The
Affordable
Housing
Bulletin -
a publication
of the
Delaware
Housing Coalition

To be dropped from
or added to
this mailing list,
contact us at:
ahb@housingforall.org.

The Affordable Housing Bulletin
Friday, February 21, 2003

In this issue:
In Delaware
1. HPC Annual Meeting - March 3 in Dover
2. Housing in a Hurry Now Online
Elsewhere
3. Current Community Threat Level: RED
4. HousingToday, Winter 2002
5. Regulations.gov Open
6. HUD Slashes Public Housing Operating Funds
7. FY 2003 Appropriations Still in Congress

1. HPC Annual Meeting - March 3 in Dover
The Homeless Planning Council of Delaware, Inc., will hold its Annual Meeting on Monday March 3, 2003, from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the DelTech, Terry Campus Conference Center (CTC), Dover, DE. For directions to the conference center: http://www.dtcc.edu/terry/pages/directions.html . There is no charge to attend. The keynote address will be given by Dr. Dennis Culhane, Ph.D., of the School of Social Work University of Pennsylvania, whose primary areas of research are homelessness, housing policy, and policy analysis research methods. [Christine Brennan, hpcexec@msn.com  ]

2. Housing in a Hurry Now Online
This DHC publication is now available online at www.housingforall.org/housing_in_a_hurry.htm  . Quantities of the guide are also available by calling (678-2286) or faxing (678-8645) us your name, address, and quantity desired.

3. Current Community Threat Level: Red
All good Keynesians know that deficit spending during an economic downturn is good: An increase in government spending increases the overall demand for goods and services in the economy, creating jobs and promoting growth.

The Bush Administration's budget proposal released earlier this month would create hugedeficits - more than $300 billion each this year and next. While that may sound like what the economy needs to pick up again, not all deficit spending is the same. Not only would this budget worsen the long-term budget outlook, but it would be bad for the economy and worsen the already growing economic divide in the nation.
The proposed budget includes President Bush's tax cut package aimed at the very wealthiest in the country. The top 10% would receive over 60% of the tax cut benefits. The top 1% would receive on average a tax cut of more than $30,000 in 2003. The bottom 60% would receive on average a $131 cut, and less than 10% of the total benefits.

Giving the wealthy more tax cuts will not help the economy. Tax cuts will only have a stimulating effect if the people receiving the tax cuts spend the money. While many economists would recommend government spending instead of tax cuts as an economic growth policy, if tax cuts are to be introduced, they should go to the people that will spend the money - low- and middle-income families. That isn't happening with this proposal.
Adopting the President's budget would also mean cuts to community development, higher education, energy conservation and transportation, as well as other areas of domestic spending. But the real insult to American families and communities is the President's proposal to insist that more proof of income and living arrangements is provided when applying for access to programs such as Medicaid and the National School Lunch Program.

Fifteen percent of people in the U.S. do not have health insurance, and one in ten families experiences food shortages. Almost one-fifth on the nation's children are living in poverty. This means that these children live in households whose income is less than $15,000 for a family of three -- about half the tax cut millionaires would receive in Bush's budget.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon would receive another big boost in spending, totaling just about $400 billion, even though government and other studies show that only between 5-8% of spending in the current fiscal year will go towards combating terrorism and homeland security. Cold War weapons produced by a few gigantic military contractors consume much of the remainder of Pentagon spending.

So while the Bush Administration turns up the "current threat level" to orange, we should also realize that the current threat level to our communities from bad economic policies is RED.

Resources:
● Office of Management and Budget at www.whitehouse.gov/omb
● Citizens for Tax Justice at www.ctj.org
● National Priorities Project at www.nationalpriorities.org
● Security Policy Working Group at www.cdi.org/spwg

[By Anita Dancs, Staff Economist of the Center for Popular Economics, www.populareconomics.org  .]

4. Housing Today - Winter 2002
The Winter 2002 edition of the HUD publication, HousingToday, is now available at: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/hsgtoday/ht_arch.cfm

● Topics include: HUD Programs Allow Seniors to Age in Place
● Housing Counseling Helps Americans Solve Their Housing Challenges
● Southwest Border Region Poses Unique Housing Challenges
● Prevention and Support Programs Take a Multifaceted Approach to Homelessness
● Technology Update
● Rules and Regulatons Update
● Links You'll Like

5. Regulations.gov Open
Regulations.gov is a new U.S. Government web site where you can find, review, and submit comments on Federal documents that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register. The site also has a variety of links to agencies' regulatory information pages, Executive Orders, OMB policy directives, and rule tracking information, as well as a gateway to Federal Register publications on GPO Access, including the daily Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and e-CFR, a new online edition of the CFR updated daily. You can access the new site at: http://www.regulations.gov
[Richard Tenenbaum  RTenenbaum@connlegalservices.org ]

6. HUD Slashes Public Housing Operating Funds
Millions of residents will be hurt by "accounting errors"
As a result of "internal accounting errors" that led to a budget shortfall of at least $250 million in FY02 and uncertainty about its FY03 appropriations, HUD is cutting FY03 operating funds to all Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) by an unprecedented 30%.

The cuts will be disastrous for the 3 million residents of public housing, yet HUD has so far refused to seek supplemental funding from Congress to remedy the shortfall. Major operating costs include building maintenance, security, utilities, services and programs for residents, and staff to manage the housing.

"These cuts will most definitely hurt families living in public housing," said Telissa Dowling, an NLIHC board member and president
of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs' Resident Advisory Board. "It will mean less maintenance, less security, and cuts to job-training and after-school programs. It will also mean more homelessness, as public housing agencies cope by reducing the number of units they operate."

For FY 2003, Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) will receive only 70% of the operating funds they received in FY 2002, HUD announced on January 6. And some PHAs (those with a fiscal year beginning October 1) report they will receive even less-only 54%of their current allocation.

"Given the striking absence of concern for the economic well-being of low income people that the Bush past and future tax plans demonstrate, it does not take much cynicism to believe that this is just the opening play in a plan to starve public housing out of existence," said NLIHC President Sheila Crowley.

Public housing units are in great demand by families who cannot afford market-rate housing. The average wait to get into public housing is unknown because HUD has not updated its data since 1998, when the wait was 11 months. That time is almost certainly longer today. In many large cities, where affordable housing needs are most severe, waiting list times can be up to 10 years. In early 2002, there were 14,000 households on the waiting list for public housing in Boston.

About 43% of the households served by public housing are families with children, 22% are elderly households without children, and the remainder are households headed by people with disabilities or those without children. People of color head just over half of these households, and 38% of these households are headed by women.

In 2002, HUD had an estimated shortfall in the public housing operating account of at least $250 million, attributed to system problems, inaccurate estimates, incomplete data, and other problems. The notice announcing the cuts is available at www.hudclips.org/sub_nonhud/cgi/newsdoc_run.cgi .

HUD AND PUBLIC HOUSING ADVOCATES DEBATE 2003 SHORTFALL.
After Congress passes FY 2003 appropriations, public housing agencies will receive about 90% of last year's budgeted operating costs, according to the January 15 press release from HUD responding to concerns about an earlier HUD announcement that PHAs would receive about 70% because of a HUD miscalculation. Organizations representing PHAs say added funding is needed because the increase will not take effect until summer, leaving more than half of PHAs at 70% for much of their budget year. HUD's release is at http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr03-006.cfm  and the PHA response is at http://www.nahro.org/pressroom/index.cfm .
[National Low Income Housing Coalition ( www.nlihc.org  ) and Housing Assistance Council ( www.ruralhome.org )]

7. FY 2003 Appropriations Still in Congress
At press time, the Senate was continuing work on the long-delayed FY 2003 spending bills. USDA rural housing and HUD spending levels are mostly the same as in the bills passed in July by the Senate Appropriations Committee (see HAC News, 7/29/02, available at http://www.ruralhome.org/pubs/hacnews/2002/0729.htm  ), but may
be subject to a 2.9% across-the-board cut. The biggest differences between the July bill (S. 2797) and the Senate's omnibus bill (S.J. Res. 2) affect HUD, the omnibus bill proposes a $100 million cut in public housing capital funds and a new flexible fund to deal with uncertainty in voucher spending. S.J. Res. 2 is available in the Congressional Record, 1/15/03, starting at page S867, and at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app03.html  . After Senate passage, the bill will go to a conference with the House. [Joe Belden, HAC, joe@ruralhome.org  , 202-842-8600.]

TO CONTACT DELAWARE'S GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEMBERS:
Go to the link on this website.
Or go to the State website.