Ben Miksch, State and Federal Policy Associate

Stopping the House committee federal funding cuts for affordable housing

On Tuesday, June 25, the federal Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD), which is chaired by our very own Senator Patty Murray, will be “marking up” the THUD budget for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY 2014). This is the budget that includes everything at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - from rental assistance to McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Grants. “Marking up” is federal speak for when the committee meets to consider a bill or budget proposal. In this case, they will be making recommendations about the funding levels of each agency covered in the Senate’s THUD budget allocation.

The House Appropriations Committee passed their THUD budget on June 19, and it has brutal, brutal cuts. They are so flabbergastingly bad that I'm actually running out of adjectives to describe how bad they are! The background and the budget details are included below, but what's important right now is to make sure that Senator Murray hears from us to stand strong and protect HUD’s budget.

Image Tell her to stand strong! Now!

Click here to contact Senator Patty Murray's office right now! Senator Murray is a champion for our issues. But remember that she's under extraordinary pressure to concede to cuts. A lot of people think Congress should just get their act together and get a budget deal done. But, that sentiment translates into asking the Senate to accept these terrible cuts to social services, given the context of the House’s recommended deep and brutal cuts. We need Sen. Murray to continue to stand strong, and it’s critical that she knows that we have her back as she works to protect these extremely important programs.

Next steps on the federal budget

Have you contacted Senator Patty Murray's office yet? I hope you didn't just skip the take action part to read this, did you? If you did, scroll back up and click on the link, and then come back here and read the rest of this.

On Wednesday, June 19, the House Appropriations Committee voted out the THUD Appropriations Bill, detailing how they want to allocate funds for transportation, HUD, and other programs in their purview.

It wasn’t pretty.

The House's bill reduces overall FY 2014 funding for HUD programs by 35% compared to our current low, low levels for FY 2013. Remember, FY 2013's budget is just FY 2012's budget but 5.5% lower or so due to sequestration). Here are some of the details:

• HOME Investment Partnership Program at $700 million, a 30% cut from FY 2013
• Community Development Block Grants at $1.6 billion, a 50% cut from FY 2013
• Public Housing Capital Fund at $1.5 billion, a 20% cut FY 2013 funding levels
• Housing for Persons with Disabilities at $126 million, a 23% cut from FY 2013
• Section 4 Capacity Building at $20 million, a 43% cut from FY 2013
• Housing Counseling Assistance at $35 million, a 22% cut from FY 2013
• Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction at $50 million, a 58% cut from FY 2013

Some programs did receive increases over FY 2013 in the House’s THUD budget. Project-Based Rental Assistance (+$199 million), Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (+$651 million), and McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Grants (+$155 million) all received increases in the House Budget.

But even these "increases" would still function like cuts because even the increased amounts are drastically lower than what it would take to renew current contracts. The increase for Homeless Assistance Grants would allow our Continuum of Care programs to expand beyond the FY 2013 funding levels, which will be allocated later this year. But it will not be enough to return communities even to our FY 2012 funding levels (which HUD recently announced a little earlier this year). As mentioned above, the Senate will be working on their version of the THUD Appropriations Bill on Tuesday, June 25. Given how awful the House’s proposal was, Tuesday's markup for the Senate's THUD budget is extremely important.

The fight over programs within the THUD budget, as well as the size of the entire federal budget and how to respond to sequestration, will not be over soon. If we want to protect funding for the programs that keep our most vulnerable community members safely housed, we will need to fight for it. The coming Senate markup is a really great, well-timed moment to add your voice to the budget debate.

If you haven’t contacted Senator Murray’s office yet, what are you waiting for???

For more information on the budget details, here are two good FY 2014 budget charts, one from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and another from Enterprise Community Partners.

Also, a big thanks to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, and Enterprise Community Partners for compiling much of the information I used in this post.