The struggle to pay rent is about to get harder

A year shy of retirement age, Parker drove a forklift for nine years, and was a driver for a finance company for five more. Once, he says, he was doing a pickup at the airport and saw James Brown, the soul singer. "Met some good people at that job," he says. "But rent was hard to come by even then."

These days, his plan to make some cash fixing potholes has fallen apart, his odd jobs here and there bring in a pittance, and paying the rent has become impossible - so he has filled out forms to receive vouchers.

At HUD, the proposed budget cut for the Section 8 program is explained, in part, as a reform. The current unit-based system gives vouchers to local housing authorities based on the number of low- income households in the area.

The proposed change will give a lump sum to local authorities and more discretion over how they use the money.

In the past three years, the Section 8 budget nationwide has ballooned by 27 percent, and officials at HUD say that too many housing authorities have become so accustomed to HUD's carte blanche approval of Section 8 costs that they have not performed with maximum efficiency.

Also, because vouchers absorb 60 percent of HUD's budget, HUD will face a $191 million deficit if the current system continues, officials add.

According to Donna White, a spokeswoman at HUD, the current voucher costs paid by the federal government have risen more than twice as fast as the average private-market rents over the past two years. And the program's complex rules have also limited its effectiveness, she says, while the new plan to give local authorities more flexibility will make the dollars go further.

Yet another aspect of the debate over Section 8 has to do with the Bush administration's more general approach to housing policies, which is to encourage homeownership, especially among low- income and minority families, as a desirable alternative to renting.

Reflecting this focus, HUD's overall proposed budget for 2005 has actually risen by 3 percent, which is much higher than many other nonsecurity-related federal departments this year.

Bush's 2002 promise that, by 2010, the number of new minority homeowners would increase by 5.5 million has been followed up by a spate of initiatives to help make good on the pledge. In late 2003, the American Dream Down Payment Act, which authorizes up to $200 million for down payments for low-income prospective homeowners, sailed through Congress.

Instead of cutting Section 8 in favor of programs encouraging home ownership, "let's design some other approach," suggests Betsy Morris, CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission.

The new cuts in rental subsidies, she argues, will ultimately mean that fewer people will be able to qualify for home ownership. "This proposal will only make the need for homeless programs bigger."

Jim Inglis, president of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, objects to the cuts because of the impact they will have on the working poor.

"We will simply not be able to properly service the needy already in the program," he says. "And we will be telling the thousands on waiting lists that they will never be served at all."

Angela Skinner, who lives with her three children down the street from where Parker is staying, receives Section 8 vouchers that enable her to pay only $30 a month for her two-bedroom walk-up.

Ms. Skinner works at the concession stands of the MCI Center in downtown Washington, and her income is dependent on how many events take place at the arena that month. Sometimes she works three nights a week; sometimes none.

At the end of the month, after paying for utilities, food, transport, and "this and that," she is left with no savings.

She has not heard about the proposed budget cuts, but she understands their implications."Without my vouchers," Skinner says, "I would be just like Parker here - on someone's porch or down at the shelter with my kids running here and there. And that would be bad. Bad."

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