The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) took action last week to lower the maximum limit of its supervoucher housing assistance program to 150 percent of fair market rent.
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) called the CHA’s action a step in the right direction but said more needed to be done to fix the Housing Choice Voucher Program, a program administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
In June, Schock introduced an amendment to the annual appropriations bill for HUD that would limit the Housing Choice Voucher Program to 120 percent of fair market rent. The move was designed to ensure that available housing assistance dollars benefit as many people as possible.
“I welcome the decision announced this weekend by the Chicago Housing Authority to revise its controversial supervoucher program and limit exception payments to 150 percent of fair market rents,” Schock said. “Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been wasted on this program, and I will continue to push for a greater understanding of how the program was authorized, administered and overseen by public officials in Washington and Chicago.”
For every family that was given more than 300 percent of what they should have been given through the voucher program, Shock previously said, there are tens of thousands of families waiting in line for housing assistance.
“Dozens of Chicago families will now have to be relocated, potentially disrupting their lives and discouraging their efforts to become fully independent of government support,” Schock said. “I regret that CHA’s badly conceived supervoucher program has failed both these families and the taxpayers who fund such programs with the confidence that their government will administer them fairly and efficiently.”
Schock said he would continue to scrutinize HUD’s Moving to Work initiative, which authorized Chicago’s supervoucher program.
“I will push for legislative changes where necessary to more clearly define HUD’s program goals and ensure that the money we spend provides maximum benefit to our nation’s needy families,” Schock said.