By this fall, according to activists, the city could lose over 10 percent of the remaining 90,000 affordable housing units that exist under the federal Section 8 program if Congress doesn't plug a $2.4 billion budget shortfall at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A pair of U.S. representatives, Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn and Queens and Jerrold Nadler of Brooklyn and Manhattan, are holding a rally tonight to pressure Congress to approve supplemental funding so HUD can continue to guarantee owners of Section 8 buildings rents to match the market. Without such gurantees, there's a risk of apartments leaving Section 8 for the increasingly expensive open market.

“If owners can’t rely on the subsidy then they will opt out of the Section 8 program,” Patrick Coleman of the group Tenants and Neighbors, one of the rally’s organizers, said. The rally's at 6:30 at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square South.  read more »