Section 8 Housing Helps Pay Rent of Poor

Aired January 19, 2000

This is INFOhio After Nine on 90.3 or wcpn.org. This is listener-supported public radio. Thanks for listening and thanks for supporting us this morning, and you'll have other options to do that. Let's give you reasons to support us right now. Ask almost any housing expert and he or she will tell you there is a shortage of affordable housing for the poor. Section 8 housing, a goverment program that supplements the rents of the poor, helps many of those working their way off welfare. 90.3 correspondent Harry Boomer toured a Section 8 unit recently with a tenant who says her unit has been in disrepair for years.

Bonnie Newell–You have tape for walls. Instead of repairing the walls, they put tape on it and paint over the tape, so these are the type of things that in the end cost me, and it also costs the taxpayer, if this is a government-funded house, Section 8 is a government-funded program, then it's costing the taxpayers as well. I think that this also plays a role in self-sufficiency, so to speak, because you don't want to live like this.

Harry Boomer–Bonnie Newell and her three daughters have lived in a three-bedroom Section 8 house for several years. Newell complains that her landlord, LaVanya Brown, doesn't keep her Harvard Ave. house in good repair.

BN–It's a lot of things, if you want to walk through or something, I could tell you.

HB–Newell took me on a tour of her home, pointing out what she says are longtime problems in her downstairs unit of a duplex.

BN–Like the dining room, right here on the floor, there's holes on the floor, which were supposed to be repaired. If you notice right here, on the floor where the wood has completely broke. If you stand in that spot, you might fall through, and I have three other areas like that, like right here by the couch, and right by the front door. The last time we talked, I told you about how the basement sewer was backing into the basement. Well, she sent someone out because Section 8 was coming Friday for an inspection, and so she sent somebody out Friday to fix it, but it was still messed up and it's still backing up a little bit. Let's go through the kitchen and go into the bathroom. Do you remember me telling you about when we had to go to the school to use the bathroom because it was leaking so bad in the bathroom? We literally had to use umbrellas to use the toilet, to sit in the bathroom. If you look up over on the wall, you can see where they cut in, and it's still leaking, because now it's yellow stains where they just so-called "fixed" it. I even called the Health Department in reference to that becuse that's feces that was dropping down on us, that's toilet water.

LaVanya Brown–In response to Ms. Newell, (she) shounds as if she really, truly, really needs to move.

HB–LaVanya Brown has been a landlord for 15 years. She owns several houses which she rents out. Brown says Newell is a disgruntled tenant whom she wants out of her house.

LB–Yeah, I like the Section 8 program, and as a landlord having to participate in the Section 8 program, which means you do have to have your property at least to the point where it's up to code annually., there are some things I'm sure that happen even before the inspections, but, like I said earlier, I do believe that I am a very decent landlord who takes care of repairs, etc. etc.

HB–Now Brown admits that Newell's bathroom ceiling did leak. She says an upstairs tenant was arrested and spent a couple of moths in jail, of which she was unaware.

LB–In the meantime, there was a leak coming from the shutoff valve during the two months in which the tenant was not up there, and Ms. Newell didn't call me until, not a real large hole, but it was a hole enough, you know, the hole was large enough to seep through the downstairs. I'll take care of the repair because it is my house, which is my responsibility.

BN–When I asked her in referece to the floor tile for the kitchen and the hallway and the different things that she was going to do, she said, "well, you have to earn it, and I don't see how you're going to earn it." What does she mean by that, I mean, what does she mean? I asked her, "what do you mean I got to earn it?

LB–A floor is really not a problem, but I just told her, "Bonnie, I don't have a problem in doing almost anything, but sometimes you need to own certain things that you ask me to do." I don't have no problem doing it, but earn it in terms of what I'm saying is keeping your unit pretty decently and clean and not having the unit overcrowded.

HB–Newell and Brown like the Section 8 housing program. Newell pays no rent and Brown gets $542 a month income from the unit. Both women would like to see some changes to Section 8. Bonnie Newell, followed by her landlord, LaVanya Brown.

BN–If Section 8 was to really crack down and look at their caseloads, and how many times their tenants move in and out of these bad houses, they'd know who to ut from their program.

LB–The government needs to crack down with the tenants to make certain that they are not overhousing people in units, and once they start overhousing, of course, there's going to be more wear and tear that doesn't have anything to do with repairs as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter, a repair is a repair, and as I indicated earlier, she's been dissatisfied, she's been in the unit for at least five years. She has the opportunity to move, as a matter of fact, I would even find release papers for her, because I think she's been there too long.

HB–Bonnie Newell has the latest apartment guide on her dining room table. LaVanya Brown wants her out. Newell sasy she wants to move. On that, at least, they agree. For INFOhio, I'm Harry Boomer in Cleveland.