Latest news with #Seattle-area
Eater
2 days ago
- Business
- Eater
One of Seattle's Oldest Diners Is Closing After 62 Years
The Ravenna Varsity — typically just called the Varsity — which has been holding down the corner of 65th Street and 23rd Avenue Northeast for an astonishing 62 years, will close permanently on Sunday, August 3, Vanishing Seattle reports. The diner was a North Seattle landmark and outlived its original building, which was torn down in 2002; the Varsity reopened in the mixed-use building that replaced it in 2004. According to Vanishing Seattle, Mariners manager Lou Pinella had a meal at the Varsity after arriving in town for the job and asked waitress Sandy Pelkey for directions to the Kingdome. Pelkey has been working there since 1979 and bought the Varsity from original owner Ozzie Boyle; she now runs the restaurant with her son Bryan. Pelkey told Vanishing Seattle that the Varsity is closing after she couldn't reach an agreement on a new lease with the landlord. Rising prices and pandemic-related losses also contributed to the decision (common factors in many recent restaurant closures). 'While it breaks our hearts to see the Varsity shut its doors, what we will miss the most is the customers that have become like members of our family,' the Pelkeys told Vanishing Seattle. 'The doors may shut, but the connections and community we built will last a lifetime.' Here are more notable restaurant and bar closure announcements from around Seattle. If you know of a closure we missed, please email us at seattle@ CAPITOL HILL — Gold Bar, on Pike and 12th Avenue, has closed permanently, reports Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. The owners told CHS that they lost the lease due to a 'real estate deal,' but the building has not been sold recently, notes CHS. Afterlife, a nightclub that was connected to the bar, has also closed. FREMONT — Acclaimed restaurant the Whale Wins will be closing on October 28, the Sea Creatures restaurant group announced this month. Star chef Renee Erickson still has several restaurants in her portfolio (with plans to open more in Pioneer Square), but the Whale was the one that earned her a James Beard Award in 2016. Still, it had been losing money for some time, Sea Creatures co-owner Jeremy Price told Eater Seattle, and ownership decided not to renew the lease. BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Longtime Seattle-area chef Greg Atkinson, a pioneer in the 'eat local' movement, has retired, closing his restaurant, Marche. The Seattle Times reports that it will be replaced by a new seafood restaurant called Sweetwater Tavern, which will open later this year. RAVENNA — A bizarre early July incident in which a car drove through the storefront of the Mioposto on 55th Street and 35th Avenue Northeast led to the pizzeria being closed temporarily for repairs. Several diners were injured by the car crash, though thankfully none critically. MADISON PARK — Three years after opening, the nonalcoholic-friendly bar, restaurant, and hangout spot Kamp Social House has closed permanently. 'This decision comes after much reflection and is rooted in the need to take a personal pause,' wrote owners Marceil Van Camp and Katy Knauff in an Instagram announcement. KIRKLAND — Arleana's, a Carribean cocktails and dinner spot from the owners of Island Soul, has closed after just two years, reports the Seattle Times. 'This wasn't an easy decision, but please know how grateful we are for every visit, every shared meal, and every smile,' the owners wrote on Instagram. The family's Columbia City restaurant remains open. BELLTOWN — Also via the Times, Korean Bamboo, home of some killer silken tofu, has closed permanently, 'with a notice from the owner citing safety issues in the neighborhood and more, while sincerely thanking fans for all the love.' CAPITOL HILL — Finally, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports that Finch and Pine has closed permanently. Owner Sara Moran (of famed Seattle restaurant Sitka and Spruce) wrote on Instagram that 'the main reason is because I'm ready for a new chapter.'
Axios
6 days ago
- Axios
Seattle's island flavors make Yelp's top 50
Seattle is bringing aloha vibes to the mainland. State of play: Yelp just dropped its first-ever list of the Top 50 Hawaiian Restaurants in North America — and four Seattle-area spots made the cut. Why it matters: Hawaiian cuisine is more than just poke — it's a blend of cultures and comfort, from plate lunches and spam musubi to purple rice and loco moco. What they did: Yelp's list highlights a mix of traditional and fusion fare, curated by the company's Elite Squad, a group of active vetted users known for thoughtful reviews, quality photos and support for local businesses, per Yelp. Dig in: Here are the island-inspired standouts that made the list:
Los Angeles Times
17-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
More than one million of the poorest renters risk losing their homes with Trump's proposed policy
Havalah Hopkins rarely says no to the chain restaurant catering gigs that send her out to Seattle-area events — from church potlucks to office lunches and graduation parties. The delivery fees and tips she earns on top of $18 an hour mean it's better than minimum-wage shift work, even though it's not consistent. It helps her afford the government-subsidized apartment she and her 14-year-old autistic son have lived in for three years, though it's still tough to make ends meet. 'It's a cycle of feeling defeated and depleted, no matter how much energy and effort and tenacity you have towards surviving,' Hopkins said. Still, the 33-year-old single mother is grateful she has stable housing — experts estimate just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rental assistance get the benefits. And now Hopkins is at risk of losing her home, as federal officials move to restrict HUD policy. Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. The proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance programs. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' But the move to restrict such key subsidies would mark a significant retreat from the scope of HUD's work. Millions of tenants moved in with the promise of subsidized housing for as long as they were poor enough to remain qualified, so time limits would be a seismic shift that could destabilize the most vulnerable households, many unlikely to ever afford today's record-high rents. New research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press and published Thursday, found that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies — largely working families with children. This would lead housing authorities to evict many families, the report said. A broad time limit would cause 'substantial disruption and dislocation,' it said, noting the policy is largely untested and most of the few housing authorities to voluntarily try it eventually abandoned the pilots. A break from HUD's long-held purpose of helping house the poor could also jeopardize its contracts with private landlords, who say they're already feeling the uncertainty as public housing authorities from Seattle to Atlanta announce they're scaling back in anticipation of federal funding cuts. Critics fear the restriction could derail those working towards self-sufficiency — defeating the goal time-limit supporters hope to achieve. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. She primarily cited statistics suggesting low employment among HUD-subsidized tenants. Hopkins said the policy would likely leave her and her son homeless in an economy that often feels indifferent to working poor people like her. 'A two-year time limit is ridiculous,' she said. 'It's so disrespectful. I think it's dehumanizing — the whole system.' Researchers from the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University's Furman Center analyzed HUD's data over a 10-year period and found about 70% of households who could be affected by a two-year limit had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. That's based on 2024 estimates and doesn't include elderly and disabled people who wouldn't be subject to time limits. Exempted households make up about half of the roughly 4.9 million households getting rental assistance. In the first study to examine the proposed policy's possible impacts, the NYU researchers found time limits would largely punish families who are working but earning far below their area's median income, which would ultimately shift federal rental assistance away from households with kids. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the study co-author and director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can 'change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' she said. It would affect people like Hopkins, whose family was on a years-long waitlist in the expensive region where she grew up. In July 2022, she and her son moved into a two-bedroom public housing unit in Woodinville, Washington. She pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income. A market-rate apartment in the area costs at least $2,000 more, according to the King County Housing Authority, which in June announced it would pause issuing some new vouchers. Hopkins knows she could never afford to live in her home state without rental assistance. It was a relief they could stay as long as they needed. She had been struggling to scrape together hundreds of dollars more a month for her previous trailer home. 'There's no words to put on feeling like your housing is secure,' Hopkins said. 'I feel like I was gasping for air and I'm finally able to breathe.' She credits the housing subsidy for her ability to finally leave an abusive marriage, and still dreams of more — perhaps her own catering business or working as a party decorator. 'We all can't be lawyers and doctors — and two years isn't enough to even become that,' Hopkins said. Since learning of Trump's proposal, Hopkins said she's been haunted by thoughts of shoving her possessions into a van with her son, upending the stability she built for him. The average household in HUD-subsidized housing stays about six years, studies show. HUD funds local public housing projects where nearly 1 million households live and the Section 8 vouchers that about 4 million households use to offset their private rentals. There's been little guidance from HUD on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the potential for time limits to help curb HUD's notorious waitlists. Hard-liners contend the threat of housing loss will push people to reach self-sufficiency; others see limits, when coupled with support and workforce incentives, as a means to motivate tenants to improve their lives. Yet there are strikingly few successful examples. NYU researchers identified just 17 public housing authorities that have tested time limits. None of the programs were designed for only two years and 11 abandoned the restriction — despite being able to use federal dollars for services to help people achieve self-sufficiency. Several agencies that dropped the limits said tenants still struggled to afford housing after their time was up. 'These policies are complex and difficult to monitor, enforce, and do well,' NYU's Aiken said. The city of Keene, New Hampshire, tried five-year time limits starting in 2001, but terminated the policy before fully enforcing it to avoid kicking out households that would still be 'rent burdened, or potentially homeless,' said Josh Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing. In California, Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of San Mateo County said the agency has kept its five-year time limit in tandem with educational programs she says have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals. It also gives more people the chance to use vouchers, she said. NYU's Aiken acknowledged HUD's long waitlists make the current system 'a bit of a lottery,' adding: 'You could say that time limits are a way of increasing people's odds in that lottery.' HUD's Section 8 programs have long depended on hundreds of thousands of for-profit and nonprofit small business owners and property managers to accept tenant vouchers. Now, landlords fear a two-year limit could put their contracts for HUD-subsidized housing in limbo. Amid the uncertainty, Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association, said multiple landlord groups have voiced their concerns about HUD's next budget in a letter to congressional leaders. She said landlords generally agree two years is simply not enough time for most low-income tenants to change their fortunes. 'As a practical matter, you're going to increase your turnover, which is a cost,' Muha said. 'Nobody wants to throw out their tenants without cause.' It's always been a significant lift for private landlords to work with HUD subsidies, which involve burdensome paperwork, heavy oversight and maintenance inspections. But the trade-off is a near guarantee of dependable longer-term renters and rental income. If that's compromised, some landlords say they'd pull back from the federal subsidy programs. Brad Suster, who owns 86 Chicago-area units funded by HUD, said accepting subsidies could become risky. 'Would we have the same reliability that we know has traditionally come for countless years from the federal government?' Suster said. 'That's something landlords and owners want to know is there.' The diminishing housing stock available to low-income tenants has been a brewing problem for HUD. Between 2010 and 2020, some 50,000 housing providers left the voucher program, the agency has reported. It's up for debate whether lawmakers will buy into Trump's vision for HUD. This week the U.S. House appropriations committee is taking up HUD's 2026 budget, which so far makes no mention of time limits. HUD's Lovett noted the Senate's budget plans for the agency have not yet been released, and said the administration remains focused on future implementation of time limits. 'HUD will continue to engage with colleagues on the hill to ensure a seamless transition and enforcement of any new time limit,' Lovett said in a statement. Noëlle Porter, the director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, said Trump's fight for time limits is far from over, noting that legislative and rule changes could make them a reality. 'It is clearly a stated goal of the administration to impose work requirements and time limits on rental assistance, even though it would be wildly unpopular,' Porter said. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says there's no evidence time limits would save HUD money. 'This doesn't help families who already are working multiple jobs to become self-sufficient,' Clyburn said at a June hearing. 'Instead, it creates chaos, financial uncertainty and pushes these families into more severe trade-offs.' Time limits could imperil Aaliyah Barnes' longtime dream of graduating college and becoming a nurse, finding a job and a home she can afford. The 28-year-old single mom in Louisville, Kentucky, this year joined Family Scholar House, which provides counseling and support for people pursuing an education — and, to Barnes' relief, housing. Her apartment is paid for by a Section 8 voucher. In March, Barnes moved in and her 3-year-old son, Aarmoni, finally got his own room, where she set up a learning wall. Previously, she had struggled to afford housing on her wages at a call center — and living with her mom, two sisters and their kids in a cramped house was an environment ridden with arguments. The stable future she's building could disappear, though, if she's forced out in two years when her schooling is expected to take three years. 'I'd be so close, but so far away,' Barnes said. Ho and Kramon write for the Associated Press.
17-07-2025
- Business
Trump's proposed HUD time limit puts 1.4M of the nation's poorest renters risk
WOODINVILLE, Wash. -- Havalah Hopkins rarely says no to the chain restaurant catering gigs that send her out to Seattle-area events — from church potlucks to office lunches and graduation parties. The delivery fees and tips she earns on top of $18 an hour mean it's better than minimum-wage shift work, even though it's not consistent. It helps her afford the government-subsidized apartment she and her 14-year-old autistic son have lived in for three years, though it's still tough to make ends meet. 'It's a cycle of feeling defeated and depleted, no matter how much energy and effort and tenacity you have towards surviving,' Hopkins said. Still, the 33-year-old single mother is grateful she has stable housing — experts estimate just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rental assistance get the benefits. And now Hopkins is at risk of losing her home, as federal officials move to restrict HUD policy. Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. The proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance programs. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' But the move to restrict such key subsidies would mark a significant retreat from the scope of HUD's work. Millions of tenants moved in with the promise of subsidized housing for as long as they were poor enough to remain qualified, so time limits would be a seismic shift that could destabilize the most vulnerable households, many unlikely to ever afford today's record-high rents. New research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, found that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies — largely working families with children. This would lead housing authorities to evict many families, the report said. A broad time limit would cause 'substantial disruption and dislocation,' the it said, noting the policy is largely untested and most of the few housing authorities to voluntarily try it eventually abandoned the pilots. A break from HUD's long-held purpose of helping house the poor could also jeopardize its contracts with private landlords, who say they're already feeling the uncertainty as public housing authorities from Seattle to Atlanta announce they're scaling back in anticipation of federal funding cuts. Critics fear the restriction could derail those working towards self-sufficiency — defeating the goal time-limit supporters hope to achieve. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. She primarily cited statistics suggesting low employment among HUD-subsidized tenants. Hopkins said the policy would likely leave her and her son homeless in an economy that often feels indifferent to working poor people like her. 'A two-year time limit is ridiculous,' she said. 'It's so disrespectful. I think it's dehumanizing — the whole system.' Researchers from the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University's Furman Center analyzed HUD's data over a 10-year period and found about 70% of households who could be affected by a two-year limit had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. That's based on 2024 estimates and doesn't include elderly and disabled people who wouldn't be subject to time limits. Exempted households make up about half of the roughly 4.9 million households getting rental assistance. In the first study to examine the proposed policy's possible impacts, the NYU researchers found time limits would largely punish families who are working but earning far below their area's median income, which would ultimately shift federal rental assistance away from households with kids. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the study co-author and director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can "change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' she said. It would affect people like Hopkins, whose family was on a years-long waitlist in the expensive region where she grew up. In July 2022, she and her son moved into a two-bedroom public housing unit in Woodinville, Washington. She pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income. A market-rate apartment in the area costs at least $2,000 more, according to the King County Housing Authority, which in June announced it would pause issuing some new vouchers. Hopkins knows she could never afford to live in her home state without rental assistance. It was a relief they could stay as long as they needed. She had been struggling to scrape together hundreds of dollars more a month for her previous trailer home. 'There's no words to put on feeling like your housing is secure,' Hopkins said. 'I feel like I was gasping for air and I'm finally able to breathe.' She credits the housing subsidy for her ability to finally leave an abusive marriage, and still dreams of more — perhaps her own catering business or working as a party decorator. 'We all can't be lawyers and doctors — and two years isn't enough to even become that,' Hopkins said. Since learning of Trump's proposal, Hopkins said she's been haunted by thoughts of shoving her possessions into a van with her son, upending the stability she built for him. The average household in HUD-subsidized housing stays about six years, studies show. HUD funds local public housing projects where nearly 1 million households live and the Section 8 vouchers that about 4 million households use to offset their private rentals. There's been little guidance from HUD on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the potential for time limits to help curb HUD's notorious waitlists. Hard-liners contend the threat of housing loss will push people to reach self-sufficiency; others see limits, when coupled with support and workforce incentives, as a means to motivate tenants to improve their lives. Yet there are strikingly few successful examples. NYU researchers identified just 17 public housing authorities that have tested time limits. None of the programs were designed for only two years and 11 abandoned the restriction — despite being able to use federal dollars for services to help people achieve self-sufficiency. Several agencies that dropped the limits said tenants still struggled to afford housing after their time was up. 'These policies are complex and difficult to monitor, enforce, and do well,' NYU's Aiken said. The city of Keene, New Hampshire, tried five-year time limits starting in 2001, but terminated the policy before fully enforcing it to avoid kicking out households that would still be 'rent burdened, or potentially homeless,' said Josh Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing. In California, Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of San Mateo County said the agency has kept its five-year time limit in tandem with educational programs she says have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals. It also gives more people the chance to use vouchers, she said. NYU's Aiken acknowledged HUD's long waitlists make the current system 'a bit of a lottery," adding: "You could say that time limits are a way of increasing people's odds in that lottery.' HUD's Section 8 programs have long depended on hundreds of thousands of for-profit and nonprofit small business owners and property managers to accept tenant vouchers. Now, landlords fear a two-year limit could put their contracts for HUD-subsidized housing in limbo. Amid the uncertainty, Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association, said multiple landlord groups have voiced their concerns about HUD's next budget in a letter to congressional leaders. She said landlords generally agree two years is simply not enough time for most low-income tenants to change their fortunes. 'As a practical matter, you're going to increase your turnover, which is a cost," Muha said. 'Nobody wants to throw out their tenants without cause.' It's always been a significant lift for private landlords to work with HUD subsidies, which involve burdensome paperwork, heavy oversight and maintenance inspections. But the trade-off is a near guarantee of dependable longer-term renters and rental income. If that's compromised, some landlords say they'd pull back from the federal subsidy programs. Brad Suster, who owns 86 Chicago-area units funded by HUD, said accepting subsidies could become risky. 'Would we have the same reliability that we know has traditionally come for countless years from the federal government?' Suster said. 'That's something landlords and owners want to know is there." The diminishing housing stock available to low-income tenants has been a brewing problem for HUD. Between 2010 and 2020, some 50,000 housing providers left the voucher program, the agency has reported. It's up for debate whether lawmakers will buy into Trump's vision for HUD. This week the U.S. House appropriations committee is taking up HUD's 2026 budget, which so far makes no mention of time limits. HUD's Lovett noted the Senate's budget plans for the agency have not yet been released, and said the administration remains focused on future implementation of time limits. 'HUD will continue to engage with colleagues on the hill to ensure a seamless transition and enforcement of any new time limit,' Lovett said in a statement. Noëlle Porter, the director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, said Trump's fight for time limits is far from over, noting that legislative and rule changes could make them a reality. 'It is clearly a stated goal of the administration to impose work requirements and time limits on rental assistance, even though it would be wildly unpopular,' Porter said. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says there's no evidence time limits would save HUD money. 'This doesn't help families who already are working multiple jobs to become self-sufficient,' Clyburn said at a June hearing. 'Instead, it creates chaos, financial uncertainty and pushes these families into more severe trade-offs.' Time limits could imperil Aaliyah Barnes' longtime dream of graduating college and becoming a nurse, finding a job and a home she can afford. The 28-year-old single mom in Louisville, Kentucky, this year joined Family Scholar House, which provides counseling and support for people pursuing an education — and, to Barnes' relief, housing. Her apartment is paid for by a Section 8 voucher. In March, Barnes moved in and her 3-year-old son, Aarmoni, finally got his own room, where she set up a learning wall. Previously, she had struggled to afford housing on her wages at a call center — and living with her mom, two sisters and their kids in a cramped house was an environment ridden with arguments. The stable future she's building could disappear, though, if she's forced out in two years when her schooling is expected to take three years. 'I'd be so close, but so far away,' Barnes said. ___ Kramon reported from Atlanta.
Winnipeg Free Press
17-07-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
1.4M of the nation's poorest renters risk losing their homes with Trump's proposed HUD time limit
WOODINVILLE, Wash. (AP) — Havalah Hopkins rarely says no to the chain restaurant catering gigs that send her out to Seattle-area events — from church potlucks to office lunches and graduation parties. The delivery fees and tips she earns on top of $18 an hour mean it's better than minimum-wage shift work, even though it's not consistent. It helps her afford the government-subsidized apartment she and her 14-year-old autistic son have lived in for three years, though it's still tough to make ends meet. 'It's a cycle of feeling defeated and depleted, no matter how much energy and effort and tenacity you have towards surviving,' Hopkins said. Still, the 33-year-old single mother is grateful she has stable housing — experts estimate just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rental assistance get the benefits. And now Hopkins is at risk of losing her home, as federal officials move to restrict HUD policy. Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. The proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance programs. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' But the move to restrict such key subsidies would mark a significant retreat from the scope of HUD's work. Millions of tenants moved in with the promise of subsidized housing for as long as they were poor enough to remain qualified, so time limits would be a seismic shift that could destabilize the most vulnerable households, many unlikely to ever afford today's record-high rents. New research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, found that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies — largely working families with children. This would lead housing authorities to evict many families, the report said. A broad time limit would cause 'substantial disruption and dislocation,' the it said, noting the policy is largely untested and most of the few housing authorities to voluntarily try it eventually abandoned the pilots. A break from HUD's long-held purpose of helping house the poor could also jeopardize its contracts with private landlords, who say they're already feeling the uncertainty as public housing authorities from Seattle to Atlanta announce they're scaling back in anticipation of federal funding cuts. Critics fear the restriction could derail those working towards self-sufficiency — defeating the goal time-limit supporters hope to achieve. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. She primarily cited statistics suggesting low employment among HUD-subsidized tenants. Hopkins said the policy would likely leave her and her son homeless in an economy that often feels indifferent to working poor people like her. 'A two-year time limit is ridiculous,' she said. 'It's so disrespectful. I think it's dehumanizing — the whole system.' Working families are most at risk Researchers from the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University's Furman Center analyzed HUD's data over a 10-year period and found about 70% of households who could be affected by a two-year limit had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. That's based on 2024 estimates and doesn't include elderly and disabled people who wouldn't be subject to time limits. Exempted households make up about half of the roughly 4.9 million households getting rental assistance. In the first study to examine the proposed policy's possible impacts, the NYU researchers found time limits would largely punish families who are working but earning far below their area's median income, which would ultimately shift federal rental assistance away from households with kids. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the study co-author and director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can 'change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' she said. It would affect people like Hopkins, whose family was on a years-long waitlist in the expensive region where she grew up. In July 2022, she and her son moved into a two-bedroom public housing unit in Woodinville, Washington. She pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income. A market-rate apartment in the area costs at least $2,000 more, according to the King County Housing Authority, which in June announced it would pause issuing some new vouchers. Hopkins knows she could never afford to live in her home state without rental assistance. It was a relief they could stay as long as they needed. She had been struggling to scrape together hundreds of dollars more a month for her previous trailer home. 'There's no words to put on feeling like your housing is secure,' Hopkins said. 'I feel like I was gasping for air and I'm finally able to breathe.' She credits the housing subsidy for her ability to finally leave an abusive marriage, and still dreams of more — perhaps her own catering business or working as a party decorator. 'We all can't be lawyers and doctors — and two years isn't enough to even become that,' Hopkins said. Since learning of Trump's proposal, Hopkins said she's been haunted by thoughts of shoving her possessions into a van with her son, upending the stability she built for him. 'Difficult to do well' The average household in HUD-subsidized housing stays about six years, studies show. HUD funds local public housing projects where nearly 1 million households live and the Section 8 vouchers that about 4 million households use to offset their private rentals. There's been little guidance from HUD on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged the potential for time limits to help curb HUD's notorious waitlists. Hard-liners contend the threat of housing loss will push people to reach self-sufficiency; others see limits, when coupled with support and workforce incentives, as a means to motivate tenants to improve their lives. Yet there are strikingly few successful examples. NYU researchers identified just 17 public housing authorities that have tested time limits. None of the programs were designed for only two years and 11 abandoned the restriction — despite being able to use federal dollars for services to help people achieve self-sufficiency. Several agencies that dropped the limits said tenants still struggled to afford housing after their time was up. 'These policies are complex and difficult to monitor, enforce, and do well,' NYU's Aiken said. The city of Keene, New Hampshire, tried five-year time limits starting in 2001, but terminated the policy before fully enforcing it to avoid kicking out households that would still be 'rent burdened, or potentially homeless,' said Josh Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing. In California, Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of San Mateo County said the agency has kept its five-year time limit in tandem with educational programs she says have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals. It also gives more people the chance to use vouchers, she said. NYU's Aiken acknowledged HUD's long waitlists make the current system 'a bit of a lottery,' adding: 'You could say that time limits are a way of increasing people's odds in that lottery.' The landlord's dilemma HUD's Section 8 programs have long depended on hundreds of thousands of for-profit and nonprofit small business owners and property managers to accept tenant vouchers. Now, landlords fear a two-year limit could put their contracts for HUD-subsidized housing in limbo. Amid the uncertainty, Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association, said multiple landlord groups have voiced their concerns about HUD's next budget in a letter to congressional leaders. She said landlords generally agree two years is simply not enough time for most low-income tenants to change their fortunes. 'As a practical matter, you're going to increase your turnover, which is a cost,' Muha said. 'Nobody wants to throw out their tenants without cause.' It's always been a significant lift for private landlords to work with HUD subsidies, which involve burdensome paperwork, heavy oversight and maintenance inspections. But the trade-off is a near guarantee of dependable longer-term renters and rental income. If that's compromised, some landlords say they'd pull back from the federal subsidy programs. Brad Suster, who owns 86 Chicago-area units funded by HUD, said accepting subsidies could become risky. 'Would we have the same reliability that we know has traditionally come for countless years from the federal government?' Suster said. 'That's something landlords and owners want to know is there.' The diminishing housing stock available to low-income tenants has been a brewing problem for HUD. Between 2010 and 2020, some 50,000 housing providers left the voucher program, the agency has reported. Chaos and trade-offs, critics say It's up for debate whether lawmakers will buy into Trump's vision for HUD. This week the U.S. House appropriations committee is taking up HUD's 2026 budget, which so far makes no mention of time limits. HUD's Lovett noted the Senate's budget plans for the agency have not yet been released, and said the administration remains focused on future implementation of time limits. 'HUD will continue to engage with colleagues on the hill to ensure a seamless transition and enforcement of any new time limit,' Lovett said in a statement. Noëlle Porter, the director of government affairs at the National Housing Law Project, said Trump's fight for time limits is far from over, noting that legislative and rule changes could make them a reality. 'It is clearly a stated goal of the administration to impose work requirements and time limits on rental assistance, even though it would be wildly unpopular,' Porter said. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says there's no evidence time limits would save HUD money. 'This doesn't help families who already are working multiple jobs to become self-sufficient,' Clyburn said at a June hearing. 'Instead, it creates chaos, financial uncertainty and pushes these families into more severe trade-offs.' Time limits could imperil Aaliyah Barnes' longtime dream of graduating college and becoming a nurse, finding a job and a home she can afford. The 28-year-old single mom in Louisville, Kentucky, this year joined Family Scholar House, which provides counseling and support for people pursuing an education — and, to Barnes' relief, housing. Her apartment is paid for by a Section 8 voucher. In March, Barnes moved in and her 3-year-old son, Aarmoni, finally got his own room, where she set up a learning wall. Previously, she had struggled to afford housing on her wages at a call center — and living with her mom, two sisters and their kids in a cramped house was an environment ridden with arguments. The stable future she's building could disappear, though, if she's forced out in two years when her schooling is expected to take three years. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. 'I'd be so close, but so far away,' Barnes said. ___ Kramon reported from Atlanta. ___ Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
