Federal Homeless Policy Update
“Broken Beyond Repair?”
According to HUD Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing, Michael Liu, the Section 8 program is “broken beyond repair” as it “consumes” more than 50 percent of the HUD budget. Yet considering HUD’s very mission and the fact that Section 8 forms the largest source of federal assistance for low-income families, should we be surprised that it represents the lion’s share of the HUD budget?
We might ask Secretary Liu how the Administration would prefer to see the HUD budget divided? Perhaps the Administration aims to see a greater percentage devoted to homeownership activity? Perhaps there’s a desire to see federal housing assistance serve higher-income populations? Or perhaps a smaller Section 8 program furthers a goal of a smaller overall HUD budget? Curious.
Given the fact that the housing voucher system is a market-based program, isn’t it the extreme lack of affordable housing within the private sector that’s the real source of disrepair? More than 14 million individuals spend over half their income on housing, 5 million households live in “worst case” rental housing situations, 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year, and the poorest renters face a lack of over 2 million affordable units. Cutting the budget, dumping the administration of the program to states, and lobbying against new housing production initiatives (which would help put unused vouchers to use), is certainly an unusual way to repair a “broken” program. But then again, given the fact that Secretary Liu has characterized Section 8 as “beyond repair,” perhaps the real design is kill off the program altogether.
Street Sheet readers will recall that last month the House Appropriations Committee approved the 2005 HUD funding bill—which, though it significantly scaled back President Bush’s proposed cuts to Section 8, pays for this by slashing other critical housing programs, rather than by providing new sources of funding. Cuts include the Public Housing Operating Fund (which lost $154 million), homeless assistance (nearly $54 million), housing for the elderly (more than $32 million), housing for persons with AIDS ($13 million), and housing for persons with disabilities ($11 million). The Senate will consider the bill in September when Congress returns from the summer recess. Calls and letters are needed to tell Senators and Representatives to fund Section 8 and all housing programs fully, and reject any attempts to reduce HUD funding.
On the same day the House was busy doing its part to increase homelessness in America, cosponsors of National Affordable Housing Trust Fund legislation filed a motion for a discharge petition in an attempt to move the bill, H.R. 1102, to the floor of the House for debate and an up-or-down vote. Trust Fund legislation now boasts an impressive 214 cosponsors and more than 5,500 national, state, and local endorsements, yet the leadership of the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction, has refused to move forward. The petition requires the signatures of a majority of Members (218) to “discharge” the committee of its responsibility and allow the legislation to move directly to the House floor for a vote. So the upshot is that as this is being written, even in the best case, members of Congress would not be able to sign the Trust Fund bill into action until early this month [September], when they return from their summer recess.
Questions Raised About the Samaritan InitiativeOn July 13, the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Samaritan Initiative Act. The legislation, introduced by Congressman Rick Renzi (R-1st/AZ), helps form the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s “chronic” homeless initiative by combining $70 million in funds from HUD, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Veteran Affairs (VA) to provide supportive housing and services for those individuals who meet the definition of “chronically homeless.”
The vast majority of panelists and Representatives who attended the hearing supported expanding the definition of homelessness under the proposed legislation. Jim Mauck, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Denver, asserted that “the Samaritan initiative relies on a definition of a ‘chronically’ homeless person that categorically rejects families with children. This critical exclusion, combined with policies being advanced by HUD, will hinder the efforts of homeless service providers to assist many homeless families with children.”
In its written testimony, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services, and Volunteers of America further recommended the adoption of the Department of Education definition of homelessness for subsequent legislation to “capture the reality experienced by many homeless families.”
Despite strong support among Members for an expanded definition of homelessness in the Samaritan Act, Bush Administration witness, Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) Director Philip Mangano, resisted the idea, saying, “I think other initiatives are being fostered to address concerns of other profiles of homeless people.” However, Mangano failed to elaborate on the nature or details of those other initiatives, and throughout the hearing, Members and panelists continued to cite the need for substantial increases in funding of existing housing and homelessness programs, and for Congressional support of legislation such as the Bringing America Home Act (H.R. 2897, with 56 cosponsors) and the National Housing Trust Fund, initiatives that further a comprehensive national anti-homelessness agenda.
The strongest concern raised at the hearing, however, was the Administration’s proposed cuts to the Sec. 8 program. Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-At Large/Vermont) summarized the policy contradictions in the following, admirably succinct, manner: “Mr. Chairman, let us not delude ourselves: $70 million within the context of the problem of homelessness and affordable housing in this country is not a real solution to the affordable housing crisis that our country is experiencing. And I might add at the same time that the Administration is supporting a new $70 million program to combat homelessness, it is also lobbying Congress for a $1.6 billion cut in the nation’s most important affordable housing program in this country, the Section 8 rental assistance program.”
Brad