Affordable Housing (2004)

On Yom Kippur, we read in Isaiah: “…and thou shalt bring the poor that are cast out to thy house.” As Jews, we must be sensitive to the problem of homelessness. Central to the issue is the disparity in earnings between the rich and the poor, where the working poor are unable to match their wages to income needed for a substantial life. The fact that wages are too low and rents too high creates class inequality.

Women’s League for Conservative Judaism affirms that safe, reliable, and affordable housing is basic to survival, and therefore, should be a right granted to all Americans.

Women’s League for Conservative Judaism advocates:

1. Expanding allocations by the federal government to fund Section 8 and Section 202 programs.
2. Supporting the establishment of a National Housing Trust program to build, rehabilitate, and preserve 1.5 million units of rental housing, for the lowest income families, over the next ten years.
3. Educating the Jewish community to support the development of affordable housing and to work to prevent homelessness.
4. Lobbying our government to legislate a “living wage” for all Americans. A low wage work force is neither free nor democratic.

*Section 8: To address the goal of equitable housing for all Americans, Section 202 states: additional financial resources and technical skills must be made available in local communities if the nation is to mobilize the capacity of the private sector, including non-profit community housing development organizations, to provide a more adequate supply of decent, safe, and sanitary housing that is affordable to very low-income, low-income, and moderate-income families, to meet the need for large family units and other additional units that are available to very low-income families receiving rental assistance payments from Federal, State and local governments.