| Housing Assistance programs in Madison by Harry Stein |
| A safe, decent, and affordable place to live is fundamentally important to every person. Tragically, this goal is out of reach for many families throughout the United States. The city of Madison is attempting to solve this problem with several programs to assist low- and moderate-income families in finding a place to live. While some of these programs require the recipient to be a U.S. citizen, others allow documented immigrants to become clients of the programs as well. Understanding how these programs work and where to go to utilize them can make the difference for a family in finding affordable housing. One such program is the American Dream Development Initiative. This program is designed to make home ownership within reach of low-income households. It provides a loan of $1,000 to $10,000 to help make the down payment on a mortgage loan. This loan must be repaid when the homeowner moves out, but is deferred until then so the homeowner can focus on making the monthly payments on the mortgage. A family of four with an income of $58,000 may be eligible for this program. Another option for families of similar incomes is public housing. The city of Madison owns and operates about 850 units of affordable public housing. The resident typically is expected to pay about 30% of his/her income as rent, with the federal government paying the rest. For families with lower incomes, Section 8 vouchers provide assistance in affording rental units. As with public housing, the resident is expected to pay 30%-40% of his/her income in rent, with the federal government paying the rest. A family of four with an income of $36,000 or less may be eligible for these vouchers. Unfortunately, the waiting list for these vouchers is currently closed. These programs often do not have enough resources to help all those in need. Recently, the city of Madison passed the Inclusionary Zoning ordinance to boost the amount of affordable housing in Madison. The ordinance requires new developments to set aside 15% of their units for affordable housing. These new developments are required to do this though only if they are building more than 10 units and applying for zoning changes. These units may cost no more than 30% of the resident's income in monthly rent or mortgage payments. Since the adoption of the controversial ordinance, about 50 affordable units have been put on the market. However, as of November 22, 2005, none of these properties have been sold to qualified buyers. It is believed that with the recent increase in available housing, low-income families are finding better options than these units. The ordinance is currently being revisited by the city government in order to fix this and other alleged problems with the original law. Utilizing these programs requires knowing how they work. Prospective home buyers may be surprised to find that they are eligible for assistance they did not even know existed for them. The Madison Department of Planning and Development administers many of these programs. For more information, visit their Web site at http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/planning/ index.html. Harry B. Stein is a college intern from UW-Madison. |
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