Plans by the House Appropriations Committee to limit overall spending to fiscal year 2022 levels will “drastically reduce funding for the House’s Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) appropriations bill — a move that will be devastating for older adults,” LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan said Wednesday.
HUD programs are “on track to be gutted,” Sloan said, noting that reducing HUD appropriations to FY22 levels could cut all new Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly builds and service coordinator grants, among other effects, She called the intention “unconscionable.”
Monday, House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger (R) announced that she would mark up appropriations bills that limit new spending to FY22 topline levels. Granger called the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s topline spending cap for FY24 bills a spending ceiling, not a floor.
“Because of years of out-of-control spending, it has been and will continue to be my priority to pass conservative bills that focus our limited resources on the core responsibilities of the federal government, including national defense, our veterans and our border,” Granger said in a statement. “By clawing back $115 billion in unnecessary, partisan programs, we will refocus government spending consistent with Republican priorities, keeping total spending 1% lower than if we were operating under a continuing resolution.”
Wednesday, LeadingAge Vice President of Housing Policy Linda Couch reported that the House Appropriations Committee had adopted allocations for each of its 12 subcommittees. The Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies adopted an allocation that is 24% below its allocation in FY22, which Couch characterized as “painful” for housing programs.
LeadingAge previously had called the debt ceiling agreement’s move to keep federal nondefense discretionary spending flat in FY24 “insufficient.”
“The debt ceiling deals’ two years of spending caps were already terrible for the older adults, but this new, even more outrageous, step would be catastrophic,” Sloan said. “The well-documented, dramatic rise in homelessness among older adults will only increase if policymakers neglect affordable housing funding.”
Reducing HUD appropriations to FY22 levels could cut all new Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly housing builds and service coordinator grants, rob 87,000 very low income older adults of Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, and rescind Housing Choice Vouchers from 350,000 older adults, she said.
“It’s unconscionable in the United States for our leaders to abandon the most vulnerable older adults by stripping funding for life-saving housing programs,” Sloan said. “If reasonable lawmakers don’t intervene, millions of low-income older adults in affordable housing communities around the country will suffer needlessly.”
In testimony before the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, HUD and Related agencies in April, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said that maintaining funding at FY22 levels would make it “impossible to stave off mass evictions.”
LeadingAge is calling on Congress to:
- Provide full renewal funding for Section 202 Project Rental Assistance Contracts and service coordinator grants and Section 8 PBRA, affordable senior housing and housing for people with disabilities.
- Expand the supply of new Section 202 homes.
- Expand the number of service coordinators in HUD-assisted senior housing communities.
- Provide funding to preserve Section 202 PRACs going through Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion.
Another victim of the debt ceiling deal, which is clawing back approximately $28 billion in unspent and uncommitted COVID-19-related funding, was the Provider Relief Fund established under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
