Students misuse low-income housing

Lee Rood of The Des Moines Register found scores of students are paying little or nothing to live in low-income projects in college towns in every region. Loopholes enable students — including scholarship athletes who already receive housing money — easily qualify for apartments in the Section 8 program. "Last year, during a probe into students' use of Section 8 at Pheasant Ridge Apartments in Iowa City, the newspaper also located students who used the housing assistance in Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. " Under the housing department's current rules, student financial aid does not count as income which gives virtually any full-time student, not claimed as a dependent on a parent's tax return, a good shot at qualifying. If the student does not work, taxpayers pay all of the rent.