NPACH Perspective:
READ THE FINE PRINT
Buried in the
corners of the fiscal year 2006 Senate transportation and
housing spending bill is a $50 million dollar item to create
an 'Affordable Housing Technical Assistance Board.' This
group would be composed of "respected national
non-profits" who would help local communities deal with
the "overly complex" nature of HUD programs.
The funding
source for this board would not be new money, but rather
dollars transferred from Section 8, CDBG, HOME, homeless
assistance grants, housing for the disabled, housing for the
elderly, and, Native American Housing Block. Rather than
actually do something about those overly complex HUD rules,
the bill proposes to take money from affordable housing
programs to pay for a technical assistance board, one of
whose tasks will be assisting state and local groups who
don’t have enough money for affordable housing.
And, what
does $50 million taken in equal parts from these eight
programs ($6.25 million each) translate to in real terms?
$6.25 million could provide Section 8 vouchers for close to
1,000 low-income households – a critical need since
Congress has failed to fund any new vouchers since 2002.
Moreover, while 16% of all requests for homeless assistance
grants went unfunded in fiscal year 2004, the Homeless
Assistance program's contribution to the 'Affordable Housing
Technical Assistance Board' might otherwise be used to help
fund some of the 51 continuums of care that failed to receive
any funding in the last round. Indeed, the real cost
of the proposed technical assistance board is the loss of
housing for vulnerable populations.
Please contact your Senators and urge them to put HUD dollars where people need it most – housing and homelessness programs.
Urge your Senators to strike the proposed report language creating a technical assistance board. Please call the US Capitol Switchboard to be connected to your Senator: (202) 224-3121. It is best to fax letters to your Senators. Fax numbers for Senate offices may be found at http://www.senate.gov.