FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 7, 2014
CONTACT: Bob Palmer, Policy Director, Housing Action Illinois, 312-282-3959 (cell) or bob@housingactionil.org
On May 7, the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations Subcommittee will likely approve their FY 2015 federal budget proposal for housing and transportation programs on a partisan vote.
For programs that create affordable housing and end homelessness, the proposed budget contains deep cuts both compared to President Obama’s budget request and current year funding. For example, funding for rental assistance and anti-homelessness programs is reduced by $580 million below this year’s level.
Some of the ways the House budget falls far short in terms of maintaining existing resources, include:
- Providing too little money to renew all of the Housing Choice Vouchers that low-income families currently in use unless local housing agencies freeze the dollar value of vouchers despite rising rents in many markets, including much of the Chicago metropolitan area. At the end of 2013, it’s estimated that there were 78,509 vouchers in use in Illinois. Of the households with a voucher, 87% include a child, an elderly person and/or a person with a disability.
- Worsening the historic underfunding of public housing, cutting funding by $290 million below the inflation-adjusted 2014 level, not giving public housing authorities enough money to operate the housing and increasing the backlog of needed repairs and improvements. In Illinois, there were 51,146 existing public housing units at the end of 2012. Almost half, 48%, of public housing residents are elderly, 25% are families with children and 17% are people with disabilities.
- Flat funding homeless assistance grants at $2.1 billion, which will not provide enough funding to renew all existing transitional and permanent supportive housing projects, nor provide funding for any new housing units. In FY 12, Illinois received $103 million in funding to support 425 housing projects, as well as grants for homeless prevention and rapid rehousing.
- Reducing funding for new affordable housing by cutting the HOME block grant, which helps rehabilitate or construct rental properties and assist low-income homeowners, by $300 million below the 2014 level. In 2012 and 2013, 1,151 affordable rental and homeownership units were funded with HOME in Illinois.
- Cutting funding for the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program (NFMC) from from $67.5 million to $50 million, providing fewer resources for housing counseling agencies to work with homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure. Between 2009 and 2013, NFMC allowed 111,075 Illinois homeowners to get counseling, increasing their relative odds of curing their foreclosure with a loan modification by 97% according to an Urban Institute study.
Current year funding is wholly inadequate to address the housing needs of people with the lowest incomes in Illinois who continue to struggle through the slow economic recovery, and if these proposed cuts are implemented it will just make matters worse. For example, on average renters in Illinois need to earn $17.34 per hour in order to afford a basic apartment. The Housing Wage in the Chicago metropolitan area is $18.83.
To increase resources for affordable housing, Housing Action Illinois has been working with groups across the country to advocate for a $320 million increase above President Obama’s budget request to restore 40,000 Housing Choice Vouchers lost due to sequestration in FY 2013. In Illinois, at the end of 2013 1,870 fewer households were using Housing Choice Vouchers than at the end of the previous year due to sequestration. The total number of vouchers in use at the end of 2012 was 79,684.
“Every Housing Choice Voucher lost means one more family with a severe housing cost burden and at-risk of homelessness,” said Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois.
Illinois, 267,641 poor renter households are severely cost burdens as the pay more than half their monthly income for housing costs.
The THUD budget bill is expected to be approved without any amendments on May 7, at which point it will go to the full Appropriations Committee later in May.
The Senate still has not released their FY15 budget proposal for housing programs, As both Illinois Senators, Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk, serve on the THUD Appropriations Subcommittee in the Senate, Housing Action Illinois will continue to work with national and local partners to appeal to their office to maximize funding for housing programs in next year’s budget.
“To address out budget problems, we can’t look just to cutting programs that serve the basic human needs of people with the lowest incomes. We also need to look to revenue increases and reducing tax breaks to individuals and corporations that won’t suffer at all by paying higher taxes,” said Palmer.
The House of Representatives has different priorities. On April 29, the House Ways and Means Committee passed legislation to make six corporate tax cuts—with a $301 billion price tag over 2015-2024—permanent, largely along party lines. The benefits of these tax cuts benefits ultimately accrue largely to higher-income households.
More information on the House HUD budget proposal: and .
More information on rental housing affordability: https://housingactionil.org/2014/03/24/oor2014/.