Testimony before the
Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs
THE BUDGET FOR ALL RESOLUTION
H. 3211 and S.1750
The State House, Boston, Massachusetts
Room A2; 11:00 a.m.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
The Honorable Michael F. Rush The Honorable Carlo P. Basile
Senate Chair House Chair
Bonnie MacCracken
8 Chadwick Court
Amherst, MA 01002
413-256-6857
Senator Rush, Representative Basile, and Members of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs,
My name is Bonnie MacCracken, I reside in Amherst and have been a real estate title examiner in Massachusetts for 25 years.
Senator Rush, we had the opportunity to meet and speak briefly last year when the Governor signed the Valor Act. After realizing that there was nothing ensuring that lenders acknowledged receipt of a soldier’s military status to stop foreclosure proceedings, I contacted Representative Story to initiate, lobby and then co-authored the legislative amendment that passed under Section 15 of Acts of 2012, Chapter 108. Thank you to all of you on this Committee for your support for the passage of this legislation to reduce the burden of proof placed on our service members under the Federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and to protect their homes from foreclosure during periods of deployment.
I am the Chair of the Committee on Housing of the Amherst Branch of the NAACP, and a member of a recently formed coalition known as Amherst Fair Housing Now!.
The NAACP Committee on Housing’s mission is to study local housing conditions; receive and seek to address complaints of discrimination; oppose all restrictive practices whether public or private; and disseminate information and render assistance which may eliminate discrimination in housing.
Amherst Fair Housing Now! Is a coalition of community and civil rights groups that have joined together to support residents being evicted from their homes at Echo Village Apartments on Gatehouse Road in Amherst. The group’s mission is to promote fair and affordable housing in Amherst. The coalition includes Echo Village Tenants Association, Mass Fair Housing Center, Stavros Center for Independent Living, Amherst Area Branch of NAACP Committee on Housing, Family Outreach of Amherst, Community Connections and Housing For All. Our coalition meets regularly with staff attorneys from the Community Legal Aid Office.
My testimony today is in my individual capacity as a Housing Advocate and as a coalition member of Amherst Fair Housing Now!
On November 6, 2012, I was one of the 87% or 11,385 voters that supported the “Budget For All Resolution”in Amherst.
H. 3211 and S.1750, entitled “Resolutions referendum on a budget for all,” calls upon the Congress of the United States tostop further cuts to Veterans’ benefits and housing assistance programs. The budget decisions made in Washington are having a profound effect on my community and throughoutWestern Massachusetts. The federal housing assistance,the Section 8, voucher program provides the means that allows low-to-moderate income families and veterans access to safe and decent homes in the private market.
I am concernedabout how the loss of funding for affordable housing will diminish the economic, racial and ethnic diversity in Amherst and in Western Massachusetts.
In my neighborhood,22 adults and 39 children are being evicted from their homes after their apartment building was sold in January to a real estate investor. There are 19 households in this building who receive rental assistance through HUD’s section 8 housing assistance program. These households are finding it difficult due to the high cost of rents in Amherst and theHUD limits on eligible rents. Rents in Amherst exceed what HUD allows for this region.
If you receive housing assistance,the rent you are charged by a landlord is capped not by your income, but through the use of statistical data used to determine the fair market rent by regions. This data does not take into consideration the different types of housing markets in this region.
My family, resides in what is referred to by HUD as theGreater Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). This region includes Hampden and Hampshire Counties as shown on the page, Page 4. The Greater Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), ranks number one in the nation for the highest rate of segregation between Whites and Hispanics.[1] It is 22nd in terms of segregation between Whites and African Americans, and 65th for segregation between Whites and Asians.
The map shownon the next page was created by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) with data from 2011-2012.[2] This map shows where households by minority status plus households with housing subsidies reside in my region. Amherst falls in the demographic category of having “10 to 39 %” minority households. There are more households with housing subsidies in Amherst than in any of the neighboring communities.
An Amherst familyoffour, with a subsidy, is faced with two main obstacles when trying to find an affordable two bedroom apartment. The first obstacle being is our student population;our families have to compete against groups of students looking to crowd into the same size apartment units. Students have the advantage when it comes to acquiring apartments because they pool their resources and often have parents that also guarantee payment of rents. Our families with subsidies are restricted to paying a rental value that is not reflective of the market in their community.
Consequently, this new landlord is evicting familiesfrom a two bedroom unit in my neighborhood for business and other economic reasons: a difference of about$122.00 between what HUD allows and what our local market supports.The incentives for this investor and other landlords to rent to students are greater for these reasons:
- The student population can afford and will pay more than the average family.
- Student rentals do not need to pass the same health and safety standards.
- Landlords can charge rents based on their profit margins and on what the local market will bear not what HUD sets for this entire region of Massachusetts.
The Fair Market Rent allowed for this region, as taken from the Amherst Housing Authority website, is as follows:
INFORMATION FOR SECTION 8 PROPERTY OWNERS/LANDLORDS AND SECTION 8 VOUCHER HOLDERS
Payment Standards: In order for a unit to be approved by the Amherst Housing Authority’s Section 8 Program, rent including an allowance for tenant paid utilities cannot exceed the following amounts.
0 / $748.00
1 / $897.00
2 / $1122.00
3 / $1400.00
4 / $1596.00
An example of what rents are in Amherst: atwo bedroom in large housing complex near the University, Pufton Village, charges $1365.003 per monthand at Rolling Greens Apartments a large complex located in my neighborhood rents a 2 bedroom garden style unit for $1,480 and a townhouse unit for$1680.004 .The rents in both of these two complexes exceed the FMR for this area.
The Town of Amherst’s recently completed housing needs assessment and study, known as “Housing Production Plan,”5examines the town’s housing characteristics with a focus on developing a plan to address affordable housing needs, it provides the following demographic, economic, and housing characteristics and trends:
- Amherst’s population growth is closely linked to student enrollments.
- The majority of Amherst’s residents, 59.45%, are college students.
- The local economy has been dominated by higher education with education-related jobs averaging $1,043 per week in comparison to wages in Amherst’s service sector that approximate the minimum wage.
Amherst has a significant gap between what many residents can afford and what the available housing costs. High housing costshave resulted in households spending more than half of their incomes on housing. A major contributing factor to the affordability gap is that housing growth has not kept up with population growth, including increasing enrollments at UMass. While the population grew by 24,101 residents or 176% between 1960 and 2010, housing during this same period increased by only 5,264 units or 125%. This is in essence is the heart of the town’s housing problem – housing supply has not kept up with increasing demand, resulting in higher housing prices and residents paying more than they can in fact afford to live in Amherst.6
This widening affordability gap continues to present a substantial obstacle to young families. It caused this population, ages 25 to 44, to decline by 45.3% since 1990.
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5 Town of Amherst Housing Production Plan:
This dramatic affordability gap is also reflected in comparisons of Amherst median household income levels by tenure to those of Hampshire County and the state as shown in this table. Amherst’s median income level for renters is only about one-fourth that of owners, while the median for renters in the county and state is 40.4% and 44.8% of owners.
Median Household Income by Tenure, 2010
Amherst / Hampshire County / MassachusettsHomeowners / $101,698 / $78,025 / $78,025
Renters / $26,549 / $31,552 / $34,990
Overall / $53,247 / $59,591 / $63,961
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2008-2010
If you are a family of four residing in this region, the Springfield, MA HUD Metro FMR area, you can make up to $64,400.00 and qualify for housing assistance. Breakdowns of what the “Adjusted Home Income Limits” set by HUD for Massachusetts are attached as Exhibit A. The Section 8 voucher program for low to moderate income familiesis designed to prevent people from having to pay more than 30% of their income on housing.
Young families in Amherst are either being priced out of town due to high housing costs or spending more than half of their incomes on rent. When a family is spending more than half their incomes on rent they are more likely to be more dependent on other social services, such as free and reduced school lunch programs, food pantries, and fuel assistance.
When housing costs force people out of the area where they work, receive health care or attend school,to areas where the rental amounts meet the HUD’s standard for this region, the families’ personal expenditures increase due to higher transportation costs. When we force people to live further from where they work, they also lose quality time with their families or from participating in their community.
A stable and safe place to live contributes to a family’s well-being. These 19 families with vouchers, who do pay rent, are now being forced to spend time and money fighting for their homes and looking for new homes. The families who have relocated have endured moving expenses and the additional stress from uprooting their children and transitioning them into new schools and neighborhoods; change is not always good.
As a result of our high housing costs and competitive rental market, our town is becoming segregated.Our young families of color are being forced into one concentrated area of town.Because we are a community that relies on and is mostly dependent upon large investors to provide affordable units,it is just a matter of time before the residents in these areas of town are forced out,too. As the ownership of these apartment complexes changes hands orincreases rents to cover the costs of rehabbing aging buildings, more families will be forced out of town.
Our homes are an important part of who we are. We all need a place to go home to, whether it is after serving our country or at the end of the day. Our home is a place where we should feel safe. This is where we nurture our families. A safe home, whether rented or owned, has both a sentimental and emotional value that contributes to our personal well- being and the growth of our communities. Good homes will strengthen our families and communities to allow for economic recovery throughout this country.
I want you to again look at that map on page 4, and the black dots that mark where households with housing subsidies presently live. If the federal government continues to make cuts to housing, these black dots will only be concentrated in a small area of this region, causing further segregation and displacement of families and of our population. We need your support to prevent further cuts to housing and to stop the displacement of families, veterans, and for at- risk and special needs populations in our communities.
I asked that you not only call upon Congress and the President to support this resolution, please support my neighbors and community by urgingHUD to allow our Section 8, mobile voucher holders to:
- Obtain exceptions to or redetermination of the payment standards for the Springfield, MA HMFA Region to be reflective of the local market in Amherst, or
- Authorize our Housing Authority to obtain enhanced vouchers to make up the difference between what a family is allowed to pay for rent and the actual cost of renting an apartment in Amherst.
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[1] See University of Michigan report New Racial Segregation Measures for Large Metropolitan Areas: Analysis of the 1990-2010 Decennial Censuses, http:
2 Data for this map was reported to PVPC by Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development and local voucher administrators. This map is available from PVPC
.