Help coming for low-income renters HOUSING: HUD adds $100 million in rent aid, making 4,100 more O.C. units available.
September 13, 2000
By JOSÉ ALFREDO FLORES
The Orange County Register
WASHINGTON -- Federal housing officials announced Tuesday that they will spend an additional $100 million to help low-income people rent apartments that are now way beyond their financial reach.
The 25 percent increase in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's rental-housing voucher program means 4,100 more apartments in Orange County will be available to people already holding federal vouchers.
Low-income renters nationwide have been hurt by a surging economy that has enabled landlords to command higher rents for their properties. That has left the poor competing for fewer affordable apartments.
In Orange County, rents have increased 10.2 percent in the past year, according to Real Facts, a Novato apartment-research firm.
"Orange County is clearly a market where vouchers are needed," said HUD assistant secretary Susan Wachter, who was in Orange County last week. "The people there are facing a housing crisis."
For Lorie Cooley of San Juan Capistrano, the program has done wonders.
"I would be homeless on the streets with my five kids without this program," said Cooley, a nursing student who pays $64 a month for a $1,212-a-month, three-bedroom apartment.
Students like Cooley or others with virtually no income are allowed to pay only a fraction of their earnings for rent. Those who work must pay 30 percent to 40 percent of their income, with the remainder covered by the vouchers.
But other Orange County residents aren't so lucky.
"It's a real big fight to get an apartment," says Desiree Cooper of Orange. Her family of five moved in with in-laws after being evicted from a building that stopped taking vouchers. "At this point I'm frustrated and feel like forgetting the whole thing."
