CALCULATING MY RENT

"A budget should be a reflection of our values," Steve Bullock said on May 1, 2019, for an article written by Phil Drake of the Great Falls Tribune. Unfortunately, HUD does not project such an attitude about what a budget should reflect. In this article, I will be sharing my current experience with the Montana Board of Housing HUD Home Choice Voucher Section 8 program, and how the 2019 HUD budget has impacted my life.

I will be using real numbers here, not made up ones, the numbers that the Social Security Administration and the IRS have for me. This will not be a smoke and mirror type demonstration, but one based on my perception of the facts in this situation.

“We’re in the midst of this housing crisis and Trump wants to walk away from America’s commitment to housing and increase rents on poor families.” Sarah Mickelson of the National Low Income Housing Coalition stated in an article with thinkprogress.org.

I currently receive $851 on Social Security Disability, before you start making judgments, I worked all my life. I paid into the system, and have continued to pay into the system even while on disability. Not all of us are takers. I also receive $102 in Snap Benefits, a Section 8 Home Choice Voucher (I am supposed to pay 30% of my gross income for rent) and HUD pays the 70%  I can not afford. Last December, I was fortunate to have a job that paid $9.50 an hour. Even though I could not work 20 hours a week consistently, those hours were used to calculate my gross income from that job.

Let us do the calculation for the earned income, the $9.50 for 20 hours a week comes to $760 gross a month. Now we multiply $760 by 12, even though I only could work that job for six months out of the year, as it is based on seasonal activity, $9,120 gross a year plus the gross yearly SSDI $10, 212 comes to $19,332 total monies.

METHOD 1

TOTAL PROJECTED YEARLY INCOME

Using the yearly incomes calculated above, Earned Income at $9,120 gross from a seasonal, part-time, six months long job, and the SSDI, which no taxes are required to be paid from, $10,212 gross.

$760 earned income + $851 SSDI = $1,611 x 12 months= $19, 332 yearly income with seasonal (6 months, part-time, contracted 20 hrs a week, inconsisten in meeting required hours) work.

$851 x 12 months = $10,212 yearly income SSDI Only

ADJUSTABLE INCOME

Allowable Deduction yearly Disabled: $400   

SSDI + EARNED INCOME

$19,332-$400 disabled deduction= $18,932 adjusted yearly unearned income x 30%= $5,679 (30% of income) available to pay rent/12 = Total Tenant Payment $473 30% of monthly income for rent. 

I actually paid $551 per month while working that $9.50, 20 hours a week, part-time, seasonal job, that I could not meet 20 hours a week consistently during that six month period. 

SSDI ALONE

$10,212 - $400 disabled deduction = $9,812 adjusted yearly income x 30%= $2,943 (30% of SSDI) available to pay rent/12= Total Tenant Payment of $245 30% of monthly income for rent.

I actually pay $292 per month from just my SSDI, as I am no longer working that part-time, seasonal position. I am told that is because the rent is $47 above the allowed amount, yet when working it is an overage of $78 a month.

METHOD 2 ANTICIPATED INCOME

PHA (Housing Authority) uses all known sources of income- PHA's are required to use and verify income through the EIV (Enterprise Income Verification) system. 

We see in my personal examples, using my income come that I have overpaid rent while working, and when not working as there seems to be a mathematical error in the amounts I arrived at compared to the Montana Department of Commerce Housing Division claims I am and was to pay for rent. They continue to not send confirmation by a Family Summary Report required by HUD to me stating what numbers they used to calculate my rents.

After meeting with Helena Housing Authority on August 27, 2019, it was confirmed that I had not been allowed the EID. HRDC in Bozeman did not transfer over the EID when I moved to Helena. and since they made the error of not allowing me the EID, Helena used the wrong information to calculate the rent I was to pay. My earned income should have been divided in half as the EID allows for a 50% disallowance of this income for a total of 24 months, the preceding 24 months are disallowed at 100%.  The EID can only be used once in a lifetime, and for an accumulation of 48 months total. There will be more information in another article on the Earned Income Disallowance.

YOUR VOTE COULD SAVE LOW-INCOME HOUSING

“There are only 52 affordable homes for every 100 extremely low-income renters according to an analysis by the National Low-Income HousingCoalition. Montana would need to see an additional 16,467 housing units to make up for this shortfall⁠.[6] “, Quoted from the Montana Budget website back in 2016. Have we even come close to meeting even a thousand of those units? Maybe some of the poor can bunk in the barn with the cattle after all didn't the Trump Administration want all the cattlemen to calculate the amount of poop their animals contribute to the greenhouse gas problem?

Are we going to pay the low-income Disabled and Seniors for this job, or is the roof over their heads enough to demand they should just be grateful? Where are the contractors who are willing to put the all-mighty-dollar aside and give back to the people of this state that not only put bread on his table but the table of those who work for him? Are there any good Samaritans left in this arena or have they all been blinded by the bottom line?

Does it even matter that the most a vulnerable population is still facing a housing crisis? I am not sure it really does when HUD faces an 18% reduction in the https://www.montanabudget.org/post/2020-president-trump-budget 2019/2020 Presidential budget. In this budget, the president's request would eliminate 140,000 Home Choice Voucher's nationwide. All housing programs will be effected, $3.2 billion of those housing costs will become the responsibility of Seniors, Disabled, Working poor families who can not meet the demands of keeping up with the out-of-reach necessities while being forced to maintain luxury items like the internet to be able to update their information.

With the work requirements being attached to the supplementation of government funds the poor need, we still do not have enough affordable units for these people to move into. The cost of renting has become so far out of reach many of Montana's low-income people are considering living in camp trailers, or out of their vehicles as it is the only way they can afford, medical, food, and clothing just to be able to go to any job they are able to secure for themselves.

Working for $9.50 an hour at my temporary, seasonal job for six months out of the year, I was flabbergasted to learn that I needed to make sure that I worked 20 hours every week as my rent was based on the increase in income this job would have given me plus my social security disability benefit that I worked for over twenty-seven years. Thirty percent of this gross income goes to my landlord. What is the incentive for a person like me, who has a physical disability, as well as mental, am older, have managed to secure a temporary job not qualify for any of the work incentive programs that would allow the money I make be uncountable? Just because the state or some the county agency isn't getting paid to train me, or because my employer is the State, I do not qualify for any of the work requirement job training or placement programs.

I will no longer be able to work that $9.50 an hour job this winter, as I have been limited to 12 hours a week and no more than four hours a day at a desk job. It looks like this blog and whatever else I can find that might make income for me is the only choice I have. Now how will that affect my housing you ask? Your guess is as good as mine.

If things keep going the way they are in Washington, D.C. you will probably be able to find me at a local McDonald's, as I will be living out of my vehicle, and that will be where I can utilize the internet most often.

I hope that will not be true, but as the parade of mistakes, broken promises and injustices are trotted out in public once more this coming election year, let us remember They have not finished the job they started in 2016!

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/usa-vote-election-political-voting-1327119/

Let’s vote for those who can actually put a program together and finish it so that those in the present are left hanging and those in the near future continue to face uncertainty.

We can not continue to pretend that the housing crisis has been dealt with when so many people face the possibility of losing their housing because the United States Government has better use for those appropriated funds, and besides the majority of the population believes this will root out some of those who are illegally on these programs.

Do not forget that some of us who play by the rules will be squeezed out as well, just because we either fall in the age group where we should be able to train for another job or because the amount we receive in benefits is so nominal that it shouldn’t matter anyway.

You try and live off eight hundred dollars a month, find a job that is only 12 hours a week and would pay enough to warrant going there when everyone is taking their cut off the top of your total gross income regardless of who else has their fingers in your pockets. I just wish the pickpocket was a  homeless child than the United States Government.

QUESTIONS ABOUT HUD AND 24 CFR 5.609

Sometimes I can't help ask the question, especially when it takes everything I made from a part-time, temporary job, plus one thousand dollars in savings to pay the rent and get groceries. If I did not have the money in savings, I would not have been able to pay my rent for the month of June 2019. Why you ask?

Well, to tell you the truth I can not explain what happened. After all, I reported that my temporary, part-time, seasonal job with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks would be ending May 24, 2019, on May 14, 2019, to the Montana HCV counselor that was assigned to me when I moved here, to the Capital City, Helena.

I was disappointed when the paperwork for the reduction in rent was not handled until June 24, 2019, which forced me to pay from income that I did not receive for half of May and for the entire month of June. I was told this was based on their need to turn the paperwork in by the 19th of the month, and I did not quit working until the 19th of May. Be that as it may, I turned in my end of employment in time for the Housing Authority to have gotten the correct paperwork to me in a timely manner.  I informed them through email and did not hear anything back from them until I called to find out what my rent would be for the month of June.

I was quite upset when I found out that I would have to continue to pay 30% from income that I was no longer receiving. I have tried to have the Housing Authority explain to me why this is? Why do I not qualify for the EID? Why medical bills that I now owe on were not taking into consideration when recalculating my income? I believe my income should have been disallowed under the 24 CFR 5.609 which speaks of income derived from a 12 month period. HUD has a special calculation they are to use for part-time work, which is generally also calculated for a 12 month period, you need to ask for recertification of income when you only work six months out of the year, or when you stop working.

Because I am disabled, I believe I should have at least qualified for the Earned Income Disallowance for Disabled Tenants, as I have used this benefit in the past two years, as I worked my part-time seasonal job and should have at least qualified for a 50% disallowance as this would be my third 12 month period, with only one more year that I could work and use this disallowance to keep my rent lower so that I could save some money.

Yet Helena Housing Authority Home Choice Voucher Counselor refuses to communicate through email to explain why I do not qualify or understand these rules. She insists we meet in person, and I would like a witness, but the Disability Rights CAP program does not seem interested enough in helping me, as they have not called back in response to my request for a witness in this instance.

I have contacted Senator Tester on this matter as he sits on the Appropriations Committee and helps to decide how much money HUD gets for these programs. His people sent me back to the Montana Department of Commerce Housing Division, and I sent the Agent there an email and have not heard back from them why I do not qualify for a fair hearing on this rent issue.

If anyone out there in internet land can tell me why I do not qualify for the EID, or why my income was not excluded under the 24 CFR 5.609 laws, and why I had to pay a higher rent with a lower income, why my own Housing Authorities will not allow me a fair hearing or even a complete answer to all my questions, then please email me with this explanation at snakewomanspeaks@gmail.com.

I do not understand, I thought I had a right to a fair hearing? I thought my Senator was to deal with Federal Issues and not sweep the poor under the carpet just because it's an election year. I guess I thought wrong. Does anyone have a van for sell that I might purchase because I can not afford to work and be a contributing citizen to society if the landlord gets every extra cent I earn and then some? But I can afford gas, a van, insurance and best of all I could work and be a productive member of society even though I am disabled. When does it pay to keep people locked into poverty?
It is sad when someone wants to work, but can only work a certain number of hours, can't work because the cost to get a job compatible with their disability will cost them more than they can make working.

FROM $153 TO $551 JUMP IN DISABLED MONTANA SEASONAL WORKER 2019 RENT

I just don't understand how a temporary, seasonal, part-time job can make your rent climb so high. I do use the Home Choice Section 8 Voucher program to help me with my rent as I became disabled in 2001, due to a physical assault on the job.

It wasn't until three, maybe four years ago could I secure a job. I only had my social security disability coming in for 16 years when I got a job as a seasonal, temporary worker doing Hunter Harvest Calls. It pays $9.50 an hour and it is a fight to get 20 hours, and I have yet to get the "core" hours, which are peak times people are home to call without having to work six days a week due to my chronic pain condition.

That is ok, the job pays about $190 gross a week, that is if I can get 20 hours in. That is about $570 take-home pay. That means for the six months I try to work up to 20 hours my rent will be $581 a month, leaving me with a grand total of $19 left from my net pay.

My SSDI is under $900 a month, and I will need to pay renter's insurance, which wasn't told to me before the lease signing, nor was it told to me that the housing authority agreed to the raising of the rent from $750 a month to $820. Granted all utilities are included, but the heat is locked in at 62 degrees and it has been in the twenty degrees to single digest numbers at night, and you don't get heat in the big bedroom or bathroom.

I had to pay a $750 security deposit and their cleaning people didn't even clean the oven the first time. The stove was present with crusted brown/black drip pans and an inch or more of precleaned oven crud that wasn't wiped out. The walls are filthy dirty, coated in dust, fuzz, and film from cooking, showering, buggers and blood on the walls along with other unidentifiable stuff. I get to clean it because they paid their cleaner for 4 hours at $20 an hour and she did little to nothing.

217 YEARS AND NO CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP NOT ALWAYS A GOOD THING

Webinar on HUD's Proposal to Raise Rents, February 28

http://nlihc.org/article/webinar-huds-proposal-raise-rents-february-28-0

AND NOW A WORD FROM THOSE MOST AFFECTED

If you would like to read an interesting little magazine put out by the National Low Income Housing Coalition called TENANT TALK.