Stay up to date on the latest news and legislative alerts in mental health law: Email   ZIP For RSS readers

Ask Senators to Fund Housing Programs Adequately

(July 6, 2005) On June 15th, members of the House of Representatives responded to your calls and emails to restore funding and programs for low-income housing that the Administration wanted eliminated (see our June 14 Action Alert). The programs remain at risk, however, when the Senate considers the Administration’s proposed housing budget on July 12-14. Your further efforts will be critical.

The House reported out the appropriations bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with amendments that restored:

• funding for the HOPE VI program.

HOPE VI enables public housing agencies to replace blighted public housing with new, livable public housing, with partial tenant ownership. For people with physical or mental disabilities, public housing is often the only accessible and affordable housing available. The Administration sought to eliminate this program by “zero-budgeting” it. Fifty-nine Republicans voted to restore the HOPE VI funding

• $100 million to the Section 8 rental voucher program.

For decades the Section 8 Program has enabled people with disabilities to find housing that is affordable, can be made accessible, and is located in neighborhoods of the tenant’s choice. The restoration of $100 million will prevent evictions of 15,000 families, but it is not enough to protect all families who rely on this subsidy and it isn’t enough to produce new vouchers. The program reaches fewer than 10% of the families, with and without disabilities, whose poverty qualifies them for help paying the rent.

• full funding for the Section 811 program, both for project-based assistance and capital advances for new housing.

The project-based housing has been controversial because it permits construction of housing exclusively for renters with disabilities, although distinctions among types of disabilities are prohibited. Nonetheless, it has become one of the few reliable sources of accessible, affordable housing for families and individuals with mental or physical disabilities. Still, even at full funding this program serves only a very small percentage of those who are eligible for the housing that it produces.

• $10 million to the Housing for People with AIDS program.

This brings the program back to its 2003 level.

• the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, increasing it by $7 million.

For decades, cities across the country have relied on CDBG funds to rebuild neighborhoods, help homeowners and renters make access modifications to their homes, subsidize very-low-income renters, and a host of other actions geared to the housing needs of low-income people. The Administration seeks to move the CDBG program to the Commerce Department, where it would be for business development rather than for safe and affordable housing and neighborhoods.

• $7.7 million to HUD’s fair housing programs.

The Administration had reduced funding for these programs despite a homeownership gap between white and black families worse now than in 1940.

On July 12 and 14, the Senate Appropriations Committee will address the Administration’s proposed HUD budget. In spite of the House rejection of some White House’s requests, affordable and accessible housing are still at great risk —both budgetary and political.

Programs that Congress long ago created specifically for renters with disabilities, the elderly and the homeless face reduced funding, even elimination.

• The White House continues to target civil rights and tenant rights protections through both legislation and budget reductions.
• The Administration has chosen to redirect scarce resources away from the lowest-income families to those with middle incomes, and has continuously rejected the “New Deal” approach to providing for low-income families. As HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson stated in a speech in Texas, “Poverty is just a state of mind.”

Separate and Unequal: The Struggle of Tenants With Mental Illness to Maintain Housing (This is a PDF document; You will need the free Acrobat Reader to view it.)

What You Can Do

Please contact members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, listed below.

• Remind them of their critical role in preventing low-income family members with disabilities from being pushed out of the housing market entirely.
• Remind them that while the spotlight may be shining on their work related to the President’s Supreme Court nomination, low-income households with disabled family members rely on them to stop the Administration’s efforts to eliminate fair housing protections and cut the funds that afford them access to affordable and accessible housing.

Take action Today!

Please call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to the office of one or more of the Senators listed below. If the Senator is from your state, be sure to say you’re a constituent.

Senate Appropriations Committee Members

Republicans
Thad Cochran, Chair (Mississippi)
Ted Stevens (Alaska)
Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania)
Pete Domenici (New Mexico)
Christopher Bond (Missouri)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Conrad Burns (Montana)
Richard Shelby (Alabama)
Judd Gregg (New Hampshire)
Robert Bennett (Utah)
Larry Craig (Idaho)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas)
Mike DeWine (Ohio)
Sam Brownback (Kansas)
Wayne Allard (Colorado)

Democrats
Robert Byrd (West Virginia)
Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
Patrick Leahy (Vermont)
Tom Harkin (Iowa)
Barbara Mikulski (Maryland)
Harry Reid (Nevada)
Herb Kohl (Wisconsin)
Patty Murray (Washington)
Byron Dorgan (North Dakota)
Dianne Feinstein (California)
Richard Durbin (Illinois)
Tim Johnson (South Dakota)
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)

Fair Use Policy

Please feel free to forward our alerts as long as you credit the Bazelon Center with a link to our website: http://www.bazelon.org