Left Field by Patricia Nell Warren
As our Presidential election nears, few are debating the biggest threat that faces our country today. It’s not the Iraq war. It’s not illegal aliens or global terrorism or even global warming. When I was a candidate in West Hollywood’s recent city-council election, I could see the eerie face of this big threat through the lens of our city’s growing housing wars. Indeed, the crisis looms nationwide, and not just because our population is growing. Not just because rents and home prices are skyrocketing. Not just because our stock of lower-income housing is eroding thanks to trends that favor converting older rental properties to condos.
No. We have a housing war because more and more people are drowning in debt. Consumer debt, and the skyrocketing rates of foreclosure and bankruptcy, is the big coming threat for America. For a growing number of people, the horrible moment comes when they can’t afford any housing. Decades ago, homeless people were mostly alcoholics and junkies, troubled combat veterans, mental patients dumped from hospitals. Today, the new faces among our homeless are usually victims of overwhelming financial problems. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, America’s homeless already number an estimated 3.5 million; of these, a growing number are people with HIV/AIDS.
The ever-more-desperate search for affordable housing has a deep impact on Americans who have no health insurance, or are underinsured, and have long-term health challenges—disability, injury, disease, old age. They need a safe, stable place to live that minimizes stress on their immune systems, emotions, mind and spirit.
No one should know that better than our government. HUD admits: “Recent studies confirm that persons living with HIV/AIDS must have stable housing to access comprehensive healthcare and adhere to complex HIV/AIDS drug therapies.” The agency admits further that waits for HOPWA housing are growing longer. In Los Angeles, for example, the city is over its head with housing needs. According to a recent report, the biggest barrier to meeting those needs is the scarcity of property owners willing to put their rental properties into Section 8, where they will get below-market-rate rents. L.A.’s Section 8 (elderly and disabled) waiting list alone is 100,000-plus. As to the HOPWA list, a young Latino friend of mine put his name on it several years ago, and he’s still waiting. Indeed, some PWAs die waiting for their housing to come through.
Some cities and developers with a conscience do make stabs at new low-income housing. West Hollywood, where gay and bi men form thirty-five percent of the 37,000 population, has always prioritized AIDS needs. In recognition of AIDS devastation in the film industry, the city’s Community Housing Corporation got together with the Actors’ Fund of America and other entertainment funders, and they built Palm View, opened in 1998. This is a forty-unit apartment complex for low-income people with HIV/AIDS. Included is “enhanced management” that facilitates access to off-site AIDS services. During my campaign, I had the opportunity to visit Palm View and talk with residents.
Housing projects like these are proof that new low-income housing can be attractive to cities and developers. Yet they’re a drop in the bucket, compared to the actual screaming need. And I commonly hear the comment that “low-income housing isn’t profitable.”
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition: “Housing challenges for people with HIV/AIDS are further exacerbated by the limitation in the recently reauthorized Ryan White CARE Act, which limits communities to funding emergency and transitional housing only from the 25% of CARE dollars not designated for core medical services.…In addition, the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA)…has recently proposed changes to its transitional housing policy which would, among other things, limit CARE Act clients to a 24-month lifetime receipt of housing assistance through the CARE Act.”
American voters need to kick government awake. Whoever wins the Presidential election in 2008 must deal with our housing crisis. If they don’t, they can’t really call themselves “leaders of our country.” That goes for Congress, governors, state and local governments as well as the President. A commitment to enough low-income housing needs to be made. Many Americans are tired of all the “war on terrorism” speeches that they hear every day; they’re a lot more worried about the war on affordable housing. After all, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to have a roof over your head.
Further reading:
www.seedsofchange.org/housing.htm
Author of fiction bestsellers and provocative commentary, Patricia Nell Warren has her writings archived at www.patricianellwarren.com. Reach her by e-mail at pnw@patricianellwarren.com.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Patricia Nell Warren. All rights reserved.
May 2007
