Despite attempts to reform housing vouchers, most Connecticut towns have neglected to change how vouchers are distributed, contributing to housing segregation.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Sasha Allen to discuss her article written with Ginny Monk, “Data shows little change in CT housing voucher segregation,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read their story here.
WSHU: Hello, Sasha. You say your story was born out of a May report on housing segregation through housing choice vouchers, also known as Section Eight. What were the report's findings, and why did they interest you?
SA: Yeah, so this was a report from Open Communities Alliance, and they were looking at how housing vouchers, Section Eight vouchers, are distributed throughout the state. And what they found is that a lot of these vouchers are concentrated in higher poverty areas, worse schools, you know, worse environmental issues, worse air quality. I just thought this was really interesting because in this report they talked a lot about ways to solve this issue and stuff like that, right? And it was some of these methods and solutions that we've already seen put into place in some places in the state. I thought that it would be interesting to look into how some of these methods and possible solutions that have been implemented have changed this level of segregation within housing vouchers in Connecticut, if at all.
WSHU: There's a new rule that was put in place by the Obama administration, and that took effect in 2017. What did that rule do in trying to deal with segregation, and how was it implemented in Connecticut?
SA: Yeah, so that rule was implemented in metro areas across the country, and it basically just changed the way that these vouchers were calculated. So before this rule, all vouchers were calculated using a wider region that could encompass, like a lot of different areas that had, you know, a large diversity of income, and the issue with that is that it would put the housing voucher rate at something that's lower than, you know, you can't live in maybe a more affluent area within the region because this housing voucher is just valued too low. So, what this ruling did was create small area fair market rents, and it required some of these metro areas to use small area fair market rents, which is basically calculating housing voucher value based on zip code rather than region, which allows for more movement within the system because it has more granular pricing and values for these vouchers that are just more accurate to the areas that you're going to use them in.
WSHU: So, you could have a situation where a city is next to a suburban area, and they're all part of one larger region, and the rents are very different between the city and the suburb, and what will happen is that the average will be much lower than what you would be able to get for the rents in the suburbs. So it would segregate people into the cities, right?
SA: Yeah, exactly, and it would force them to use it in places, obviously with lower rents, which would probably be, you know, cities and higher poverty areas, and then again, like the same things we're seeing in this report, which is places with lower-rated schools with worse air quality and stuff like that. So yeah, in 2017, Hartford was one of the metro areas that was required to use this, and the Hartford metro area encompasses a lot of different towns. So it's Hartford and some surrounding towns, and what I found, at least, is that after this rule was implemented, the percentage of housing vouchers held in high-poverty areas changed.
WSHU: Okay, it happened in Hartford. Did any other cities or towns adopt this in Connecticut?
SA: Yeah, so no other ones were required to adopt it, but two others did just because they wanted to. Two local housing authorities, one in Fairfield and one in Stratford, and we spoke with a woman who works for the Housing Authority in Fairfield, and she said that this has made a world of difference for them because, obviously, Fairfield is right next to Bridgeport. You know, sometimes people couldn't afford to live in Fairfield just because it was all lumped into the same region. Bridgeport was being taken into account for this region, and it was calculated using Bridgeport median income, but also Fairfield median income. So, for them, this was like a game changer, and you know, people were actually able to afford to live in Fairfield with these housing vouchers.
WSHU: That's quite interesting. So now, if that's the case, why don't we have the state mandating that everyone should do the same?
SA: You know, we talked to some legislators, and you know, it definitely is in discussions. But they haven't done anything to pass that yet, and it would have to be a mandated thing. Like no other housing authorities have, you know, opted in.
WSHU: A lot of the pushback, as far as mandates, state mandates were concerned, came from the Republicans. Now there are fewer Republicans in the General Assembly, so do you think that will help this get passed this time around?
SA: Yeah. So we spoke with Representative Tony Scott, a Republican, and he said that he would rather see mandates on the Department of Housing to use rental assistance in suburbs than mandates on towns. They did have a very large Democratic majority last year as well; I think we'll just have to wait and see if that is a priority for them. But it is possible that it could play into this as well.
WSHU: Yeah. In the meantime, segregation in housing continues in Connecticut based on Section Eight vouchers.
SA: Yeah.
WSHU: Okay. Thank you very much, Sasha.
