Public housing officials blast Obama administration’s move to oust wealthier tenants from subsidized homes

Just keep in mind who’s promoting Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, AFFH; it’s HUD and all the public housing authority type organizations; all of whom are attacking the suburbs with their loser policies.

click here for the original Washington Post article published August 27 by Lisa Rein.

In a letter this week, the director of the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association told Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro that a report highlighting “over income” tenants that triggered the change in policy was deeply flawed.

“I am writing to urge the Department to maintain current practice regarding higher income residents,” Timothy Kaiser, the group’s executive director, wrote.

[A family in public housing makes $498,000 a year. And HUD wants tenants like this to stay]

“To reverse course on the basis of a deeply flawed Inspector General report, a few sensationalized and exaggerated media accounts, and ill-informed commentary from some pundits would be a major policy mistake.”

[After criticism, HUD says it’s trying to give the boot to families who earn too much]

The teeth-gnashing from housing advocates underscores a debate that’s likely to continue: How should government encourage low-income families to become self-sufficient? An unsparing audit by HUD’s inspector general found 26,000 families that exceeded the income threshold to get into public housing, nearly half by $10,000 to $70,000.

A family in New York City making $497,911 pays $1,574 for a three-bedroom apartment, investigators found. When we asked the city’s housing authority if it kicks tenants like this out, officials said they should stay because they serve as models for other residents. And when families make more, they usually pay more in rent, which helps offset steep declines in federal public housing subsidies, the authority said.