About 40,000 households on welfare receive Section 8 vouchers to help pay their rent on the private market, as do tens of thousands more low-income working people. But the federal money faucet has been fitted with a new cut-off valve. Last year, for the first time in more than 20 years, Congress and President Clinton zeroed-out a proposed increase in the number of Section 8 rent vouchers. With no new vouchers available, tenants have to wait for current voucher holders to die or become ineligible under the income guidelines. In New York City, the waiting list for Section 8 vouchers is 236,000 families long-every one of them qualified for the program under federal rules.
Government has to recognize that providing decent housing is a core function again.