The government shutdown closed the US Department of Agriculture when it began on Oct. 1, temporarily ending payment processing for the USDA’s 515 Rural Housing Programs. As part of the program, owners of low-income apartment buildings in rural areas receive subsidies for residents who cannot pay the entire portion of their lease. Hamilton Properties, based in Springfield, MO, has buildings across the Midwest and manages multiple low-income apartment complexes in the Northwest Missouri region, including Tarkio, Chillicothe, and Trenton.
According to Christina Ott, who works in the main office at Hamilton, many of their tenants use the USDA program. The agency “pays their rent, or a portion of it,” she explained. “When a tenant can’t pay more than 30% of their income to rent, the USDA pays the rest.”
The shutdown has stopped those payments, Ott said. “It’s impacting us directly.”
She added the company relies on the payments to pay the bills at their properties, "and the bills are high and keep getting higher with insurance, inflation, taxes and everything else that the buildings need."
Many residents of Hamilton’s low-income, rural properties are earning only 30-60% of their region’s median income. "These are your super low-income residents," Ott said, and she noted the buildings serve a critical purpose. "These are your teachers, your single mothers."
Buildings in Hamilton's portfolio include the Tarkio Family Apartments in Tarkio, the Shawnee Place Apartments in Chillicothe, and the Trenton Heights and Adams Park Apartments in Trenton.
The company is currently working to rehabilitate the Trenton Heights Apartments, pending a grant application it filed with the Missouri Housing Development Commission this fall.
Ott said their application was one of almost ninety in the state, and she described the process as "highly competitive." Payments to funded projects will come from the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, but Ott does not anticipate the shutdown affecting the grant process, as grantees will not be announced by the MHDC until December.
At that point, the federal government will disburse funds for qualifying projects. Ott added, "I would think that the government will reopen by next year."
It remains unclear how long the current shutdown will last; it stems from a stand-off in congress over renewing healthcare subsidies as part of the Affordable Care Act and has shuttered government programs since the beginning of the month. Thousands of government workers in Missouri are going without pay; USDA farm programs have been shuttered as well.
