Housing and the "shutdown"

For your information (From the Texas Homeless Network’s Newsletter):

Effects of Shutdown on HUD

On the morning of October 1, federal employees were required to show up for work to implement steps to close down federal activities. HUD’s shutdown contingency plan left fewer than 400 employees “excepted” from the shutdown to ensure that basic activities occur. The criteria for an activity to be excepted is “where the failure to address issues result in a threat to safety of life and protection of property.” Excepted activities include most functions of homeless assistance programs, the distribution of HUD block grants, and FHA insurance programs.

HUD’s largest rental assistance programs (tenant-based rental assistance, public housing, and project-based rental assistance) appear to have previously-obligated funding or advance appropriations funding to continue normal operations through October and, for the project-based program, “into November,” according to an October 2 update of HUD’s Contingency Plan. HUD also says in the October 2 update that it will continue to process project-based contract renewals during the shutdown to the extent there is available funding into November.

An October 4 memo from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that since funding for the public housing and housing choice voucher programs are made for calendar years, Congress has already appropriated these resources. It is now a matter of whether or not HUD will have sufficient staff due to the shutdown to administer these funds. The administration of funds may fall under HUD’s plan to deploy staff excepted from the shutdown to prevent imminent threats to the safety of human life or the protection of property.

For tenant-based rental assistance, HUD has disbursed October housing assistance payments and administrative fees, but there are no payments beyond October scheduled at this time. HUD is not processing requests for tenant protection vouchers for public housing or multifamily actions.

HUD’s contingency plan predicts that most of the country’s 3,300 public housing agencies (PHAs) have the necessary funds to continue providing public housing assistance for the remainder of the month. Funding beyond October will depend in part upon the resources of individual PHAs.

Homeless Assistance activities that “protect against imminent threats to the safety of human life” are continuing, including housing for people with AIDS and supportive housing for veterans.

HUD will disburse HOME Investment Partnerships program, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and other block grants for which funds have already been appropriated.

View HUD’s contingency plan for additional details on agency functions that will continue or have already halted at: http://www.hud.gov

View the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ October 4 Memo on the shutdown’s impact on housing programs at: http://bit.ly/176QLiz

  

Paula Maroney

Director - Continuum of Care

Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA)

2816 Swiss Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204

Guests from D. C.

Big day today at Central Dallas Ministries.

Cabinet Secretary Steve Preston (above left), U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Director Jedd Medefind (below right), the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will tour our "Destination Home" permanent supportive housing site in North Dallas. Plans include visits to our tenants' homes and a round table conversation with tenants and program facilitators.

Mr. Preston and Mr. Medefind were directed to our project by the regional HUD office in Ft. Worth as an example of a "housing first" effort that was working well.

Needless to say, we are honored and thrilled by the visit. I am eager for these Bush Administration leaders to see and evaluate what we are up to among a number of our formerly homeless neighbors.

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Funding and homelessness

Funding to adequately support the work of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its essential programs that help communities like Dallas and organizations like Central Dallas Ministries (CDM) serve and house the homeless is in danger of being written out of next year's appropriations legislation.

Congress and the President are at odds with each other about the level of funding for any number of federal agencies. The Congressional proposal includes crucial increases to housing and homeless assistance programs. The President intends to veto the overall spending bill.

Congressional leaders intend to offer an omnibus funding bill that split the difference between what the House and Senate have agreed on and what the President has requested. That may sound reasonable, but for HUD programs such action would be devastating.

Any cuts would mean the actual loss of housing assistance for some people currently being served who are the poorest of the poor in the United States. Cities like Dallas, Texas rely on the Community Development Block Grant program (CDBG), low-income housing choice vouchers and Homeless Assistance Grants to develop and maintain quality housing for our low-income neighbors. These funds are good for the poor and they are good for real estate developers who serve the market at the lower end of our economic scale in Dallas.

CDM has benefited from each of these funds in the past in our efforts to house people.

The President's plan would deprive tens of thousands of low-income families of decent housing. At the same time, landlords would lose as well.

The U. S. House and Senate conference agreement currently includes $1.586 billion for McKinney Homeless Assistance Grants, a $144 million increase over fiscal year 2007, and a $25 million set-aside for communities to implement rapid rehousing programs which move families into permanent housing linked to supportive services. Again, both funds relate directly to the housing develop plans we are pursuing today here in Dallas.

In fact, this modest increase for McKinney funding would be sufficient to continue existing homeless activities and fund fewer than 8,000 new units of permanent supportive housing--well below the pace of new units funded between 2001 and 2004. City leaders in Dallas estimate that we need a minimum of 1,000 new units here alone.

Currently, due to the failure of the Congress to pass a new budget, federal programs are operating under a continuing resolution that funds programs under fiscal year 2007 levels. It is expected that Congress will pass an omnibus spending bill before the continuing resolution expires on December 14, this coming Friday.

Please contact your Senators and your Representative in the U. S. House immediately. Ask them to support full funding for the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in FY2008, as originally proposed by the Congress. Urge them to not support any compromise that would cut into HUD funding for the extremely poor in our nation.

Personal and practical note: Yesterday, I met over lunch with two leaders here in Dallas to collaborate on how to produce more high-quality, permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless with special attention to the disabled and mentally ill. Our plans cannot be completed without public funding like that provided for in the original HUD budget plan.

Get involved. Contact your U. S. legislators today. Your active involvement will change lives.


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