This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.
Proposed changes to federal housing benefits could leave hundreds of people in Santa Barbara County homeless. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plans to ban households that include undocumented people. This change, compounding with HUD’s earlier announcement that it will stop funding emergency housing vouchers, which help keep people at risk of homelessness off the streets, threatens housing stability for many in the area. That’s according to Rob Fredericks, the executive director and chief executive officer of the City of Santa Barbara’s Housing Authority, and Bob Havlicek, the executive director for the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara.
The Mix-Status Ban
Federal law established in 1980 says that households with undocumented members can still receive federal housing benefits, like Section 8 vouchers, but that those benefits are prorated based on the number of documented people in the household. If one person in a household of four is undocumented, for example, the household receives 75 percent of the full benefit available to them.
A total ban on mixed-status households would mean that any household with undocumented people would no longer receive benefits. Rob Fredericks from the city’s housing authority says the ban would force families to make an impossible choice: split up or lose the funding that helps keep them sheltered. In Santa Barbara County, that includes 302 families, most of them with children…