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Rental Assistance: Use It, or Lose It
Let’s talk about what rental assistance programs are still available and WHERE.
For starters, San Diego, where your average rent hovers around $2,000 a month, thousands are getting the help they need and they’re actually making ends meet. Like Paul Oviedo, who said: “We have a little bit of a view. We have some palm trees. Paying for one room there was not too bad for me. I was able to make it.”
Now that San Diego has raised his rent by $200, it’s all becoming a game of give and take, which should sound familiar for all of us just trying to make ends meet. In fact, San Diego’s area median income (AMI) allows a family of four to qualify for help with an income as high as $97,000 a year.
Azucena Valladolid, the executive vice president of Rental Assistance and Workforce Development for the San Diego Housing Commission, said: “It does sound like a lot of money. It is; the area median income is adjusted every year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”
Thankfully, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has still helped roughly 19,000 low-income households pay their rent. Those are folks at or below 30% AMI or 50% AMI.
Rent increases are happening EVERYWHERE, at least for the time being. Fortunately, we have eviction protection still available in many places.