The House Appropriations Transportation-HUD (THUD) Subcommittee voted to approve its FY19 spending bill on May 16. Members did not submit any amendments during the vote but may do so when the bill goes to the full House Appropriations Committee on May 23 at 10:00 pm ET in room 2118 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
The proposed bill maintains the 10% increase in HUD funding that advocates and Congressional champions secured in FY18, with modest additional increases for FY19. The bill is a clear rejection of the president’s call to drastically cut housing investments with more than $11 billion above the president’s FY19 request. It also rejects the harmful rent increases, rigid work requirements, and de facto time limits proposed by the president in his FY19 budget request and in subsequent legislation. The funding levels reflected in the bill are a result of the bipartisan budget agreement made earlier this year to lift the low spending caps on defense and domestic priorities, including affordable housing and community development, which itself was the work of advocates across the nation and strong Congressional champions, including House Subcommittee Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Ranking Member David Price (D-NC).
Representatives Diaz-Balart and Price stressed the importance of housing benefits and highlighted several specific spending provisions, including $50 million for a mobility-voucher demonstration for families with young children to help them move to areas of opportunity. Despite new resources and overall increased funding available to HUD, the amounts provided in the House bill are likely not enough to renew all existing contracts provided through Housing Choice Vouchers and Project-Based Rental Assistance. Ranking Member Price stated that he and Chair Diaz-Balart may need to revisit those levels once they receive the most updated reports on those programs.
Read the text of the proposed bill at: https://bit.ly/2IGGVRL
Watch the archived webcast of the subcommittee vote at: https://bit.ly/2jOcRpm
Read the NLIHC’s analysis of the bill at: https://bit.ly/2rNTArA
Review NLIHC’s budget chart at: https://bit.ly/1SowzjU
More on the full Committee vote is at: https://bit.ly/2wQx5rK