Posted on: Sunday, July 11, 2004

EDITORIAL
Affordable housing is about supply and cost

Two developments in housing programs for the poor suggest that more low-rent housing will become available in Hawai'i — even as cuts in federal Section 8 rent subsidies threaten to make fewer people eligible for it.

On Thursday, Gov. Linda Lingle signed a bill, part of her legislative package this year, that increases the borrowing capacity under the Hula Mae MultiiFamily Housing Program from $200 million to $300 million.

The higher amount will enable the administration to leverage development and rehabilitation of needed affordable rental housing projects.

That's the good news.

More worrisome, however, is a shortage of federal money for subsidized rent, which is forcing some jurisdictions to make deep cuts in so-called Section 8 rental assistance for lowiincome residents.

The program serves 2 million poor families nationally, as well as the disabled and the elderly.

Critics worry the changes could force thousands of families into homelessness.

HUD Assistant Secretary Michael Liu, a former Republican state senator from Hawai'i, said the money change, which he said was ordered by Congress, was necessary to control costs in a program whose expenses have grown 10 percent per year.

Certainly property values have soared, both in California and in Hawai'i, and rents are bound to follow. But government officials concerned about the growing costs of keeping low-income families in permanent homes should pay attention to the much greater costs involved when those families become homeless.