Help for Low-Income Residents Sought

Affordable housing advocates circulated a petition yesterday aimed at convincing Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and D.C. Council members to add $15 million to a program that helps create housing for low-income residents.

As council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) chaired an oversight hearing of the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, a clipboard with the petition attached made its way around the room. Barry told the 75 people gathered that he will request $30 million more for the program than is budgeted when the council begins revising the spending plan proposed by Fenty (D) next week.

The council is scheduled to vote on the District's proposed $5.7 billion budget May 13.

In it, the D.C. Housing Authority's Local Rent Supplement Program would stay at the current level of about $31 million, which advocates say fails to account for inflation and a growing number of homeless residents.

"This financing tool is now about to be rendered useless," said Bob Pohlman, executive director of the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development.

When Fenty unveiled his proposed budget, he touted his plan to create a $19 million housing fund to put 400 individuals and 80 families in housing next year.

"While admirable, it doesn't create new capacity," said Nechama Masliansky, senior advocacy adviser at So Others Might Eat. "It focuses on those who are chronically homeless."

SOME, the coalition and the Fair Budget Coalition are circulating the petition and lobbying council members to support the request for an additional $15 million, which they say would help them develop 1,000 housing units.

The organizations rely on the rent-supplement funding to build housing and to fill a gap left by dwindling federal funds that has resulted in longer waiting lists for Section 8 units. One advocate said that about 46,000 people are on that waiting list.

Jim Knight, president of Jubilee Housing Inc., said in written testimony that lenders will grow wary of supporting projects unless they know that funding will increase.

"We simply can't afford to take a step backwards after such significant progress under the first two years of the program," he wrote.

Housing advocates also pushed for more money for the program in the budget last year.

Barry said the situation speaks to a bigger issue.

"The District does not have a comprehensive housing strategy," he said. "The challenge is how do we make sure it's in the baseline budget."

The clipboard continued to make its way around the room, with people signing their names in red, blue and black ink.