Ben Carson says his latest proposal to raise rents would mean a path toward self-sufficiency for millions of low-income households across the United States, by pushing more people to find work. For Ebony Morris and her four small children, it could mean homelessness, as experts warn of crippling costs that many families will be unable to bear.

Morris lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where most households receiving federal housing assistance would see their rent go up an average 26%, according to new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities thinktank. But Morris’s increase would be nearly double that.

Overall, the analysis shows that in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, low-income tenants, many of whom have jobs, would have to pay roughly 20% more each year for rent under the plan. That rent increase is about six times greater than the growth in average hourly earnings, putting the poorest workers at an increased risk of homelessness because wages simply haven’t kept pace with housing expenses.

“I saw public housing as an option to get on my feet, to pay 30% of my income and get myself out of debt and eventually become a homeowner,” said Morris, whose monthly rent would jump from $403 to $600. “But this would put us in a homeless state.”

Roughly 4m low-income US households receiving assistance from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) would be affected by the proposal. Hud estimates that about 2m would be affected immediately, while the other 2m would see rent increases phased in after six years.

The proposal, which needs congressional approval, is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to scale back the social safety net, in the belief that charging more for rent will prompt those receiving federal assistance to enter the workforce or make effort to earn more income. “It’s our attempt to give poor people a way out of poverty,” the housing secretary said in a recent interview with Fox News.

The analysis shows that families would be disproportionately affected. Of the 8.3 million people affected by the proposal, more than three million are children. That stands in stark contrast to Carson’s focus on children and education, which is woven into his memoirs and a stated mission of his namesake reading rooms tucked into elementary schools across the country. It also runs contrary to research, housing experts say.

“There’s no evidence that raising rents causes people to work more,” said Will Fischer, a senior policy analyst at the policy center, which advocates for the poor. “For most of these rent increases, I don’t think there’s even a plausible theory for why they would encourage work.”

Morris moved to Charleston three years ago from Summerville, South Carolina, to study. She has since earned her associate’s degree in health science. She is a full-time pediatric assistant, sometimes working 50 hours a week just to get by. Her children, aged three, four, seven and 10, would be hit hardest by the rent increase, she said.

“Food, electricity bills, school uniforms,” she said. “Internet for homework assignments and report cards. All of their reading modules at school require the internet, without it they’ll be behind their classmates. The kids are in extracurriculars, those would be scrapped. I would struggle just to pay my bills. It would be very, very, very hard.”

The impact of the rent proposal would affect low-income residents and families everywhere.

Rent for the poorest tenants in Baltimore, where Carson made history as a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins hospital and told of overcoming poverty in his own background, could go up by 19%, or $800 a year on average. In Detroit, where Carson’s mother, a single parent, raised him by working two jobs, low-income families could see their rents increase by $710, or 21%. Households in Washington DC, one of the richest regions in the country, would see the largest increases for its poorest residents: $980 per year on average, a 20% jump.



