Housing time limit may cut out poorest

About 4,700 of the poorest individuals and families in Massachusetts would be at risk of losing their state-subsidized housing after three years, and many would be required to work while receiving housing benefits under a proposal buried in Governor Mitt Romney's budget plan.

The administration says that imposing a three-year limit on people who participate in the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program fits with Romney's emphasis on helping the poor become self-sufficient, a goal he is also pushing for welfare recipients.

But advocates and leading legislators say the governor is ignoring the harsh realities of the state's red-hot housing market.

''I'm honestly trying to work hard," said Anjanette Taylor, 40, a voucher recipient whose job pays $340 a week after taxes. She relies on a $700 state voucher to afford the two-bedroom apartment in Dorchester she shares with her two children. ''If they do this three-year thing, I'll probably end up in a shelter again," she said.

Under his budget plan, Romney would spend about $24 million on the voucher program in fiscal 2006, the same amount as last year. But he would impose a limit of three consecutive years and five years overall for vouchers. For those in the program, he would require 20 hours of work from voucher recipients with children ages 2 to 6; 24 hours from the parents of children ages 6 to 9; and 30 hours from those with children 9 or older.

Elderly and disabled residents could be exempt from the new requirements.

Some advocates were surprised by Romney's proposal, because they say he has been more interested in housing and the homeless than his Republican predecessors. The governor has described affordable housing as one of his top priorities, largely because he said a lack of it is scaring away employers. He has said he would follow through on a campaign pledge to double the number of annual housing starts, and he recently asked the Legislature for $2.5 million to provide permanent housing for the chronically homeless. Romney has also designated Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey as his point person on the issue.

''He has certainly launched some initiatives around" preventing homelessness, said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, a Boston-based advocacy group. ''This seems to be operating at cross purposes to what the lieutenant governor is working on."

Democrats in the Legislature are also objecting to Romney's proposal. But Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said the governor's approach on housing is consistent with his philosophy.

''The governor believes that government assistance should not become a permanent lifestyle," Feddeman said. ''Through the changes to this program, we are lending a hand to recipients to help them lead independent and fulfilling lives."

''An individual who has a good job and a new level of self-esteem is only going to become more self-sufficient and will no longer have any need for a government handout," Feddeman said.

The state rental voucher program, like the federal Section 8 program, is designed as an alternative to traditional public housing and the problems associated with concentrating low-income people in giant complexes. Instead, recipients use the vouchers to help pay for housing in the private market.

In Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge, the value of the voucher ranges from $250 to $1,521 per month, depending on the income and size of the household. Everybody in the program makes 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level for Massachusetts, which is currently $31,340 for a family of three. But the average income of the households currently participating in the program in Boston is closer to $11,000, according to the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, which administers the program in the city.

About 1,500 of the vouchers are portable and tied to individuals, while the remainder are tied to specific apartments. About 32 percent of the Boston recipients work, according to the Housing Partnership. The average income of those families is about $19,000, a figure that makes it difficult to afford housing in Boston, where the median advertised rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,300.

Taylor said that an apartment would be less expensive outside Boston. But her job and her elderly mother are in Boston, and she doesn't own a car.

''Random time limits are really hard in a market like this," said Julia Kehoe, executive director of the Housing Partnership. ''Most people will do the work requirement, but at the end of this three-year period, the vast majority of those people won't be able to live in the private market without some kind of rental subsidy."

For those who lose their state vouchers and want to seek a federal one, the prospects are not good. There are 70,000 Section 8 apartments around the state, but the waiting lists are long in many communities. In Boston, for example, there are 15,000 households on the waiting list, and they receive apartments at a rate of about 30 a month. The waiting list for traditional public housing in Boston is about 16,000, and a family applying today can expect to wait months or years for an apartment

Representative Kevin G. Honan, the Allston Democrat who chairs the Housing Committee, said many of his colleagues are well aware of those numbers and will fight Romney's idea.

''We need more rental vouchers, not less," Honan said. ''The cost of housing in Massachusetts is extraordinarily high, and it puts a lot of pressure on working families."

Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.