a natural reaction,” he said. “But in the long run, it’s going to make us more effective, more efficient.”
“I’m confident that those who are concerned, once they sit down, they’ll get over it, and deal with it,” Mr. Liu said.
And…
Hunger-Based Lines Lengthen at the Faith-Based Soup Kitchens By Francis X. Clines. The sight of masses of Americans gratefully chowing down on free food
is indeed a show, an amazingly discreet one that is classified not as outright hunger but as “food insecurity” by government specialists who are busy measuring the growing lines at soup kitchens and food pantries across the nation. There were 25.5 million supplicants regularly lining up in 2002; they were joined by 1.1 million more the next year. And even more arrive as unemployment and other government programs run out.
Most immediately, food charities are pleading against further cuts in the federal emergency food and shelter program, which directly fights hunger. Last year, 48 soup kitchens closed in the city as supplies were exhausted, and hundreds of others reported to be making do by cutting back on daily portions.
Beyond that, however, administrators know that the myriad of severe program cuts looming in Washington – for everything from low-income wage supplements
to health care spending for poor people – can only lead to further cuts down the revenue food chain in statehouses and city halls and, finally, longer lines of people silently begging for food.
Comment: How could politicians possibly understand the need for a universal health program if they don’t even understand the need for basic housing and food? Or did the majority of Americans support these policies at the polling booths? If so, have they no shame?