August 6, 1999
Washington — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo called on the House and Senate to reject $2 billion in cuts to HUD's proposed Fiscal Year 2000 Budget that were approved today by a House subcommittee.
The Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies made the cuts to the $28 billion budget President Clinton proposed for HUD, wiping out most of the $2.5 billion increase that the President requested. The action follows severe budget restrictions imposed by the Congressional Budget Resolution.
"Today's action strikes a terrible blow against families and communities in need, ensuring that those left behind on America's road to prosperity will fall even further back," Cuomo said. "I call on the House and Senate to reject these devastating cuts and improve funding levels for HUD."
Cuomo said that the cuts approved by the House subcommittee would:
Fail to fund the Administration's request for 100,000 incremental rental assistance vouchers at a time when worst-case housing needs remain at an all-time high. A record 5.3 million low-income households in this country have worst-case housing needs —defined as spending over 50 percent of their income on rent.
Cut other housing and economic development activity under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program by $275 million from the Admin-istration's request. As a result, about 33,000 fewer people would get housing rehabilitation, construction, and homebuyer assistance. About 10,000 fewer jobs would be created by CDBG. Another 7,000 to 10,000 people would not get job opportunities because of cuts in the Section 108 Loan Guarantee program. The HOME program would be cut by $30 million from the Adminis-tration's request.
Cut help for homeless people by $55 million compared with the Adminis-tration's request, resulting in approximately 43,000 homeless people —including 15,000 homeless children— being denied desperately needed services. These services include transitional and permanent housing, mental health counseling, job training and drug treatment. In addition, more than 30,000 homeless people would lose access to shorter-term emergency services such as homeless prevention and emergency shelter beds. More than 2,200 beds for homeless people would be lost—forcing many of these people out on the street. Nearly 12,000 people with disabilities and 6,500 homeless veterans would not receive HUD homeless assistance.
Reduce the protection against housing discrimination. The 20 percent cut in fair housing programs below the Administration's request would deny the assistance needed by state and local fair housing agencies to process approximately 1,500 fair housing complaints. The cuts would also deny funds to local communities that want to establish new private fair housing organizations where local public agencies do not exist.
Increase physical problems with public housing. Since public housing authorities would be forced to respond to funding cuts by reducing maintenance, the 6 percent cut in operating subsides compared with the funding proposed by the Administration is likely to result in 150,000 additional public housing units developing moderate or severe physical problems because of inadequate maintenance. An additional 10,000 Indian housing units are also likely to become substandard.
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