NPACH Perspective: FY 2006 Budget Toughest on
Low-Income Americans
On February 7 President Bush submitted the
Administration's proposed FY 2006 Budget of the United States
Government. Regrettably, the President’s promise to
deliver a “tough budget” appears to have been
widely achieved at the expense of low income Americans. On
the housing and services front, the budget includes an almost
fifty percent cut to housing for people with disabilities,
significant cuts to housing serving the elderly and persons
with HIV/AIDS, a seventy three percent cut to rural rental
housing, the elimination of the Community Services Block
Grant, and sharp reductions in the Community Development
Block Grant program.
Such cuts more than offset the Administration's proposed
$174 million dollar Samaritan Initiative, which prioritizes
services for “unaccompanied homeless individuals with a
disabling condition who have either been continuously
homeless for a year or more, or have had at least four
episodes of homelessness in the past three years.”
Furthermore, due to a tepid response from Congress last year,
the Samaritan Initiative has been refashioned from its
original design as a multi-departmental program blending
housing and supportive services to a prioritized funding
stream that is limited to housing and case management and is
included within the existing HUD homeless grants, which are
otherwise flat funded. In short, while cutting other housing
programs, level funding emergency shelter grants, and
reducing services within the HUD McKinney programs for all
populations, the Administration has proposed to add $174
million to the homeless account and require that communities
seeking such funds utilize the dollars in the service of the
“chronic homelessness initiative." Moreover, while
HUD and other critical programs throughout the Federal
government face deep cuts, the budget proposal seeks a 28%
increase for the administrative expenses of the US
Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), the lead agency in
promoting the President’s homelessness policies.