While homeowners either curse or celebrate the rising values of their properties, many low-income families are left in a familiar place: on the outside looking in. The rapidly rising housing prices sweeping the Inland Northwest and much of the country are making a tough issue even tougher. How do low-income people attain a stable place to live when rental and ownership costs easily outstrip income gains? Exacerbating this problem is the decline in funding for the federal government’s most successful low-income housing program.

Under the Section 8 program at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, households are required to spend 30 percent of their adjusted gross income on rent, with the feds picking up the difference with vouchers. Problem is, both ends of the equation require more money when rents are raised, and the feds were already backing off on their commitment. Washington state lost $9 million this year. Idaho lost a considerable amount, too.

Demand for the program has long outstripped the voucher supply, but it’s gotten so bad that the Spokane Housing Authority has stopped adding names to its list. Those on the list can expect a four-year wait before receiving help. Because the Inland Northwest is home to a huge population of low-income families, Section 8 is a vital program for the entire region. The cut in federal funds only shifts the problem to state and local entities, and their budgets are already being squeezed. Ignoring the problem doesn’t work either, because of the societal costs of a large transient population.

Social policy experts have long noted that before people can move up society’s ladder, they must first have the stable footing that reliable housing provides. And the problem also reaches down to the children, because they are shuttled from school to school, which makes it difficult for them to succeed. There is a glimmer of short-term hope in a congressional bill that is designed to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-chartered lenders beset with shoddy managerial and accounting practices. A provision of that bill would earmark 5 percent of those lenders’ profits to the construction and repair of low-income housing. Such a program would help stem the damage done when the housing market turns red hot, rents are raised and landlords become more reluctant to participate in the Section 8 program.

So far, that provision of the bill has gained broad bipartisan support in Congress, but some politicians would rather those lenders lower mortgage costs across the board. The greater need is to secure some sort of housing for those who have none, rather than lowering costs for those who want to buy a house.

If this provision isn’t part of the low-income housing solution, opposing politicians should come up with something that is. Merely kicking this problem down the road only makes it worse for everybody.