Federal housing subsidies to end March 1

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Feb 9, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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For former New Orleans resident Johnny Thomas, a Hurricane Katrina victim who now lives in an apartment north of Baton Rouge, the end of the month looms large.

On March 1, Thomas and thousands of other victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita across Louisiana are set to lose their federal disaster housing subsidy, a move that state officials and private charities say will leave many homeless.

“I don’t know how I’m going to make it,” Thomas said. “I might end up living in a shelter.”

Before Katrina, Thomas worked as a bus driver in New Orleans. Now disabled, the 52-year-old lives on a $674 monthly Supplemental Security Income check.

The Disaster Housing Assistance Program, or DHAP, covers all of Thomas’ $615 monthly rent. If the subsidy program ends, he won’t be able to pay the March rent for his small apartment in a Baker complex, he said, adding that there aren’t any cheaper housing options in the area.

State officials say there are thousands more like Thomas who face certain eviction and possible homelessness if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ends the program as planned.

“This impacts the entire coastal region of Louisiana,” said Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. “We are going to fight for this.”

The LRA says there are more than 30,000 households receiving the housing subsidy nationwide, including almost 17,000 scattered throughout nearly every parish in Louisiana. There are more than 900 DHAP households in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The state last year asked for a three-year extension of the program, citing the shortage of affordable housing and the national credit crunch. Former President George W. Bush’s administration notified the state on Jan. 16 — the administration’s last working day — that it denied the state’s request for an extension.

Rainwater and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu have since written President Barack Obama, as well as the heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and HUD, requesting a one-year extension. But HUD officials have not backed off the denial of the request in recent meetings, Rainwater said.

“We’ve got a lot of folks sending letters to the president and asking him to extend this, and we’re going to keep that up,” Rainwater said.

Other options

Monteic Sizer, president of the nonprofit Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, said that while he supports an extension of the subsidy program, the state knew about the deadline and should have made more preparations to help the most vulnerable storm victims cope with the end of the housing program.