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D. M. enjoys her spacious apartment in the Paradise in Parkside apartment complex in Northeast Washington. “It’s like living in a house, without the basement.” It’s also a supportive community. The complex hosts a learning center where residents can take computer classes, after-school programs for children, and a church in the recreation room on Sunday.

After D.M.—a single parent raising two children—was RIFed from her government job, she applied for housing aid from the district’s Tenant Assistance Program, which allowed her to stay at this apartment complex. With her rent secured, she returned to school to earn a degree in cosmetology. “And then this came up,” she says, referring to the district’s recent action to end the housing aid program and force her to move from her apartment.

The Tenant Assistance Program (TAP) was established in 1985 to help low-income families rent decent housing in the private market. As D.C. Housing Authority spokesperson Arthur Jones explains, the TAP was intended to be the local version of the federally funded Section 8 program. It would use local tax revenue to give more families access to private housing than was previously possible under Section 8 alone.

The TAP is divided into two categories of assistance. Project-based TAP aid provides funds directly to the owners of rehabilitated private housing units, in multi-year contracts, to keep the rent affordable for low-income families. TAP certificates, on the other hand, are rent subsidies that allow eligible tenants to live in any housing in the district that meets housing code standards. In both cases, the TAP pays two thirds of the market value of the rent, while the resident pays one third. Eligibility is based on a formula that includes the applicant’s income and number of dependents. At the beginning of October, approximately 949 households received TAP assistance. Roughly 80% held certificates while 20% received project-based aid.

Compared to other forms of housing assistance, the TAP is a relatively inexpensive program. The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless has shown that the average TAP subsidy is $13 per day, compared to the daily unit cost of a family shelter ($55), single shelter ($11-21), or foster care per child ($23-$39). But in FY 1998, as part of a larger effort to reduce spending, the D.C. Financial Control Board and City Council reduced the program’s funding from $8 million to $2 million, and maintained that level for FY 1999 in preparation for a phase-out of the program.

This year marks the beginning of the end for the Tenant Assistance Program. The minimal appropriation will pay the TAP’s continuing obligations to its project-based contracts, the last of which will expire in 2006. Tenants who received their TAP subsidy in the form of a certificate will lose their coverage much sooner. Some funding from federal HOME dollars may be used to prevent the immediate loss of shelter for some certificate holders, as was the case in the last fiscal year. However, T.J. Sutcliffe, advocacy coordinator of So Others Might Eat (SOME), expressed concern that such a “TAP bailout plan” would only consume funds desperately needed for other low-income shelter purposes in the district.
The district government has ordered the Housing Authority to place former TAP participants in public housing or the Section 8 program. But despite reassurance from city officials, the district’s pool of available low-income public and private housing cannot easily absorb an influx of new tenants. The current number of people on the combined waiting list for Section 8 assistance and public housing is 17,953, and the average wait for such aid is years, not months. The government is giving priority to the 131 elderly and disabled households as TAP is eliminated, allowing them to go to the head of the present queue for low-income housing assistance. But this will also prolong the wait for the many families who are already standing in line.

TAP participants are not guaranteed conversion from TAP status to Section 8 during the transition. The federal government imposes a ceiling on the number of Section 8 certificates the D.C. Housing Authority may issue in a given year, and allows an increase only if the Authority performs well. According to Arthur Jones, the Authority has improved its performance over the last three years, but is still unable to provide enough certificates for all eligible applicants. Sczerina Perot, staff attorney of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless projects that most TAP participants will have to relocate to public housing, since they will not receive Section 8 certificates. She suspects that the city is counting on most people rejecting public housing rather than leaving their communities, in which case they will end up ruining their credit or facing eviction.

For many low-income residents the TAP provided more than help with rent. It allowed them to integrate into a variety of D.C. neighborhoods instead of being funnelled into public housing, which even Congress acknowledges often creates a socially isolating, unhealthy, dangerous living environment (Tamara Lytle, “Wider Safety Net,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1998, 7C).

The roots that D.M. and her children have established in the community with the help of the TAP will make it difficult to leave. But D.M has even greater concerns. The D.C. Housing Authority has informed her that in the next few weeks she must relocate to the Lincoln’s Heights public housing project, far from her current apartment. D.M. explains that this housing is in a “red zone,” which refers to the high incidence of drugs and crime in the area. She visited the site and found cramped living spaces with garbage and loiterers in the hallways.

D.M. worries about her children. Her daughter will have to catch a school bus early in the morning, but D.M. has little confidence that she will be safe at that hour in that neighborhood. Her 19-year-old son works for a sports store in Silver Spring and is the family’s main source of income. D.M. worries that such a living environment places him at risk.

D.C.’s Chief Management Officer’s office states that “due to the financial crisis in recent years, it became necessary to consider alternative solutions to meeting the housing need of TAP participants” (News Release, October 27, 1998). Sczerina Perot argues that given D.C.’s current financial situation, such a statement holds little merit. “There was a [$300 million] budget surplus this year, and in the end, it’s a matter of their [the district government’s] priorities. It seems odd to me that this program was eliminated. If providing housing to low income people was a priority, they would have preserved these almost 1,000 units.”

The D.C. Economic Human Rights Coalition is organizing to restore TAP. According to the Coalition, “the cuts in TAP alone will affect nearly 3,000 people. At least 16,000 people are in need of assistance.” The Coalition asserts that D.C. can pay for TAP and other essential programs by “using present ($300 million) and future budget surpluses” and by “raising income tax rates of wealthy District residents, who now pay lower rates than low/middle income brackets.” The Coalition is holding weekly demonstrations to demand the restoration of TAP and the full safety net, Fridays, at noon, at One Judiciary Square. For more information, call (202) 829-9063.

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