By Rebecca Bowe
The toll that the economy is taking on low-income families was painfully apparent at yesterday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee hearing, when single mothers with weary eyes asked city supervisors to help them stay in their homes.
The hearing was being held to discuss Sup. John Avalos’ proposed legislation to extend a rental-subsidy program administered by the city’s Human Services Agency (HSA) from two years to a maximum of five years. “We have a recession that’s pretty deep, and it is affecting a lot of families in a pretty hard way,” Avalos said. “Families, especially low-income families, are finding it more and more difficult to maintain their employment.”
With unemployment soaring, and many of the people in this program facing challenges such as having a lack of marketable skills, health problems, or language barriers, work prospects are dwindling. Many of the people who testified during public comment said that they were within days of losing their rental subsidies.
“I’m scared to wind up out on the street with my kids,” a woman who spoke in Spanish said via a translator. Many people who enrolled in the program in 2007 have received letters telling them that the city can no longer provide the subsidy, because they’ve reached the program time limit. A phone number for a homeless shelter was listed among the suggested alternatives in the letters, but the shelter has a six-month waiting list. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 17,000 people on the wait-list for public housing in the city.
Throughout the public hearing, small children could be heard crying in the background.