FLORIDA — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is trying a new strategy to help lower-income people benefit more from its flagship rental assistance program, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge explained in a recent one-on-one interview with Spectrum News.

“Housing authorities now have the resources to raise the amount of the vouchers we give,” Fudge said. “We raised Fair Market Rents all across the country … we do this by formula. But this year, for the first time, we have used resources that come from the private sector, not just the public sector.”

The federal Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program — also commonly known by its former name, “Section 8” — helps cover the cost of rent for lower-income people who qualify. Fair Market Rents (FMRs), published annually by HUD, help public housing authorities determine how much rental assistance they can provide to qualifying residents.

HUD in September announced it would, for the first time, use private sector rental data to help set FMRs for this fiscal year, which began in October.

Traditionally, HUD relies on public data sources to set FMRs, but experts say those sources track market shifts more slowly – meaning usually, by the time HUD releases its annual FMRs, those rates are often already out of date.

Officials say the disconnect between FMRs and the reality of current rental prices can make it very challenging for voucher recipients to find a place they can afford to rent — especially within the relatively short time frame the program allows them to search. It’s a challenge only exacerbated by the record-setting rent hikes seen in the last two years.

But now, because HUD used private sector rental data to set this year’s FMRs, “we believe we have a better handle on what those amounts ought to be,” Fudge told Spectrum News during an October visit to Orlando. 

“We raised Fair Market (Rents), to make it more affordable, as well as to encourage landlords to rent to people that we give vouchers to," she said. "So that’s very, very important."

Housing choice challenges

Voucher recipients say they often struggle to find a property owner who will agree to rent to them.

They say some landlords harbor negative stereotypes about “Section 8” tenants — for example because they earn lower incomes, they might come up short on rent.

In reality, landlords receive direct, timely payments from the public housing authorities administering vouchers, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

That was a challenge single mom Serena Simeone says she encountered last year, as she tried to find somewhere to rent with her voucher in Brevard County.

“It’s hard being on Section 8," she said. "People don’t want to rent to you. They think everybody’s, like, scummy people, and we’re not.”

Finally, last autumn, Simeone thought she’d found a place in Cocoa, but when she stepped into the unit, she says it was spattered with mold and cockroach corpses. She shared photos of the unit with Spectrum News.

“My God, this is not safe for my son and I at all,” Simeone remembered thinking.

“Obviously, I couldn’t live there … especially with my son and I having a disability,” Simeone said. “We were really afraid.”

But as a single mom living on a small, fixed income, Simeone said her other housing options were few and far between — even with her voucher, a form of assistance thousands of low-income renters can wait years to receive.

Here in Florida, eligible households wait an average of 41 months, or more than three years, to receive a voucher — one of the longest average wait times nationwide, according to one analysis of HUD data. 

Simeone says she was finally lucky enough to find a landlord who would rent to her and her son. 

As of mid-October, 220 other households in Brevard County were waiting for vouchers, which is a standard number, according to the county’s public housing authority.

But it’s a standard community advocates are working to change, one rental home at a time.

Filling a desperate need

Back in 2008, the Macedonia Community Development Corporation of South Brevard built its first affordable rental home. Now they’re up to 16, with voucher recipients currently occupying about a third of those units.

“We started this program because we saw that the need was so desperate,” said Jerry Phillips, the group’s president. “Affordable housing, there’s nowhere near the number we need in the community.”

The nonprofit collaborates with different partners, including government entities and other community organizations, to acquire land and build affordable properties for lower-income households. Each time they get a new rental unit ready, Phillips said the group fields approximately 30 phone calls about it.

“It’s amazing when they’re able to find a home,” he said. “Especially now, with the increase in rent and everything, everything’s going sky high.”

But HUD’s strict income requirements for households receiving assistance often present another, unintended consequence, Phillips said. 

“If their income goes up too high, then I can’t renew (the renter’s) lease," he said. "And that’s a real problem."

He said that restrictions make it difficult for lower-income renters to build better lives for themselves in the long term because as soon as their financial situation improves past a certain point, they’ll lose their housing — and all the stability that comes with it.

“It can be $1 over (the limit), and I can’t recertify them,” Phillips said. “So that bothers me a lot … because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.”

Phillips said he’s writing a letter to HUD to suggest alternatives to the current rules.

“It discourages people from doing better,” he said. “They say to themselves: ‘If I do better, then I’m gonna be put out of the house. So I won’t get that part-time job. I won’t look for a better job. And I won’t save my money, because if I save my money, now I have too much money in the bank.'”

Still, despite the voucher program’s challenges, Phillips said he appreciates what it’s been able to do for some of the tenants he works with. 

“We tell them, get Section 8 … we’ll still rent to you,” Phillips said.

‘A breath of fresh air’

The two-bedroom duplex Simeone rents with her voucher in West Melbourne is “just perfect in size,” according to her 11-year-old son, Brayden. 

“It’s not too big, it’s not too small of a house,” he said, explaining that he also enjoys their yard space, which they decked out for Halloween.

Meanwhile, Simeone is grateful for her landlord, who she says updated the place with new appliances, tile and flooring before she moved in. 

“It means everything to me," she said. "I feel so safe and secure here. It’s really hard to try and find a landlord that will work with you and then be so good to you … so it was like a breath of fresh air when I found this place.”