Eight years after Yvette Capers applied for federal rental aid, she's still waiting for help to move from the cramped house she shares with three children, a sister, a brother and elderly parents.
"I think that the space would give us a real head start on things," Capers, 31, of Philadelphia, said of herself and her kids, ages 11 and 7.But a report released Thursday provides her with little reason to keep hoping.
Millions of low-income people like Capers lived in inadequate conditions or paid too much for rent in 1993 while their already lengthy waits for rental assistance or public housing continued, the report showed.
And Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said the situation is likely to worsen because waiting lists have grown, Congress isn't providing more money for rental aid and affordable housing supplies are shrinking.
"This report clearly documents that our housing safety net is stretched to the limit," he said in remarks prepared for a news conference.
The study showed that a record 5.3 million low-income households either spent more than half of their income on rent or lived in substandard housing conditions in 1993, the last year for which figures are available.
The number increased by 400,000 since 1991.
Federal housing standards say individuals should spend no more than 30 percent of their income on rent or a mortgage.
Congress is considering legislation to reduce HUD funding and overhaul federal housing programs. But Cisneros said the report makes the case for expanding all federal housing programs.
"We already have an estimated 600,000 homeless people on the streets on any given night," Cisneros said. "These people cited in this report are at risk of joining them."
Capers is tired of waiting for the three-bedroom place the Philadelphia Housing Authority says she qualifies for. She recently started working with mentally retarded teens and is considering finding a place on her own.
"They keep sending me letters saying that I'm still on the waiting list," said Capers, who has lived nearly all of her life in the cramped, three-bedroom house she now shares with the rest of her family.
"I just need that fresh start to do what I have to do with me and my children because that's all I have," she said in an interview.
The report also documents increases in the need for housing among Hispanics and the elderly and in the Western part of the country.
Almost one-fourth of the 5.3 million households cited in the report - or 1.2 million - were headed by an elderly person, Cisneros said.
More than three-quarters of the households have incomes that are 30 percent below the median income for the particular region they live in.
Housing needs more than doubled among Hispanics between 1978 and 1993, who now account for more than 18 percent of the identified households.
Similarly, 26 percent of so-called "worst-case needs" live in the West, but only 17 percent of eligible housing units are located there, the report showed.