By Marlyn Montilla
Thousands of low-income people in the United States are at risk of losing their homes after federal funds that subsidize the payment of their homes run out sooner than expected.
The Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program was created by Congress in 2021 to help individuals or families who are homeless or at risk of losing their home, and victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, pay for their housing with funds.
But Funding for the program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ran out four years early due to high rent costs.which has put more than 70,000 people in the country at risk of losing their homes, of which more than 200 live in New York.
One of the people affected in New York, according to the ABC channel, is Lashonne Smith, who has two children with whom she lives in Brooklyn, has benefited from the program since 2022, and received a notification that she is at risk of losing that aid.
“I received an email and, when I saw the New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) logo, I almost fell to the ground. I felt like a bomb had fallen on me,” the woman told that medium.
The email said that NYCHA, which manages money for beneficiaries in New York, would no longer be able to continue contributing to their rent payment, for which the person contributes 30% and the program the rest.
NYCHA is also informing EHV voucher holders that they must complete an application for its public housing program or public projects as they are known, but there is no guarantee that they will be assigned a place to live, with a waiting list of more than 150,000 people, the newspaper La Prensa noted.
The municipal housing agency explained that the federal government reported last year that it would end the EHV early, given that the funds would run out at the end of 2026.
In the case of New York, the cost of rent continues to rise. For the month of March, the average rent in the New York district was $5,000 dollars, while in Brooklyn it rose to $4,295 dollars per month, according to a report from the city’s Rental Market, cited by El Diario.
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