CRENSHAW : Housing Vouchers Draw Tenants’ Fire

More than 2,500 people gathered at a subsidized housing complex earlier this month to protest a proposal to streamline Section 8 housing by turning it into a voucher system.

Under Section 8, the government subsidizes rent for tenants in buildings that meet federal guidelines for rehabilitation, rent limits, new construction and other criteria.

The voucher system, proposed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, would make recipients seek Section 8 housing individually, which critics say is a far more difficult process because property owners would have to be persuaded to accept vouchers.

The rally, held at Baldwin Villa Apartments, opposite Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, was sponsored by the statewide Coalition to Protect Section 8 Housing, an alliance of tenant and housing organizations.

The event drew a vocal crowd that denounced the proposal as far more harmful than helpful to low-income recipients of Section 8, particularly the elderly and disabled.

“I hope it doesn’t pass. We wouldn’t know where to go,” said 70-year-old Willie Davis, a resident of Baldwin Villa since it opened in 1984. “I love it here. . . . I don’t want to move.”

A voucher system would exact a disproportionately heavy toll on the elderly and disabled, said La Verne Miller, resident manager of Baldwin Villa, which houses nearly 200 senior citizens.

“Seniors are on fixed incomes, and have no flexibility in dealing with landlords who may want to negotiate rent,” Miller said. “People want to do away with Section 8 housing because they have the wrong idea that it’s all rundown. . . . But our apartments are beautiful, and they have amenities, like community rooms and activities, that the new system won’t.”

The new proposal, discussed since HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros took office in 1993, is seen by proponents as preferable to the current system for several reasons, including lower administrative costs. By using a voucher system, they believe, HUD can spur housing integration by allowing the poor to live in previously unaffordable neighborhoods and near jobs. The vouchers, they say, would also allow housing subsidies to go to people and not into the pockets of builders.

During the rally, Miller and others circulated petitions urging politicians to kill the proposal before it gathers momentum. The petitions will go to Washington and send a powerful message to those who would systematically dismantle public assistance, said Alpheus Merchant, president of the seniors club at Angelus Plaza, a Section 8 housing complex Downtown.

“We’re also getting letters written to congress people,” said Merchant, who is a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging and a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority senior and disabled advisory committee. “People are excited and worried about this (voucher) issue. If it passes, it’ll force more people on the street, and that means more of everything--more crime, more insurance, more money needed for other social programs.

“The challenge,” Merchant said, “is to get the seniors involved in voicing their opinion on something like this that affects them, because usually they keep to themselves.”

An encouraging sign, Merchant said, was the fact that three busloads of residents from Angelus Plaza alone showed up at the rally earlier this month.

Baldwin Villa resident Sue McKinney, 70, said she hopes her signature on the petition will help defeat the voucher system.

“It’s like a family here,” she said of Baldwin Villa. “We do things together. It’s very convenient, too--the mall and a lot of other places we need to go are within walking distance. On a voucher system, we couldn’t make it.”