Standing outside of her townhouse at Harriet Tubman Estates, a development of the Rochester Housing Authority, Anaida Perez is uncertain about what her rental’s future looks like.
“I don't know what's going to happen,” Perez said. “I don't know if I'm going to fall in that category... in that little mess right there — but I don't think it's right.”
The “little mess” Perez referred to is the shutdown of the federal government that began Wednesday. And the “category” are the thousands of recipients of federal housing vouchers who could see their benefits cut during the shutdown.
The Rochester Housing Authority warned this week of the uncertainty ahead, and an extended shutdown could deplete local resources. A letter distributed to staff, obtained by WXXI News, said it is preparing a plan if the shutdown continues through December. It also advised staff to start conserving office supplies.
The main sticking point in Congress is Democrats seeking a reversal of cuts to Medicaid included in President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” passed in June.
Those cuts are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to come in at $793 billion and stand to cut nearly 7.9 million people from Medicaid. Republican leaders, meanwhile, have claimed Democrats are bent on providing health care payments for undocumented immigrants. While hoping to restore limited subsidies for those “lawfully present,” those who are undocumented are and would remain ineligible for more federal assistance.
That conflict has led to the first government shutdown in 2019, which was also the longest in the nation’s history at 35 days. If the shutdown again becomes a prolonged political battle, resources like Section 8 and other federal housing programs become increasingly at risk.
RHA administers housing vouchers for about 26,000 people across the five-county region, and makes about $60 million in payments annually.
“Worst-case scenario, if the government stays shut down and we don't have funds, then housing assistance payments could stop,” RHA executive director Shawn Burr said in an interview Tuesday several hours before the shutdown. “We certainly don't want that. We have got to have faith in our elected officials to approve a budget that's going to work for us all.”
Burr said that the authority has a fund that could fill in gaps if the shutdown continues for the long haul and is currently expecting that federal dollars could flow through November, although he referred to that timeline as “word on the street” and not officially from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But none of that is set in stone.
“There's no certainty on any of that, to be honest with you, so that that's the frustrating part in trying to, you know, continue to provide services that affect 26,000 people,” Burr said.
For tenants like Perez, the situation leaves a lingering question of what the future looks like, and what the resolution is.
“It's going to get worse, because they're going to shut down ... including (for) the moms that got kids,” Perez said. “Because that's our way, that's the way they want it.”
