Subscribe
Hellobeautiful Featured Video
CLOSE

Continuing with tradition, lower income Americans continue to get the shaft and be hit with some of the most devastating blows as they attempt to live lives just like everyone else. The latest measure to penalize the poor comes from Ben Carson, who has proposed to severely increase the rent in low-income housing.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson further proves that he could care less about lower income Americans, as he just recently proposed to triple the rent in low-income housing, which would cripple many Americans who strive to live better lives. The Washington Post has all the details of the proposal, including the work requirements that will be involved with securing housing in the future.

Via Washington Post:

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson proposed far-reaching changes to federal housing subsidies Wednesday, tripling rent for the poorest households and making it easier for housing authorities to impose work requirements. Carson’s proposals, and other initiatives aimed at low-income Americans receiving federal assistance, amount to a comprehensive effort by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to restrict access to the safety net and reduce the levels of assistance for those who do qualify.

The ambitious effort to shrink federal assistance has been dubbed “Welfare Reform 2.0’’, after Bill Clinton’s overhaul of the welfare system in 1996. The proposals — affecting housing, food stamps and Medicaid — would require congressional approval.

The initiative unveiled by Carson Wednesday would raise the rent for tenants in subsidized housing to 35 percent of gross income (or 35 percent of their earnings working 15 hours a week at the federal minimum wage), up from the current standard of 30 percent of adjusted income. About half of the 4.7 million families receiving housing benefits would be affected, HUD officials said. The cap on rent for the poorest families would rise to about $150 a month — three times higher than the existing $50 ceiling. About 712,000 households would see their monthly rents rise to $150, the officials said.

If you thought that the immediate criticism that Carson received for his proposal would perhaps cause him to reconsider, think again because he doubled down on the proposal with comments that prove he is committed to completely changing low-income housing as we know it.

“There is one inescapable imperative driving this reform effort,” Carson said in a call with reporters. “The current system isn’t working very well. Doing nothing is not an option. Every year, it takes more money, millions of dollars more, to serve the same number of households, and it’s clear from a budget perspective and a human point of view that the current system is unsustainable.”

He also added that decades-old rules on rent calculations are “far too confusing,” often resulting in families who earn the same income paying vastly different rent “because they know how to work the system.”

 

Check out today’s Top Stories here:

Waffle House Hero Raises Over $150,000 For Victims

Lawd, Mi Can’t: Peter Thomas’ Baby Mama Says Their Son Is Not Black

For 2024’s iteration of MadameNoire and HelloBeautiful’s annual series Women to Know, we knew we wanted to celebrate the people who help make the joys of film and television possible. To create art is to create magic. This year, we spotlight Hollywood Executive’s changing the face of cinema.