House HUD Appropriations Bill is Revealed, Providing Clearer Picture of 2013 Funding

On June 6, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development released its Fiscal Year 2013 bill, which is set to be passed on June 7. While the chances of passing and enacting final versions of this bill in both the House and Senate remain tenuous, the funding levels recommended by both Chambers’ subcommittees reveal better insight as to what funding levels might actually be for housing programs in 2013.

There are positives and negatives in the House’s version of the bill, particularly as it is compared to the Senate’s version and to the President’s budget. Below is a comparison table and brief narrative of programs we’re interested in because of their impact in preventing and ending homelessness through the creation of permanent supportive housing.

View the Subcommittee's bill

Fiscal Year
2012
President's
Request
Senate
FY13
House
FY13
Tenant-based Rental Assistance (renewals) $17.42 B $17.24 B $17.49 B $17.24 B
HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUDVASH) $75 M $75 M $75 M $75 M
Homeless Assistance Grants $1.9 B $2.23 B $2.15 B $2 B
CDBG $2.95 B $2.95 B $3.1 B $3.3 B
HOME Investment Partnerships $1 B $1 B $1 B $1.2 B
Section 811 Housing for the Disabled $165 M $150 M $150 M $165 M
Section 202 Housing for the Elderly $375 M $475 M $375 M $425 M
  • The House proposes to fund McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program at $2 billion. This funding level is nearly $100 million above last year’s level, though it falls well behind both the President’s budget and the Senate’s recommendation of $2.15 billion. While we acknowledge and appreciate the House’s increase in funding over the previous fiscal year, particularly in these difficult fiscal times, it falls $100 million short to renew all existing Continuum of Care programs and will not allow any new supportive housing to be created. We strongly urge the House to provide no less than the Senate’s recommendation of $2.15 billion, which will help more fully implement the HEARTH Act, allow communities to continue to build new supportive housing, and more strongly support rapid re-housing programs within the Emergency Solutions Grant program.
  • We are grateful the House has joined the Senate and the President in proposing $75 million for a new round of 10,000 HUD-VA supportive housing vouchers (HUD-VASH) for homeless veterans is proposed. Earlier this year a HUD report indicated that Congress’ support for VASH and other programs benefiting homeless veterans led to a 12% drop in veterans’ homelessness in just one year.
  • One of the most notable increases in the House bill was a $200 million increase for the HOME program. While still well below historical levels for this program, the House has made an important course correction on the HOME program, which has seen its funding slashed in the past two years. CSH estimates these flexible funds are used in approximately 80% of supportive housing projects and is particularly important as a gap-filler as permanent financing sources are being assembled.
  • Unfortunately the House provided lower funding for the Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance account than the Senate did. The House’s recommended funding of $17.24 for renewals is estimated to be insufficient to meet current renewal need. We are pleased however that the Subcommittee matched both the President’s request and the Senate’s recommendation of $1.575 billion for Housing Authority administrative fees. PHAs are important partners in ending homelessness but they need to be properly funded to support more innovative programs to address special needs populations.
  • The House Subcommittee also proposed a larger increase to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program than either the Senate or President proposed. The House bill recommends $3.3 billion for CDBG in FY13, an increase of $350 million over FY12.

Webinar: Using NSP for Supportive Housing Development

Upcoming: Using NSP for Permanent Supportive Housing Development Webinar -
Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 2 pm EDT

HUD will provide NSP grantees and their partners with guidance on permanent supportive housing development and NSP. This webinar will review opportunities for utilizing NSP funding for the creation of permanent supportive housing. This session will contextualize NSP as a viable tool to address both community revitalization and homeless response efforts. We will briefly review some key elements of supportive housing and hear from NSP grantees that have leveraged the program for these purposes. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.

The webinar is intended for NSP grantees, sub-recipients, developers, as well as Continuums of Care and other homelessness stakeholders.

Webinar materials will be posted to the NSP Learning Center as they become available. Please visit the NSP Learning Center prior to joining the webinar.

To Join via WebEx (Online + Audio): https://enterpriseevents.webex.com/enterpriseevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=667277084

To Join Via Teleconference (Audio Only):
Toll-free: 1-877-668-4490; Toll number: 1-408-792-6300
Access code: 667 277 084

Feedback on Webinar:
At the conclusion of the webinar, we would really like your feedback! Please take a moment and click on the following link to provide your important feedback:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8RWDSFW

All attendees are encouraged to participate using the full webinar meeting format, as "audio-only" participants will not be able to ask questions during the session.

Featured Image

Supportive Housing Helps Keep Families Together

CSH’s Keeping Families Together initiative is a model for an unprecedented investment by the national child welfare system. The Administration for Children Youth and Families (ACYF) and four private foundations announced that they will be giving five communities the opportunity to create supportive housing designed to give kids a chance to live healthier more productive lives. Read our press release or visit ACYF for more information.

Keeping Families Together is our three-year pilot program designed to address the needs of New York City’s most vulnerable families. The pilot yielded impressive results. CSH President and CEO Deborah De Santis recently blogged in the HuffingtonPost about why Keeping Families Together Matters.

CSH is working on an interactive toolkit to help you implement a program like Keeping Families Together in your community. Watch csh.org for more information. Or if you'd like to recieve updates about the toolkit and other related news direct to your inbox, let us know! Update your online profile and select "Child Welfare/Youth."

 

Want to know more? Watch a Keeping Families Together video or read about how the INITIATIVE evolved.

Featured Image

Making It Happen: Keeping Families Together

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children Youth and Families (ACYF) just announced a new $35 million five year public-private partnership with four philanthropic organizations that will support the implementation of supportive housing initiatives in five communities designed to preserve and strengthen vulnerable families, improve child well-being, and prevent foster care placements. ACYF’s philanthropic partners include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, and Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

 

While the federal government has long recognized the housing needs among child welfare system-involved families, reflected in rental assistance programs like HUD’s Family Unification Program (FUP) Vouchers, this funding announcement represents the first federal investment specifically focused on creating supportive housing to reduce child welfare system involvement among homeless and precariously housed families. As such, it reflects ACYF’s belief that supportive housing holds tremendous potential in breaking the cycle of homelessness, parental behavioral health challenges, child neglect and maltreatment, and child removal among the highest need families.

 

CSH is proud to play a role in informing this new public-private partnership both through our implementation of the Keeping Families Together initiative and through our public education and engagement efforts around the need for federal and philanthropic leadership to address the needs of families experiencing homelessness and recurring child welfare system involvement.

 

Keeping Families Together was a New York City pilot project funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and designed and implemented by CSH that sought to answer the question: Could supportive housing permanently end homelessness, child neglect and maltreatment and foster care placement among homeless families with chronic and high levels of child welfare system involvement? To implement the pilot, CSH partnered with New York City government agencies and several nonprofit supportive housing providers to identify, house and provide wrap-around supportive services to 29 homeless families involved in the child welfare system. Families receiving supportive housing through Keeping Families Together had long histories of contacts with the child welfare system, including multiple investigations, incidences of maltreatment and child removals. The children of these 29 families had consumed more than 3,000 foster care days in just the two years prior to placement. Two years after placement into supportive housing, 92% of the families remained housed, open child welfare cases decreased by 61%, children’s school attendance rates increased from 60% to 80% and no children were removed from their parents. Foster care days consumed decreased by 77%.

 

CSH and RWJF first brought the promising results from this pilot to the attention of officials at ACYF including Commissioner Bryan Samuels in the spring of 2011 and hosted a site visit for these officials to one of the Bronx supportive housing buildings that housed and served families as part of Keeping Families Together. At this site visit, Commissioner Samuels engaged with families, supportive housing staff, RWJF and CSH in a thoughtful dialogue about what made supportive housing successful in preserving and strengthening vulnerable homeless families and reducing their involvement in the child welfare system. ACYF Commissioner Samuels also attended and participated in the Silos to Systems: Solutions for Vulnerable Families co-convened by CSH, RWJF and other partners in October 2011, which highlighted the role that cross-sector and public-private partnerships could play in advancing comprehensive solutions to reach and improve outcomes among child welfare system-involved families.

 

ACYF and its partners’ new initiative is poised to build strong and compelling evidence of supportive housing’s potential as a cost-effective tool for improving family and child outcomes and addressing avoidable family separations and child removals. More than that, it’s a major step forward towards transforming our nation’s child welfare system and overall public response to vulnerable families by providing them with the housing assistance, resources and support needed to stay together and grow together.

Featured Image

Watch the New Keeping Families Together Video

CSH's Keeping Families Together funder, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, produced this video telling the story of Felicia.

Felicia and her dad were part of CSH's pilot in New York City. This video tells their story and CSH's Richard Cho explains how Keeping Families Together works for families like Felicia's.

Read more about Keeping Families Together and read the latest news in The Pipeline.

 

2011 CSH Annual Report

 

CSH has always been about breaking through barriers to bring the highest quality supportive housing solutions to the men, women and families who need it most. Our 2011 Annual Report, Emerging Solutions, tells the rich story of how we advanced innovations in the field during CSH’s 20th year.

 

We invite you to download the report to explore these stories and more.

Featured Image

Key Players Gather to Discuss Role of PHAs in Ending Homelessness

CSH was thrilled to play a key role in a convening led by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) to establish ways that Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) can partner with Continuums of Care (CoCs) and other stakeholders in the community to end homelessness.

50 PHAs and many of their corresponding CoCs participated in Thursday’s event, which was designed to 1) create an understanding of successful strategies and effective practices for addressing homelessness, 2) foster new relationships with colleagues and peers working on these issues, and 3) help PHAs and CoCs understand and support one another to achieve mutual goals and measurable impacts within their community. A key goal was to inspire commitment among participants to better serve individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

High-level officials from HUD, including Assistant Secretary Sandra Henriquez and Senior Advisor Estelle Richman, as well as the Executive Director of USICH Barbara Poppe, gave opening remarks to participants who were gathered in space generously provided by the Partnership for Public Service.

CSH followed by presenting several specific steps PHAs can take to reduce homelessness, including: establishing waitlist preferences for homeless people, modifying admissions criteria to “screen in” more homeless people, project-basing Section 8 vouchers to establish a supportive housing pipeline, and establishing or improving eviction prevention programs. CSH is currently drafting a Toolkit for PHAs that will include these options and much more information on PHAs and community partners can work together to end homelessness. See our Toolkit Preview.

After presentations on using project-based Section 8 vouchers to end homelessness, a town-hall style Q&A session with  HUD and USICH representatives, and topic-specific breakout sessions, the day concluded with an inspirational address by HUD’s Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Johnston.

Participants were asked to commit to a range of local action steps to follow the event--from something as simple as getting to know the key players in their community's homeless services to establishing homeless preferences or set-aside vouchers to end homelessness.

Key observations and innovative practices from the event:

  • Many PHAs are doing excellent work and have used innovative ideas to address homelessness; it is important to increase awareness of these program designs so that more PHAs can replicate and expand on them.
  • Like many agencies, PHAs face increasing need and additional strain on their resources, so identifying funding partnerships is more important than ever.
  • In Chicago, they're working to restructure their CoC so the governing body is different from the lead agency, so it can make better decisions for the community.  Chicago also has a coordinated referral system for all HUD-funded supportive housing projects.
  • Asheville, NC, described how the PHA established a preference for chronically homeless people who have a guarantee of 1 year of supportive services from a provider in the community. So far, 180 chronically homeless individuals have been housed in Asheville’s public housing through this program and they currently have a 90% success rate.
  • Rhode Island described how the state realigned its local plan to end homelessness with the federal strategic plan Opening Doors and established better leadership to ensure accountability at meeting the plan’s goals. Pawtucket’s Housing Authority described a pilot at their relatively small PHA in which they established a separate waiting list to house up to 10 chronic homeless people that has been a very rewarding program for all involved.
  • UNITY of New Orleans described their partnership with the Housing Authority that has resulted in a reduction of 48% of their chronic homeless population.  The partnership included combining voucher commitments from the Housing Authority with a case management and services commitment from the community thanks to a three year grant from SAMHSA. New Orleans used a vulnerability index to identify homeless people at risk of dying on the street and has also partnered with legal services to help eligible individuals access Social Security Insurance (SSI/SSDI).

Learn more about CSH's work with PHAs and keep an eye on our website for the PHA Toolkit in coming months.

Featured Image

CSH and Partners Meet on the Hill to Discuss Veterans’ Homelessness

With Memorial Day a few days away, the Homeless Veterans National Advocacy Working Group, convened several experts on Capitol Hill for a briefing on the federal programs that are successfully working to end this national tragedy. CSH is a member of the Working Group, which is an informal coalition of veterans service organizations and other advocacy organizations.  Today’s meeting, Targeting Resources for Homeless Veterans was kicked off with comments by U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), who is the Ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and who has long championed housing and services to end homelessness for veterans.  Burr said to a room packed with over 40 partners and advocates, "We have to be sure that government understands the human element of our programs and not just statistics or numbers on a page."

Additional remarks were made by Barbara Poppe, Executive Director of USICH, ranking officials from the VA and a formerly homeless veteran.

CSH and our partners specifically called on Congress to continue support of the HUD-VA Supportive Housing (VASH) program by allocating another 10,000 VASH vouchers in Fiscal Year 2013, to provide additional funding for the Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) program at the VA, and to adequately fund the VA’s Grant and Per Diem program. In order to fully implement the Veterans Administration’s pledge to end homelessness among veterans by 2015, Congress must continue making responsible investments in affordable housing and supportive services programs that move veterans and their families off the streets and into stable housing.

Meet CSH's Newest Board Member, Fred Karnas, Ph.D.

CSH is thrilled to announce that Fred Karnas, President & CEO of St. Luke's Health Initiatives, has been elected to the CSH Board of Directors. Full details are availble in this press release.   Below, Fred answers a few questions in our Meet the Board  series.


Q:
Why did you join the CSH Board?
CSH is one of the premier organizations working to end homelessness in the nation, so I am humbled to have the opportunity to be able to be part of CSH’s good work.  I have had the fortune to interact with CSH in many ways since the very early years of the organization’s existence and I have always been impressed by both the quality of their work and the incredible staff that they have recruited to take on one of the country’s most pressing social problems.  Joining the board gives me the opportunity to learn from them and to share what I have learned in my nearly 30 years of experience working to address poverty and homelessness.

 Q: What excites you the most about CSH’s work in supportive housing?
Over the years a growing body of evidence has accumulated that makes it clear that permanent housing with access to voluntary services is the most effective tool for ending homelessness for persons with an array of special needs.  CSH has been the leader in creatively taking that knowledge and implementing housing models based on the lessons learned.  So it is exciting to be able to be part of the forward-thinking and creative culture that CSH represents as we continue to refine approaches to addressing the challenges faced by homeless persons.  For example, as a person who has relatively recently come to the health care world from the human services and housing worlds, it is exciting to see the work CSH is doing to find ways to better connect housing and health care for the benefit of residents of supportive housing.

Q:  What do you see as the most important innovation in supportive housing?
In my opinion the recognition that permanent housing can be the platform to address an array of other pressing needs is supportive housing’s most important innovation.  It is clear that there are many positive outcomes that accrue from connecting a stable living environment to training and employment opportunities, quality health care, and needed human services.   The challenge continues to be how to scale up the many individual successes in integrating housing, health care, and human services so that systems are in place that make it common practice to create environments that seamlessly meet the multiple needs of homeless persons.

Q: Where do you see the industry in 10 years?
I would love to see the supportive housing industry moving to serving elders and persons with disabilities who are not homeless because of the vacancies resulting from the end of homelessness!!  Hopefully that will happen, but in the interim, I do think that pursuing a larger model, beyond homelessness, is important for the industry.  In my mind that involves creating supportive housing models that meet the needs of the various populations who would benefit from permanent housing with facilitated access to voluntary services.  I also see the form of supportive housing changing as more mixed-population and scattered site models respond to the desire of many individuals with special needs to live in more integrated community settings.

Featured Image

Accelerating Progress on Chronic Homelessness

CSH President and CEO Deborah De Santis joined fellow industry leaders at an April United States Interagency Council on Ending Homelessness (USICH) meeting on chronic homelessness. CSH submitted a brief summarizing our expertise on chronic homelessness and recommended actions the country and the Council should take to bend the curve on chronic homelessness by 2015.

"The administration should be credited for highlighting the need for communities and funders to better target supportive housing toward the men, women and children who need it most," said DeSantis. "By exploring ways the administration can collaborate to provide the necessary tools, we get closer to ending chronic homelessness once and for all. I appreciated the opportunity to participate."

READ the COMPLETE USICH recap herE

 

WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.