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Landlords with Section 8 tenants are only getting 25 percent of their payments from the Boston Housing Authority this month.
The apparent cause: last month’s federal government shutdown.
“We deeply value our partnership with our Section 8 landlords, who provide housing to many thousands of low-income families across the region.,” BHA Administrator Kenzie Bok wrote in a letter posted to the BHA’s website. “We felt it was important to distribute the $10 million that we received so far, as we await the remaining $30 million, and we’re committed to providing them with updated information on this evolving situation.”
The letter says the BHA is experiencing delays in receiving the full amount the federal government owes it for housing assistance payments, similar to other housing authorities throughout the country. Housing authorities have not yet received approval of “shortfall funding,” a mechanism that covers the gap when rental inflation outstrips the original voucher budget allocations for the year.
“At this time, we anticipate that full HAP payments may not be disbursed until approximately mid-month,” the letter stated. “However, in order to mitigate the impact of this delay, for those who receive direct deposits, BHA will send out 25% of the monthly payment, which reflects the portion of funds we currently hold. The remaining balance will be issued immediately upon receipt of full funding from the federal government. We are hopeful that HUD will approve shortfall payments at the end of this week, and funds will become available next week, but we have not yet had formal confirmation of the timeline.”
For landlords, particularly smaller landlords, even missing a monthly payment can have serious impacts.
“Different landlords are in different situations but there are lots of landlords for whom the math is currently extremely tight,” Chris Lehman, a director at the Small Property Owners Association said in an email. “Especially smaller property owners, you might have a mortgage out to buy these properties. You have a tight relationship between the cost of paying your mortgage and maintaining the property and paying property taxes and the rent paid to you by the renter, whether that’s market rent or Section 8 rent and if you suddenly lose that, people can very quickly go into foreclosure, and that’s a terrible outcome, both for the landlord and for the renters.”
Douglas Quattrochi, executive director of trade group MassLandlords, critiqued the federal government’s slowness.
“Regardless of your ideology, this is a bad thing,” he said in an email. “Section 8 has been running for 90 years. Businesses were based on the reliable nature of payments. Net social services costs are lower with Section 8 than without it. We’re well past the shutdown. This needs to be fixed now.”
