Section 8 Program at Risk

The Bush Administration's Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) calls for deep cuts in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program cuts that would harm people with disabilities. The Administration has also proposed eliminating the Section 8 program as we know it and replacing it with a new Flexible Voucher Program. This new program would, if approved by the Congress, eliminate many critical protections people with disabilities now have under the current Section 8 program.

Because the Section 8 program is so important to people with disabilities, TAC is devoting this entire issue of Opening Doors to the Administration's proposals. This issue's Editorial "Dismantling the Housing Safety Net," which opposes these Administration proposals, is signed by the five Co-Chairs of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force, including the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, The Arc/United Cerebral Palsy Public Policy Collaboration, the National Association for Protection and Advocacy Systems, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the American Network of Community Options and Resources. At the end of this issue of Opening Doors, there are strategies that the disability community could use to help advocate for full funding for the Section 8 program and for the defeat of proposals that would harm the lowest income people with disabilities.

To read this latest issue of Opening Doors, please click a link on the right or type "http://www.tacinc.org" into your browser and go to the Publications & Links section of our website. Or, to obtain a hard copy of this issue, please write to us at publications@tacinc.org and specify that you would like a hard copy of Opening Doors issue #24.

Opening Doors is a publication of the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc (TAC) and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Housing Task Force.