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The Affordable Housing Bulletin
April 25, 2003

In this issue:
In Delaware
* Homeless Planning Council of Delaware Announces Funding Round
* Celebrating the Nonprofit Sector, May 19

Elsewhere
* National Housing Trust Fund Alert
* Campaign to End Homelessness
* Rural Rental Assistance Proposal Introduced in House
* June 2003 Idealist.org Conference in Philadelphia
* APA Policy Guide on Homelessness


Homeless Planning Council of Delaware Announces Funding Round
The Homeless Planning Council of Delaware, Inc. announces the availability of funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for Supportive Housing Programs (SHP) for homeless persons. The Homeless Planning Council is the entity that takes responsibility for the development of the Continuum of Care for the Homeless statewide and the coordination of the application process. In order to make application for a grant under the SHP, applicants are required to submit their applications under the umbrella proposal developed by the HPC.

Applications will be accepted until 1:00 PM on Thursday, May 23, 2002, at which time there will be a public opening to which all applicants are invited. Applications should be submitted in person or by common carrier to the Community Legal Aid Society of Delaware (CLASI), 100 West Tenth Street, Suite 801, Wilmington, DE 19801. The public opening will be held in the CLASI 8th Floor Conference Room.

A mandatory pre-bid meeting for all potential applicants will be held on Wednesday MAY 9, 2003 in Room 109 at 1:00 PM at the Community Service Building, 100 West Tenth Street, Wilmington, DE 19801. For more information contact Christina Brennan, Executive Director, The Homeless Planning Council at 302/654-0126 on or after April 9, 2002.

The mission of the Homeless Planning Council of Delaware is to coordinate a continuing and comprehensive statewide planning process for strengthening and integrating policies and programs related to homelessness. It is a shared, cooperative Continuum of Caring through which concerned Delawareans from all walks fo life strive
together to remedy homelessness throughout the First State.

The HUD SuperNOFA is being published in the Federal Register today and is available for viewing on the HUD.gov website. On HUD's homepage under HUD HIGHLIGHTS, click on the first link which says $2.3 billion for SuperNOFA...follow the link on the following page to the text. Applications are due July 15.
[Christina S. Brennan, Homeless Planning Council of Delaware, hpcexec@comcast.net]

Celebrating the Nonprofit Sector, May 19
Come out and join friends and colleagues at an evening CELEBRATING DELAWARE'S NONPROFIT SECTOR! DANA has joined with the Food Bank of Delaware to invite our members to a fun (and affordable) evening on May 19 at the Food Bank in Newark. The Honorable James M. Baker, Mayor of Wilmington, will give welcoming remarks during the cocktail hour and The Honorable Margaret Rose Henry will give the keynote address. DANA will launch its new Best Practices program by highlighting the proactive public policy work now being done by the Food Bank.

Thanks to the generosity of co-hosts, DANA has been able to keep cost to $10.00 per person or $100 per table.
[Connie Hughes" chughes@delawarenonprofit.org ]


National Housing Trust Fund Alert

CALL TO ACTION
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TODAY AND URGE HIM OR HER TO BECOME A CO-SPONSOR OF THE NATIONAL HOUSING TRUST FUND, HR 1102, OR THANK HIM OR HER FOR CO-SPONSORING. Please forward this Call to Action to your networks, partners, and affiliates.

Legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would create a National Housing Trust Fund. The Bill, HR 1102, currently has 187 co-sponsors but needs many more to guarantee its passage. A National Housing Trust Fund would serve as a source of revenue for the production of new housing, and the preservation
or rehabilitation of existing housing that is affordable for low-income people. The initial goal of the National Housing Trust Fund is to produce, rehabilitate, and preserve 1,500,000 units of affordable housing by 2010.

Lobby Day is next Tuesday, April 29 and NLIHC members will be visiting many delegates to educate them on housing issues and the National Housing Trust Fund. Please take a moment to call your Representative before that date to make sure he or she knows how many people in the district are concerned about this issue. Add to the voice of other constituents who will be lobbying in Washington by making your voice heard in the district now!

1. Visit www.nhtf.org and follow the link to co-sponsors of HR 1102 to see if your Representative is a co-sponsor.
2. Call your Representative's DC office by dialing 1-866-864-NHTF and ask to be transferred to your Representative's office.
3. Ask to speak with the staff person who works on housing issues.
4. If he or she is not yet a co-sponsor of HR 1102, ask that the Representative please co-sponsor the bill. If the Representative has co-sponsored HR 1102, thank him or her for supporting the bill.
5. Share any local perspectives or stories you have about the need for affordable housing production in your district. -AND/OR-
Visit www.capwiz.com/nlihc and follow the link to the action alert to email your Representative.
[Julie Eisenhardt, National Housing Trust Fund Field Organizer, National Low Income Housing Coalition, julie@nlihc.org]

Note: Delaware sponsors of the NHTF are listed on the DHC website at www.housingforall.org. Representative Castle has not yet endorsed HR 1102.

Campaign to End Homelessness
This national, broad-based initiative is dedicated to the goal of ending homelessness. The Campaign is founded on the principles and action of public education, grassroots organizing and support for progressive policies and legislation. It is founded on the principles that people need affordable housing, livable incomes, health care, education, and protection of their civil rights. The Bringing America Home Campaign (www.bringingamericahome.org ) is composed of a variety of efforts that address these causes of homelessness, including the Bringing America Home Act.

This comprehensive bill to be introduced in the 108th Congress includes resolutions putting Congress on record as supporting housing as a basic human right, Universal Health Care and a Living Wage; a dramatic expansion of federal resources for affordable housing and homelessness programs; a dramatic expansion of health care and services for people experiencing homelessness; greater income and work supports for people experiencing homelessness; temporary worker protections; and civil rights
protections for people experiencing homelessness. The proposed legislation represents the most far-reaching initiative to date to address modern homelessness and is
based on research, data, and the experience of front line providers and advocates.
[Michelle Lee, Public Education Coordinator, National Coalition for the Homeless, mlee@nationalhomeless.org , http://www.nationalhomeless.org]


Rural Rental Assistance Proposal Introduced in House
On April 10 Reps. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas) and Artur Davis (D-Ala.) introduced the Rural Rental Housing Assistance Act, H.R. 1722. Similar to a bill introduced in the Senate last year by Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), the act would create a new $250 million fund to acquire, rehabilitate, or construct rural rental housing for low-income people, with priority for very low-income households. H.R. 1722 is available at http://thomas.loc.gov . [HAC News, Information on rural low-income housing issues, April 18, 2003, Vol. 32, No. 9]


June 2003 Idealist.org Conference in Philadelphia
On June 11-14 Idealist.org will be hosting the first national conference for Nonprofit Human Resources at the Wyndham Hotel in Philadelphia.

With a wide variety of breakout sessions, the conference is designed for seasoned full-time HR professionals, as well as for Executive Directors, Directors of Operations, or other staff at smaller nonprofits who must wear the HR hat among many others.

Idealist.org is the leading nonprofit portal on the Web, with information provided by 35,000 organizations around the world, and over 25,000 visitors every day.

For the nonprofit HR community, Idealist has become the most effective and affordable place to post job openings of all kinds. Jobs posted on Idealist are seen by people visiting the site, and they are also emailed automatically to 100,000 subscribers who receive daily job alerts matching their interests and location.

To complement the online job-matching we do at Idealist, we also organize an annual series of nonprofit career fairs where organizations and job-seekers can meet face-to-face. Over the last two years, these fairs have attracted over 2,000 organizations and 20,000 job seekers in 45 events across the country. [Dan Kessler, Action Without Borders-Idealist.org, dan@idealist.org , www.idealist.org ]

APA Policy Guide on Homelessness
The American Planning Association has adopted a policy guide on homelessness. The Guide was adopted at the APA's March 30 annual meeting. It is available at:
http://www.planning.org/policyguides/homelessness.htm

The text includes information about Olmstead and other fair housing considerations, and could be useful in preparing annual Action Plan comments. [Michael Hanley, mhanley@wnylc.com , Greater Upstate Law Project, NY]

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