Opinion ID: 3158630
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Private Interest at Stake

Text: First, the private interest at stake in this case and the “degree of potential deprivation,” Mathews, 424 U.S. at 341, is substantial. The 2004 decrease in payment standards affected Section 8 beneficiaries’ rent by an average of $104 per month, a deprivation that could be “very serious to a poor person.” Geneva Towers, 504 F.2d at 492; see also Escalera v. New York City Hous. Auth., 425 F.2d 853, 864 (2d Cir. 1970) (“[E]ven small charges can have great impact on the budgets of public housing tenants, who are by hypothesis below a certain economic level.”). For plaintiffs Nozzi and Palaez, the payment standard yielded 48% and 177% increases in their respective rent obligations. This reduction in a tenant’s subsidies and accompanying increase in the cost of housing “could force tenants to forego other perhaps necessary purchases and could even force some tenants to seek other less expensive housing.” Geneva Towers, 504 F.2d at 491. Furthermore, for many Section 8 beneficiaries, subsidies from the Voucher Program for a stable and renewable oneyear term are the difference between safe, decent housing and being homeless. A tenant’s inability to pay for an unexpected increase in his portion of the rent and utilities could result in eviction, which ultimately would require the public housing agency to terminate benefits, U.S. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., Housing Choice Voucher Program Guidebook, at 15-1, 5, and render it impossible for the tenant to pay for a new unit. This deprivation is especially dire considering the vulnerability of Section 8 recipients, a large portion of whom are elderly or disabled, and many of whom, like Plaintiff Pelaez, have young children. 26 NOZZI V. HACLA