Public housing units are developed for families with low income have somewhere to live decently. However, several reports have surfaced that some families that are living in these units are earning a six- digit income annually.
In an investigation conducted by fox11online.com, they have discovered in report for Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) that one family residing in Shawano County has been earning $100,369 yearly which is twice the limit of family income that the government regulated to have access in public housing.
John Wartman, an officer at Shawano County Housing Authority, said that he's surprised to learn about this information. 98% of the 202 public housing units in there are occupied by families with low- income while half of them have "extremely" low income. Wartman said "In this particular case you have got this family, the wife is working, the husband is working." He also said that he has no idea when the family started earning a six- figure income since their residence on 1994.
Despite of the discovery, authorities cannot simply evict the family as the program only needs the family to meet the income requirement and they are signed up indefinitely whether their income has gone up or not. However, Wartman said that a family earning more than $100,000 annually should not be living in a public housing unit.
According to cbs6albany.com, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had released a report showing that more than 25,000 families enrolled in public housing program have salaries higher than the income limit.
Leslie Paige of government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste said "The public housing system is meant to help people who are truly needy, not people who can afford to rent their own places in the private market."
The report had yielded 109 "over income families" while some of them have six- figure annual income.
The government can't actually do about this issue since the families have enrolled in the public housing program when they were still a low- income family and since federal law says that there's no limit on how long they can stay in those housing units despite of the improvement of their salary, six- digit income family can't be relocated.
What are your thoughts about this report and possible loophole in the laws? Share it in the comments!
