§ 34-45-2. Legislative findings.
(a) The general assembly recognizes, finds and declares that:
(1) There exists a serious shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary rental units that are
available at rents affordable to low and moderate income families in Rhode Island.
Many families are denied access to decent housing because they are unable to meet
the higher cost of rent. Rising housing costs in Rhode Island force low and moderate
income families to live in unsafe, substandard units; commit such an unreasonably
high percentage of their income for rent that they deprive themselves of the other
nec
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§ 34-45-2. Legislative findings.
(a) The general assembly recognizes, finds and declares that:
(1) There exists a serious shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary rental units that are
available at rents affordable to low and moderate income families in Rhode Island.
Many families are denied access to decent housing because they are unable to meet
the higher cost of rent. Rising housing costs in Rhode Island force low and moderate
income families to live in unsafe, substandard units; commit such an unreasonably
high percentage of their income for rent that they deprive themselves of the other
necessities of life; or, worse, find themselves without housing. The inadequacy in
the supply of decent, safe and sanitary affordable rental housing endangers the public
health and jeopardizes the public safety, general welfare, and good of the entire
state.
(2) Approximately sixty-seven hundred (6,700) units of housing in sixty-five (65) developments
in Rhode Island which are presently affordable to low and moderate income families
are in danger of becoming unaffordable due to expiring use restrictions on the property.
Low income housing units insured or assisted under §§ 221(d)(3) and 236 of the National
Housing Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., could be lost as a result of the termination of low income affordability
restrictions; low income housing units produced with assistance under § 8 of the United
States Housing Act of 1937, 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(c), could be lost as a result of the expiration of the rental assistance contracts;
and rural low income housing financed under § 515 of the Housing Act of 1949, 12 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., are threatened with loss as a result of the prepayment of mortgages by owners.
The loss of this privately owned and federally assisted housing, which would occur
in a period of sharply rising rents on unassisted housing and extremely low production
of additional low rent housing, would inflict unacceptable harm on current tenants
and would precipitate a grave crisis in the supply of low income housing that was
neither anticipated nor intended when contracts for these units were entered into.
(b) There is, therefore, a compelling need to preserve the affordability of these rental
housing units to low and moderate income persons and families in Rhode Island in order
to prevent the displacement of these persons and families and to assure an adequate
supply of affordable housing for these persons and families in Rhode Island.