Is a federal housing rule hurting rural South Dakota?
S.D. congressional trio wants Housing and Urban Development to exempt small towns from government assistance eligibility requirement
Low-income housing options in rural South Dakota are at risk of drying up due to new federal income and asset limits.
That’s according to all three members of the state’s delegation on Capitol Hill, who in a letter to the acting United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, say an Obama-era change to eligibility requirements for Section 8 housing could cause affordable housing supplies to dry up in the state’s smallest communities.
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“Since the implementation of HOTMA (Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act), property owners have reported potential adverse effects, including the eviction of long-term tenants who have been deemed eligible for many years,” according to the letter co-authored by Congressman Dusty Johnson and Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune. “Increased vacancies will, in turn, affect the financial feasibility of these housing authorities.”
Under HOTMA, passed in 2016, HUD began considering an individual’s assets in addition to their income when determine eligibility for housing assistance. And though HUD established a waiver program to allow housing authorities to continue grandfather in existing tenants who no longer met eligibility requirements, the exception to the rule was not afforded to new tenants. Landlords are now struggling to find renters as more of their former tenants age out of independent living.
Though the law was passed eight years ago, HUD only recently finalized the rules in the law, meaning that the change has just begun to impact both tenants and landlords.
“HUD-funded housing developments serve a vital housing need and sometimes it is the only rental housing option within a community,” Rounds explained in a statement. “Therefore, we request that HUD consider waivers or exceptions for low-rent housing units located in rural communities with populations of 5,000 or less.”
The consideration of assets in determining eligibility for housing assistance is particularly challenging for rural property owners because their tenants are often retired farmers and ranchers who are cash poor but still have ownership in land or other assets not easily liquidated, according to a information provided to The Dakota Scout by Rounds’ office.
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“By allowing these waivers or exceptions, we can make certain our rural communities maintain access to necessary housing resources, preserving the stability and viability of these critical housing options,” Rounds continued.
Statewide, there are 35 public housing authorities (PHAs), 26 of which have low-rent housing units directly impacted by the new asset limitation, according to Rounds’ office. Of those, 21 are in communities with populations under 5,000, and eight are in communities with populations under 1,000.
You have to Love this. SD Modern GOP Congressional Representatives have Never voted for any HUD authorization or programs in their lives. But, get a complaint from some of those good old boys from the Rural SD and by Golly we need to ACT Now. Hypocrisy at its finest.
yeah...not exactly how that happened. Having campaigned all over South Dakota and SEEING hundreds of government subsidized apartments.....some towns look to have MORE apartment units than they do houses...check out Volga, SD! But follow the money...WHO built these monstrosities? and they were built by cronies to the politicians who had NO RISK in building them. Favored builders got all the TIFs, all the variances, all the "look the other way" red tape that costs the normal contractors big bucks. Every town it seems has these government programed housing units. This is politicians playing favorites. And their favorite builders, consultants, investors, etc, were probably promised a steady flow of all the rent generated.....but now it looks like their conspired plan to make money off the Federal funds might be drying up. They don't care about the families...they never have....they only care about their cut in all the federal money that flows into SD and how they can divert it to themselves and their cronies.