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Washington Update

Monday, July 26, 2010

House
On Tuesday the full House Appropriations Committee approved a $67.4 billion spending bill ($500 million below FY 2010 enacted levels) that will fund the Departments of Transportation and HUD in fiscal year 2011. The bill will now have to be approved by the full House. Some reports indicate that a vote may take place before the House leaves for August recess at the end of next week, but this cannot be confirmed at this writing. Yesterday's full committee mark-up made only one change of note to NAHRO members: based on a recently received HUD re-estimate of funding needed for the tenant-based rental assistance program (TBRA), a total of $145 million was taken from the TBRA account and transferred to the homeless assistance programs. The change was part of a manager's amendment offered by Chairman John Olver (D-Mass.) and was approved on a bi-partisan basis.

Senate
The Senate's Transportation-HUD Subcommittee approved their 2011 spending bill on Wednesday. The $67.9 billion spending measure is equal to the enacted 2010 spending levels for both agencies. The Subcommittee bill was approved on a bipartisan basis and will be the subject of a full committee mark-up on Thursday.

For the most part, HUD programs were funded at levels at or near enacted 2010 spending levels. In a major development, the Senate, like their House counterparts, failed to provide funding requested by the administration for the Transforming Rental Assistance proposal. The administration's other major policy proposal, Choice Neighborhoods, fared better. The Senate approved the administration's funding request of $250 million. However, sources indicate that the language of the bill, which is currently embargoed, stipulates that upwards of 50 percent of the funds be available to housing authorities. Note that this remains unconfirmed at this writing.

Other matters of interest: in the Senate the Public Housing Capital Fund was funded at $2.5 billion, which matched the FY 2010 enacted levels. The administration's budget proposal (had it been approved) would have cut the Capital Fund by nearly $500 million. The bill also includes $4.8 billion for the Public Housing Operating Fund, which is $54 million more than the FY 2010 enacted level and equal to the administration's budget request. NAHRO's proposal for the public housing operating fund was $5.084 billion. A total of $17.1 billion was provided under the bill for the renewal of Housing Choice Vouchers, which is slightly higher than the revised funding level approved by the full House Appropriations Committee and $50 million more than the amount proposed by the administration in their budget request. The Senate also approved a total of $75 million for 10,000 VASH vouchers in FY 2011.

Looking at community development accounts of interest to NAHRO members, a total of $3.99 billion was provided for CDBG and $1.825 billion for the HOME program, which is equal to funding provided in FY 2010 and $175 million above the administration's request. For the second year, as was the case in the House, the Senate has approved the administration's $150 million request for the Sustainable Communities Initiative. To review a funding chart of the full House-approved numbers and Senate THUD Subcommittee numbers for the FY 2011 THUD spending bill, visit http://www.nahro.org/legislative/2010/Approps20100701.pdf.

A more detailed analysis of both the House and Senate bills will follow shortly in the Monitor and Direct News. Please contact John Bohm (jbohm@nahro.org) or Cortney Watson (cwatson@nahro.org) at NAHRO with questions.

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