Secretary Fudge Testifies in Senate Hearing on HUD’s FY22 Budget Request
On Thursday, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development on the American Jobs Plan funding request and presented budget justification for HUD’s proposed Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) budget. Secretary Fudge testified that the President’s Budget requests $68.7 billion for HUD in FY22, which represents an increase of $9 billion—or 15 percent—from HUD’s enacted funding for Fiscal Year 2021. During the hearing, Secretary Fudge stated that the President’s Budget addresses the affordable housing crisis head on—and dramatically strengthens our social safety net for the most vulnerable among us. It contains $3.5 billion to provide housing and supportive services to Americans experiencing homelessness—including young people and survivors of domestic violence. During the hearing, several Senators asked the Secretary why HUD has been slow to distribute COVID-19 relief and complete a recommendation to improve its tracking of service coordinators. Senator Collins asked about pending recommendations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding service coordinators, who link residents of eligible housing with supportive services provided by community agencies. One of the recommendations relates to the fact that HUD doesn’t know how many service coordinators it funds. In response, Secretary Fudge reassured Senator Collins that she met with the Director of GAO about these recommendations last week and that HUD is “already putting in place a plan to make sure that we address them within a very short window of time.” Responding to concern regarding HUD’s staffing shortages, Secretary Fudge said low capacity at the department had slowed the rollout of pandemic housing relief to local governments and that without the staff available to provide technical assistance to grantees, many local governments that received funds were reluctant to spend them. “We have to start to hire people and hire them faster,” the Secretary said, adding that she cut the 180-day onboarding time for new employees in half since taking over the department. She also stated that HUD will consolidate job postings for positions that are similar across its divisions, rather than posting them separately. Regarding requested funding for housing programs, Senators praised the inclusion of funding of Community Development Block Grants in the Biden Administration’s budget request. When considering HUD’s impact on rural housing, Senator Manchin (D-WV) stated that twenty percent of the population of the United States of America is determined or defined as rural and asked Secretary Fudge to ensure 20 percent of HUD funding that’s disbursed through the agency would go to rural housing needs.
To view the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing examining the FY 22 HUD proposed budget, click here.
To view Secretary Fudge’s Testimony at the Senate Appropriations Hearing on FY22 HUD Budget, click here.
House Committee Hearing Examines Universal Housing Vouchers
The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing this week examining the increase in homelessness and housing instability among certain populations. The “Universal Vouchers: Ending Homelessness and Expanding Economic Opportunity in America” hearing focused on homelessness prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, current housing instability and homelessness, and examined the importance of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Unlike other federal safety net programs, HCVs are not an entitlement, meaning that not everyone who qualifies for a voucher receives one. However, a growing housing affordability gap for low-income households, coupled with two deep and fast-breaking recessions since the turn of the century, have led to increasing calls to make HCVs an entitlement, like Medicaid. The hearing examined how making HCVs universally available to everyone who meets income eligibility requirements would enable the nation to make progress in ending homelessness, reduce poverty, close the affordability gap, and provide a rapid-response “automatic stabilizer” for low-income families that suffer abrupt losses of income in recessions. Witnesses described how the single greatest barrier to access HCVs is limited availability compared to actual need — only one in five households that are eligible for HCVs or equivalent federal rental assistance receive them. During the hearing, witnesses estimated that an additional 8.2 million households would receive assistance through a “universal” voucher program and that such an effort would cost approximately an additional $62 billion per year. While possibly serving almost 9 million more eligible households, a universal voucher program would also reduce child poverty by 36%, and decrease racial disparities in poverty rates among White and Black households. The hearing also highlighted the cost effectiveness of investments in supportive housing for the chronically homeless and permanent housing subsidies for homeless families, as well as the dramatic impact reducing economic and racial housing segregation could have on Black families’ earnings and educational attainment of both Black and White households.
During the hearing, Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), announced she will soon introduce the Ending Homelessness Act, which would create a universal housing voucher entitlement program, phased in over 10 years, to ensure that every eligible household can receive rental assistance. The final bill, when introduced, will also include several key reforms – including a ban on source of income discrimination and a requirement to use Small Area Fair Market Rents. NAHMA and industry associations submitted a letter for the hearing urging the Committee to support efforts and take further steps to eliminate the overlapping and redundant aspects associated with the Housing Choice Voucher Program, while ensuring reliable funding is in place for the program.
To view the House Financial Services Committee’s hearing examining universal housing vouchers, click here.
To view the draft text of the Ending Homelessness Act, click here.
White House Issues Report Addressing Short-term Supply Chain Disruptions
This week, in response to signs of new pressures on supply chains due to changes in demand (including the rising cost in lumber and housing construction materials), the Biden Administration announced key findings from a 100-day review of America’s Supply Chains. In February, the President issued an Executive Order that directed his Administration to closely monitor these developments and take actions to minimize the impacts on workers, consumers, and businesses in order to bolster a strong economic recovery. The newly published report, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-based Growth, outlines steps to strengthen critical supply chains and includes a review of immediate actions the Administration will take. This whole-of-government effort to monitor and address transitory supply chain challenges includes establishing a new Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force to provide a whole-of-government response to address near-term supply chain challenges to the economic recovery. The Task Force will be led by the Secretaries of Commerce, Transportation, and Agriculture and will focus on areas where a mismatch between supply and demand has been evident: homebuilding and construction, semiconductors, transportation, and agriculture and food. The Task Force has been ordered to bring the full capacity of the federal government to address near-term supply/demand mismatches and will convene stakeholders to diagnose problems and surface solutions—large and small, public or private—that could help alleviate bottlenecks and supply constraints.
To view the Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-based Growth Final Report, click here.
To view the White House Fact Sheet on Addressing Short-Term Supply Chain Discontinuities, click here.