FY15 HUD Funding

May 20, 2014, afternoon – The Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee passed a FY15 funding bill for USDA, just hours after the House subcommittee passed its version. The text of the Senate bill is not yet available. A summary of the bill provides information about only one housing program: it says the bill includes $1.094 billion for the Section 521 Rental Assistance program. That is slightly more than the $1.042 billion in the House bill.

May 20, 2014, morning – The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved the draft bill summarized below. The discussion focused on school lunches and WIC, and did not touch on housing. The full House committee has not yet scheduled a date for considering the bill.

The Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up its FY15 bill beginning at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time on May 20, and the full Senate committee will take up this bill (and other measures) at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 22. The bill text is not likely to be released before the May 20 session.

May 19, 2014 – The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee has released its FY15 USDA bill, with strong numbers for the rural housing programs. The subcommittee not only rejected the Administration’s request for cuts in Section 502 direct and Section 523 self-help, but it proposed to increase funding for both programs above FY14 levels. It would keep most other programs at about the same levels as in FY14, including Section 521 Rental Assistance.

The subcommittee’s bill includes only one of the changes to the Rental Assistance program requested by the Administration: a prohibition on renewing RA contracts when their funding is used up in less than 12 months. That would mean that if an unexpected expense like high heating bills used all the funds in an RA contract in 10 months rather than the 12-month full term of the contract, the landlord and tenant would be left without RA for two months until the contract could be renewed. To justify this request, the Administration stated that property owners should be able to predict one year of costs accurately in advance.

Other RA changes, including minimum rents, are not included in the House bill. [tdborder][/tdborder]