View: Large gated South Florida homes rented by Section 8 tenants - Sun...

September 13, 2012|By Megan O'Matz, Sun Sentinel

Some of the owners are teetering on foreclosure and gambling they can earn enough money from the federal housing vouchers to stave off the banks. Others bought the properties cheap in foreclosure auctions and want the guaranteed rental income.

Housing advocates and the government view the turnabout as a win-win for homeowners and the poor, who have access to safer communities and better schools.

But some neighbors are aghast.

After a single mother and her nine children rented a house in the exclusive Isles neighborhood of Coral Springs, the homeowners association adopted an amendment to its governing documents stating: "No Section 8 or government leasing assistance is permitted."

The association is threatening eviction.

Federal law does not expressly outlaw such bans. But the prohibition can't be used as a pretext for other illegal acts, such as denying housing to people because of their race, gender, national origin, disability or number of children.

The owner of the Coral Springs house, Henri-Claude Marcellus, has hired a lawyer to challenge the restriction, claiming his mostly white neighbors are discriminating against him because he is Haitian and his tenants are African-American.

A retired software engineer, real estate investor and radio show host, Marcellus said he confronted the association's officers, demanding to know: "What do you have against blacks?"

"I hit a very sensitive nerve," he said in a recent interview.

The association's lawyer and directors did not respond to requests for comment.

The Sun Sentinel examined federal housing subsidy data from housing authorities in Broward and Palm Beach counties and found 230 homes commanding rents of $2,000 or more, up to $3,375 a month, from Section 8 families. Typically, tenants pay about one-third of their income toward the rent and the government pays the rest.

Most of the homes were basic, modest-looking residences in unassuming neighborhoods. But about a dozen were far grander, upscale houses concentrated in Broward County's western suburbs, including Coral Springs, Miramar and Cooper City, where one six-bedroom rental is worth $500,000.

In Palm Beach County, housing advocates say the Section 8 inventory has expanded in recent years to include not luxury, but lovelier homes, in prosperous neighborhoods.

"We've seen some really amazing houses," said Judith Aigen, executive director of the Boca Raton Housing Authority, one of more than a dozen South Florida agencies that administer the federal program for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Some see irony in that sprawling homes, once pushed to dizzying values by the machinations of unscrupulous Wall Street financiers, now are occupied by the very poor.

"Poetic justice," said Dorothy Ellington, president of the Delray Beach Housing Authority.

GoSection8.com

One recent online ad for Section 8 properties pitched a large home in Greenacres in central Palm Beach County for $2,000 a month rent: "Excellent 5 bed 3 bath with pool in a gated community."

The house, on Wishing Star Lane, had been foreclosed on by the homeowners' association for unpaid fees and purchased at auction this summer.

Abandoned, it had fallen into disrepair and is being renovated by the new owners to include amenities such as central air and a dishwasher, but not high-end items such as granite countertops and sunken tubs.

"We cannot afford to do all that," said Vibha Thacker, who is marketing the property for the owner. "But we are making it nice. We are not making it luxury."

Homes cannot be rented with government vouchers unless they are inspected and determined to be safe and in good repair by local housing authorities, which rely on standards set by HUD.

Landlords then advertise that the property is "Section 8 approved." Many listings are found on the Internet at http://www.GoSection8.com or at housing authority web sites.

In Miramar's gated Windsor Palms neighborhood, homeowner Melbourne Maxwell receives $2,521 a month rent split almost evenly between taxpayer and tenant for his five-bedroom home, which narrowly escaped foreclosure. Maxwell relies on the steady government rental income to hold onto the house.

"It is huge," Maxwell said. The second-floor bedroom is so big, "You could play football up there."

Generally, the larger the family and the more bedrooms in a house, the larger the payment voucher. Federal rules require the homes have at least one bedroom for every two people in the household. (Living rooms and even garages with windows can qualify as bedrooms in some cases.)