Please Call Your Representative’s Capitol Office
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) plans to finalize and vote on the fiscal year 2014 (FY14) federal housing budget tomorrow morning, Wednesday, June 19. We’re concerned about the entirety of the HUD budget, but particularly ask people to reach out to their House members about the importance of funding the following programs:
- Fund McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Grants at President Obama’s proposed level of $2.38 billion—a 19% increase over the final, sequestered level in FY13.
In FY13, McKinney-Vento was one of only two HUD accounts that received any increased funding, once the across-the-board cuts of “sequestration” were taken into account. Due to accounting issues related to expiring multi-year grants, however, the increase was insufficient to fund all existing programs at their FY12 level. Without an increase in funding, all existing housing will not be funded and there will be many fewer dollars for rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention. The result will be more people homeless instead of housed.
- Fund the HUD Housing Counseling Assistance program at the President’s requested level of $55 million and the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) program at the requested level of $77 million.
The foreclosure crisis is not over. During the first quarter of 2013, there were nearly 1.5 million properties in the U.S. either actively in the foreclosure process or bank-owned, a 9% increase over the first quarter of 2012. Furthermore, the Homeowner’s HOPE Hotline reports that as many as 50% of the homeowners seeking counseling are current on their mortgages but experiencing financial distress—these homeowners are in real danger of defaulting and losing their homes.
- Fund the HOME Investment Partnerships Program at $1.6 billion, the FY11 funding level.
HOME provides housing in rural, suburban, and urban communities. It is used for both rental and homeownership activity, including new construction, rehabilitation, down payment assistance and tenant-based rental assistance. Since 1990, HOME has helped to create more than one million housing units and provided tenant-based rental assistance to 250,000 families. HOME is currently funded at $1 billion, a 38% decrease from its FY11 funding level and its lowest appropriation since FY93. Sequestration further reduced HOME’s FY13 funding level to $950 million.
What You Can Do: Please call the office of your House member RIGHT AWAY! Ask to be connected to the person who handles housing budget issues and tell them about the program that is most important to you. You can call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 to be connected to their office.
If your member is a Republican, ask them to contact the office of Representative Tom Latham, Iowa, Chairman of the THUD Subcommittee. If your House member is a Democrat, ask them to contact the office of Representative Ed Pastor, Arizona, Ranking Member of the THUD Subcommittee. (Representative Mike Quigley is an Illinois member of the THUD Subcommittee, so calls to his office are especially helpful, too!)
Let us know if you need assistance making this call and what response you get when you call!