At Risk of Losing Your Lease? A Legal Battle Isn’t the Answer

June 6, 2017

If you don’t pay your rent, can you still stay in your rental property? Or is that landlord going kick you to the curb? It’s a fear that low-income families face in difficult times. Rent courts are tough. The legal battle is often reliant on a sympathetic judge and a very narrow window to find the money to pay rent before the sheriff’s department comes to get your stuff.

Eviction is a major cause of stress for everyone involved. For renters, especially parents with kids, the thought of losing the roof over your head is enough to keep you up at night. For independent landlords, it’s a scramble to cover the mortgage when the income stream has dried up. For everyone, there is the experience of material hardship and worsening health.

So what if the city came in and decided to help renters out — by paying the legal fee associated with getting a lawyer to help the renter in court? It would probably keep more people in their homes, but is it the best solution?

Only 10 percent of tenants get a lawyer when they’re facing a rent court dispute. Landlords have higher representation. Having a lawyer would probably help renters, but is it the city’s job to pick a side in a contractual dispute?

In fact, cities (and the parties in the disupte) may benefit more from helping people to stay where they are, but a better way to ensure that people have homes may not be to feed the legal system. Rather, it’s to use that legal fund to offer emergency assistance to keep renters afloat during difficult times.

A proposed program backed by members of Washington, D.C.’s City Council would have the city pay for legal representation for tenants who are facing eviction. It’s not a federal issue, but a local one, and it matters because D.C. is extremely expensive, and it’s hard for people who live on the edge to get quality, safe housing.

But think about it. Paying for a lawyer isn’t quite the investment in housing proponents wish it to be. Homelessness researcher Kevin Corinth says the idea not only has a strong likelihood of backfiring, but also of creating worse consequences than the harm of eviction.

Yes, legal assistance would reduce the risk of tenants losing eviction battles in court. It would probably even reduce the number of people threatened with eviction in the first place if landlords think they will have a legal battle on their hands.

But here’s the problem. Making it more costly and difficult to evict tenants who do not pay their rent makes it more expensive for landlords to rent out apartments. That could end up increasing the cost of housing in a city where escalating rents are already straining the budgets of low income families.

But an even more insidious consequence is possible. Landlords could decide that it’s no longer worth renting out apartments to people they believe are at risk of missing rent payments. Spotty employment histories, criminal records, and past evictions could be red flags that disqualify people from housing altogether.

In other words, it would be harder for anyone with a blot on his or her record to find a home, and would effectively drive lower-income city dwellers out of the marketplace altogether.

Emergency assistance isn’t an add-on to housing vouchers, and it’s not a permanent handout. The best part is that it helps the people who need a hand up, preventing them from ending up on a family members’ couch or a homeless shelter while raising the cost of living for every other renter. It would keep people in their units without distorting the rental market.

Emergency assistance programs have been tried and succeeded in Chicago and New York, and D.C. would benefit from getting its own pilot program lined up.

Unscrupulous landlords need to be watched and stopped. But, as Corinth states, “an entitlement to legal assistance in eviction cases threatens the basic ideal that the city should provide opportunity to everyone.”

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , ,

How Work Requirement in Food Stamp Program Helped Reduce Poverty in Maine

May 30, 2017

TPOH has long advocated maintaining a safety net for those truly in need, but also supporting work as a means to build value in one’s lives and in the lives of others. Work provides meaning and purpose, despite those who wish to argue otherwise.

So it’s refreshing to read a strong rebuttal to a shocking claim that suggests proposed changes to the food stamp program will force people to hunt squirrels for food. Turns out such hyperbole doesn’t stand up to the evidence.

The Washington Post reported in a story last week that a Navy veteran was forced to catch, skin, and eat squirrels cooked on a flame nearby the tent where he lived in Augusta, Maine after the state tightened its work requirements for recipients of the social safety net. The newspaper than suggested that President Trump’s federal budget proposal mimics the Maine plan, and could jeopardize poor people.

But political commentator Marc Thiessen, a former speech writer for President George W. Bush, cleared up the Post’s misconceptions.

First of all, under federal law, work requirements only apply to able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs).  So if a person is truly disabled, he or she would not be subject to work requirements.

Second, the work requirements are not all that stringent. Able-bodied adults can received three months of food stamp (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP) benefits in a 36-month period, after which they have three options for fulfilling their work requirement:

1. Work a paying job for at least 20 hours per week

2. Participate in a federal or state vocational training program for at least 20 hours per week.

3. Perform 6 hours of community service per week.

This means that in order to be forced to hunt squirrels for food, you’d have to refuse not only to work, but also to participate in work training, or to volunteer for the equivalent of just one hour per day. If you are able enough to hunt and skin squirrels, you’re probably able enough to meet those minimal requirements.

Thiessen then explained that the state helps those who are bound to the work requirement with resumé building, job interview training, support coaching, and even providing volunteer opportunities.

As a result, Maine’s food stamp roles plummeted by 86 percent while its able-bodied adults experienced an average 114 percent increase in income!

Forbes magazine reported that people who relied on the program saw their average benefits drop 13 percent because they ended up needing less assistance.  The work requirement ended up reducing the cost of the food stamp program by $30-$40 million annually.

As Thiessen explains:

In other words, work requirements in Maine have been a huge success.  Far from hunting varmints, most people have found work. And – here’s the important part – work is what most people on food stamps really want. …

Thiessen explained that a similar case occurred in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and it was reported that while people in the program expressed that the EBT card is nice, they preferred a job. Implementing the work requirement took New York City from having one of the nation’s highest poverty rates to one of the lowest.

To claim that work requirements are somehow cruel is to deny individuals the opportunity to achieve something self-made, an outcome that satisfies an internal need for fulfillment, not just a need for a full belly.

Some oppose work requirements because they see them as a way to punish welfare recipients or deny them benefits. But work is not a punishment. Work is a blessing. And work requirements are a critical tool to help rescue our fellow Americans from the misery of idleness – so they can achieve meaning and happiness in their lives through the power of honest, productive work.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Happiness Tagged With: , , , ,

Vast Array of Government Assistance Programs Ready for a Reboot

February 11, 2017

Reducing poverty is one of the biggest issues that TPOH discusses, with good reason. The expression that “a rising tide lifts all boats” is especially true in a liberal democratic society that values a free market. However, despite a vast array of government assistance programs, it doesn’t seem the tide is lifting the poverty blues.

For many Americans, the elusive path to success has not been found, and the promise of upward mobility has not felt like a reality for many families stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder. Various polls show that efforts to reduce poverty and expand opportunity are lacking. In an AEI/Los Angeles Times poll, 70 percent of Americans said they believe the conditions for the poor had either stayed the same or gotten worse over the past 10 or 15 years. A study by Pew Charitable Trusts found that 43 percent of Americans born in the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain there as adults.

Sadly, more than 20 percent of children lived in poverty in 2014.

Of course, the poverty rate is a flawed metric because it does not consider a significant amount of government-provided assistance that raises families’ incomes above the poverty line. On top of that, people in poverty are living with less material hardship than 50 years ago. The poor today are better off materially than in the past.

But as Robert Doar, the former commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration, the city’s agency for managing 12 public assistance programs, notes in the introduction to a new volume of essays on reducing poverty in America, government assistance has helped people live with more stuff, but government has not created the outlets to get people working or earning on their own.

This is the cause of that swirling dissatisfaction even among those recipients of government benefits. More than half of people living in poverty surveyed in The AEI/Los Angeles Times poll said that the main purpose of welfare programs should be to help the poor get on their own two feet.

Able-bodied adults need to work because steady employment almost always leads a family out of poverty, provides opportunities for upward mobility, and is a source of dignity and purpose. Children are best off when they are raised by two committed parents, which is most likely to happen in marriage. And society must maintain a safety net that reduces material hardship, ensures that children can be raised in healthy environments, and rewards individuals who work.

The volume of essays offers ways to turn good ideas into legislative reform. The volume covers poverty assistance programs from housing and child support to food stamps and welfare. Doar acknowledges that none of the authors present all the answers, but he notes that the analyses and proposals can help move America toward finally living up to the goals of the War on Poverty, a war that needs to be won if everyone is going to do better.

Of course, not all of the problems facing low-income Americans will be solved by federal antipoverty programs. But political reality dictates that these major programs are not going to disappear anytime soon, meaning leaders who are serious about helping poor Americans should learn how they work and develop an agenda for improving them. Moreover, many of these assistance programs do reduce poverty and, with thoughtful reform, could be even more effective in helping struggling Americans move up. This volume intends to help policymakers understand how each program functions—its strengths, as well as its weaknesses.

Download the book in PDF form.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , ,

Tom Price, an HHS Secretary Focused on Helping People Work?

December 13, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump is pretty close to filling out his Cabinet, and among the most interesting selections is Rep. Tom Price, the congressman from Georgia who is currently chairman of the House Budget Committee. Price was named as Trump’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, which is fitting since Price is a doctor, a rarity in the position, but important because Price is also a strong proponent of eliminating waste and reducing the misuse of taxpayer money.

The cherry on top of the selection, however, is what Price’s nomination, and a few others, means for anti-poverty programs, or more specifically, government’s role in helping people who actually are in poverty.  HHS manages a gigantic sum of the federal budget. Price’s future department is responsible for administering Medicare and Medicaid payments as well as oversight of The Affordable Care Act. In 2017, HHS is expected to manage $1.145 TRILLION in outlays (money to be distributed, not used to fund programs).

But the agency also manages several other programs that many Americans might be surprised to learn. That includes heating oil for low-income families, medical assistance for military families, and emergency services after natural disasters. HHS runs 19 offices that provide programs and services to low-income Americans, including cash welfare, child care, and Head Start, to name but a few.

That’s a lot of responsibility for helping people get on their feet, so it is notable that while serving as House Budget chairman, Price’s committee issued a Budget Resolution that focuses on several areas that seek to empower individuals. Such empowerment comes from reforms to government assistance programs that aim to encourage people on welfare to work while also preparing lower-income Americans for jobs in exchange for benefits.

As an aside, Ben Carson, Trump’s pick for Housing and Urban Development, will handle a much smaller budget, but he too has a great opportunity to help reduce poverty. If he is aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan on his anti-poverty agenda, as reports say, this is a chance to really change the way the government does business in developing low-income communities, paying for housing, and encouraging people to find work or develop skills that can move them from dependency to self-sufficiency.

Much of the scholarly focus in recent years on poverty reduction is trending toward work in exchange for benefits and tax credits that empower and enable individuals to achieve successes for themselves. At the same time, the safety net needs to be made taut and real for those truly incapable of getting out of poverty without a helping hand. Whether the trending conversation results in a more prosperous society will determine whether the big change from the Obama to the Trump administration is matched by a big change in the way government runs itself.

As poverty researcher Angela Rachidi recently wrote,

Any changes that are made to anti-poverty programs in the coming years will ultimately be judged by whether they help people escape poverty through work and personal responsibility, and less government intervention. Recent declines in poverty suggest that these trends might already be starting. Surely, voters looking for more economic opportunity and less hardship will be paying close attention.

One place for voters to affix their gaze is at HHS and Price.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Liberty Tagged With: , , , ,