Increased Rent for Public Housing Has Delta Residents in Court

Published by Cari Gervin on 24 Aug 2009 6:00am
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The South Delta Regional Housing Authority defended its dramatic rent increases in court in Greenville Friday. MPB’s Cari Gervin reports.

Cynthia Roscoe has been in her home in the Southgate subdivision in Indianola for almost 30 years. Her rent was $56 when she first moved in; now it’s $240. Roscoe says she’s disabled and only gets $674 a month, so she struggles to pay her bills. When she got a letter in June saying that her rent was going up to $520 a month, she panicked.

“We ain’t got nowhere to go. If I wanted to go find a house, and if I had to find it, I couldn’t do it.”

Roscoe is one of almost 300 tenants in five counties suing the South Delta Regional Housing Authority. Her lawyers say that most of the residents are just like her - they can’t afford to pay double their rent.

But in a contentious hearing in Greenville Friday, Executive Director Ann Jefferson said that even at the new rates, the rents are still well below federal HUD guidelines for low-income housing in the region.

Standing outside of the Federal Courthouse, her attorney, Paul Mathis, said the large increase is unfortunately needed.

“That’s the amount necessary to cover the expenses to maintain safe and affordable housing for the people that are in the program.”

But Cleveland attorney Daniel Morris says the housing authority is legally required to consider its tenants’ incomes when raising the rent.

“But we just want to make sure that everybody’s taken care of, everybody’s rent can be afforded, because the low-income folks are the reason South Delta was created in the first place.”

South Delta is a state-incorporated public housing authority, so it does not pay property taxes. It does manage Section 8 housing, but the tenants in question aren’t getting the federally subsidized vouchers.

U.S. District Judge Allen Pepper will rule this week as to whether South Delta can enforce the higher rent – and evict people who don’t pay it – until the case goes to trial.

For MPB News, I’m Cari Gervin.