Bad to worse

Posted by: Jules Birch

18/08/2010

If you think our housing crisis is bad, consider this: American police in riot gear were called out to deal with 30,000 people queuing to join the waiting list for housing assistance in a suburb of Atlanta this week.

The hopefuls chasing federal housing vouchers included pregnant women, elderly people in wheelchairs and people who had driven hundreds of miles to be there. Some had camped out for nearly three days in near 100 degree temperatures. 

All this to join the waiting list for just 455 vouchers to cover part of their rent in East Point, Georgia (population 45,000). Small wonder that the mood turned angry: some were treated for injuries as scuffles broke out, others were suffering from heat exhaustion. Or that TV news reporters questioned whether what they were seeing was really happening in America:

The numbers may have been bigger in East Point but the same thing has been happening in communities around the country, according to the Wall Street Journal. Anyone who makes it on to the waiting list - and lists in most major cities have been closed for years - can wait up to ten years to get a voucher that guarantees that the local housing authority will pay part of their rent. 

The US crisis doesn’t stop there. In just the last seven days, new stats confirmed that foreclosure filings are still rising and are up 10% on a year ago in contrast to the fall in repossession actions reported here. That’s despite huge federal funding to help people stay in their homes: the Obama administration allocated another $2bn to its Hardest Hit Fund this week. The Federal Housing Administration is also guaranteeing a third of all mortgages outstanding. 

It’s all been too much for Carl R Greene, the head of America’s fourth largest housing authority, Philadelphia. The $300,000 a year executive director disappeared after it was revealed he was facing foreclosure over $386,000 in mortgage arrears on his $600,000 condominium.