KUAR’s Jacob Kauffman has an excellent audio report this morning on U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s visit to Little Rock yesterday. The HUD secretary stopped by Parris Towers, a public housing high rise for seniors on Broadway, as well as Our House, the shelter for working homeless families on Roosevelt Road.

At each site, Carson, whose visit was arranged by Congressman French Hill, was met with protesters who object to the secretary’s recently announced proposals to increase rent for many public housing residents and allow local housing authorities to more easily impose work requirements.

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Carson’s explanation for the protests was that “people generally do not like change.” Imposing higher rents and work requirements, he said, were a part of “trying to move from a system where people have been, in a very paternalistic way, told ‘You’re a victim,’ and ‘You can’t do anything,’ and ‘There, there, you poor little thing,’ to a system where we empower people.”

Kauffman interviewed one Parris Towers resident who gave a more straightforward reason for opposing Carson’s proposals:

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No, I don’t like that at all, because … I’m on a fixed income, and a lot of people here are on a fixed income, and we can’t afford the rent to go up.

Hill and Carson claimed the proposed rent hikes wouldn’t affect the elderly in Parris Towers. Others dispute that.

The progressive-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities wrote recently that while elderly HUD beneficiaries would “see their rents rise more slowly than other households” hit by Carson’s proposed changes, they would still end up paying more. In addition to raising rents directly, the secretary also wants to eliminate income deductions for certain households with high out-of-pocket expenses. “About half of these deductions go to elderly and disabled households, nearly all of which would see rent increases from the change,” wrote Will Fischer, a policy analyst at the CBPP.

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The CBPP says about 45,400 Arkansan households would be affected by Carson’s proposal.