Thanks to everyone who responded to our action alert yesterday asking people to contact our Senators requesting they oppose the Senate version of next year’s HUD budget because of deep cuts to HOME and other programs. Unfortunately, the bill did pass out of committee today. We are pleased that Senator Dick Durbin did oppose the bill. Senator Mark Kirk voted in favor. The overall vote was 20-10, with 4 Democrats joining all 16 Republicans to support the bill.
An amendment by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) that would have increased funding for HOME, public housing capital, CDBG and other programs, and would have provided for 5,000 housing vouchers for survivors of domestic violence, failed on party line vote of 14 to 16. An amendment by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) to increase HOME funding also failed on a party line vote of 14 to 16.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) reports that during the committee meeting Senators from both side of the aisle talked about the importance of ending the sequester spending caps. Working with groups around the country, this will be the focus of our advocacy during the coming months in order to avoid budget cuts and fund programs at a higher level.
It is not expected the HUD budget bill will be voted on by full Senate any time soon, as negotiations over the larger budget issues continue.
NLIHC has updated their HUD budget chart based on the Senate vote, which is available by clicking here.
Bill Also Includes Moving to Work (MTW) Expansion
The budget bill also includes a massive expansion of the number of public housing agencies (PHAs) participating in HUD’s Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration, from the current limit of 39 PHAs to 339 PHAs. Disappointingly, the bill’s expansion includes no programmatic reforms to the MTW program, which allows participating PHAs to impose rent structures on residents that have no relation to tenant income, choose not to assist any new extremely low income households, implement time limits and work requirements, and to shift funds between the public housing and voucher programs without having to serve the same number of households. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Senate proposal would bring up to 1,150,000 additional units of public housing and Housing Choice Vouchers into the demonstration, roughly a three-fold expansion.
Housing Action Illinois has supported efforts to revise the MTW program that would provide for expansion but require significant resident protections and rigorous evaluation. We will continue to work with our partners around the country on this.
Thanks again for everyone who reached out to Senator Kirk and Senator Durbin.