Help Preserve Funding for Critical Housing Programs

Catholic Charities USA has sent out the following Urgent Action Alert:

Urgent Action Needed: Help Preserve Funding for Critical Housing Programs

WHAT: Both the Senate and the House are considering different proposals that would allocate FY2014 funding for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD). The Senate is expected to take key votes on several amendments to its bill, S. 1243, as early as this evening. The House is expected to bring its proposal, H.R. 2610, to the floor for consideration tomorrow (Tuesday, July 30). This bill would drastically reduce funding for HUD programs that serve our nation’s most vulnerable populations. The proposed House funding levels are nearly $10 billion lower than the current Senate proposal, and would revert some programs back to the same funding levels appropriated in the 1970s.

What you can do:

Senate Action
Call your Senators now and ask them to oppose amendments that would reduce funding for the HOME Investment program and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), to exclude all federal funds from being counted as matching funds for McKinney grants, and to eliminate the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Urge them to support efforts to require HUD to submit a report to Congress on legislative options to modernize and improve targeting of CDBG allocation formulas.

House Action
Call your Representative and urge him to oppose passage of H.R. 2610, as it would drastically reduce funding for programs that help those living in the margins. Let them know that more than 630,000 people in this country are homeless on any given night—and in a nation of plenty this should not be. Urge them to provide full funding so that each individual has access to safe, decent, and affordable housing.

Additional Background Information The National Low-Income Housing Coalition has provided the following resources:

   - View NLIHC’s budget chart at: http://bit.ly/1al9ivw
   - View NLIHC’s comparison of FY13 and FY14 bills at: http://bit.ly/162zUzO