NEWS HEADLINES
Fiscal 2009 Budget Highlights
By Andre Shashaty
Despite proposed increases in funding for vouchers, homeless programs, and counseling for home buyers, housing advocates expressed disappointment with the fiscal 2009 housing and community development budget submitted to Congress by President George W. Bush.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHTC), the budget proposes to:
- Cut the number of housing vouchers that help very poor people pay their rent by 100,000.
- Cut the budget for housing for poor elderly people by 27 percent.
- Cut the budget for housing for people with disabilities by 32 percent.
- Cut the fund for repair and maintenance of public housing by 17 percent (from the level called for by the subsidy formula) and eliminate funding to repair public housing that is damaged by natural disasters.
- Cut low-income energy assistance by 20 percent.
- Flat-fund homeless assistance grants.
- Flat-fund housing for people with AIDS.
- Eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rural housing program.
On the plus side, the budget proposes to substantially increase funding for Sec. 8 project-based housing. It seeks $7.4 billion in Sec. 8 project-based rental assistance, including a $400 million advanced appropriation to ensure timely payments to owners, which represents nearly $1.2 billion more than last year’s request.
However, NLIHC says the program “has been short-funded for several years … so the increase is not enough to get the program back to where it should be.”
|
