NCH Statement on McKinney Vento

National Coalition for the Homeless Voices Concern Over Homeless Legislation

National Coalition for the Homeless

Statement on Enactment of the

Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act

(S. 896/P.L. 111-022, Enacted May 20, 2009)

The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) issued the following statement upon enactment of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (HEARTH Act). The legislation, which reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, was included within the larger Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 (S. 896, P.L. 111-022). President Obama signed the legislation on May 20, 2009.

The National Coalition for the Homeless commends Congress for taking action to reauthorize the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. This action represents the first formal reauthorization of HUD’s homeless assistance programs since 1992 – a reauthorization long overdue. Moreover, the wide margin of support for the addition of the HEARTH Act to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 is indicative of the bipartisan interest among Members of Congress in responding to homelessness. NCH congratulates U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO), former Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), U.S. Representatives Gwen Moore (D-WI), Judy Biggert (R-IL), and Geoff Davis (R-KY), the late U.S. Representative Julia Carson (D-IN) and other Members of Congress who played leadership roles in assuring reauthorization of HUD homeless assistance programs.

From NCH’s perspective, the enacted version of the HEARTH Act is a mix of favorable and disappointing provisions. Among the provisions of the HEARTH Amendment that enjoy NCH support:

• Adds additional homelessness prevention activities and populations at risk of homelessness into the current Emergency Shelter Grants program, which is renamed Emergency Solutions Grants.
• Allows Congress to finance the renewal costs of permanent housing projects initiated with HUD McKinney-Vento funds from the Housing Choice Voucher account.
• Increases the administrative expense limit for project sponsors.
• Prohibits shelter and housing projects receiving HUD McKinney-Vento funds from requiring a family to separate any child or youth member of the family from the whole unit as a condition for the family’s admission into the shelter or housing.
• Improves collaboration between Continuum of Care jurisdictions and HUD-funded homeless assistance providers and local educational agencies with regard to homeless child and youth access to elementary and secondary education.
• Requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on rural homeless assistance, including offering recommendations on the appropriate federal agency or agencies to administer a rural homeless assistance program.

In other areas, the legislation falls short of NCH’s aspirations. Among them:

· The authorization level for HUD McKinney-Vento programs is set at $2.2 billion in FY 2010, far below the minimum $3 billion level of annual funding need identified by NCH and other homeless advocacy organizations, particularly as homelessness prevention activities are introduced as eligible activities into HUD McKinney-Vento programs.

· The bill relegates homeless people and service providers to consultative roles in the Continuum of Care application process, rather than assuring them decision-making roles.

· The new definition of homeless individual for HUD programs (and by extension other federal, state and local programs that use the HUD definition of homelessness) continues to exclude several subpopulations recognized in other federal law to be homeless, including homeless families living in shared housing for more than two week duration and single adults and childless couples living in shared housing due to loss of housing and economic hardship. Furthermore, the new definition is overly complex and likely to prove unwieldy for people to understand whether or not they are eligible for homeless assistance, or why they may be eligible for some homeless programs, but not others.

· The bill permits jurisdictions with low rates of homelessness to use Continuum of Care funds for people who are not homeless under the HUD definition but are homeless under other federal definitions, but limits this flexibility for jurisdictions with higher rates of homelessness, thus creating inequity in access to HUD-funded homeless assistance services across jurisdictions.

· The legislation limits flexibility of jurisdictions receiving Continuum of Care funds to spend resources on the full range of eligible activities by establishing priorities, incentives, and bonuses for some activities over others.

· The legislation limits flexibility of jurisdictions receiving Emergency Solutions Grant (formerly Emergency Shelter Grant) funds to spend the full amount of ESG resources on emergency shelter, outreach, and essential services.

· The bill codifies into law the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) without assuring privacy protections for homeless people or controlling use of HMIS data for decision-making.

· The bill misses the opportunity to elevate the Executive Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness to a Senate-confirmed position, or to have the ICH Director report directly to the White House rather than to an annual rotation of Cabinet secretaries.

· The bill’s definition of “rural area” for purposes of a new rural homeless assistance set-aside program permits metropolitan cities within some western states to remove themselves from the main Continuum of Care program and instead secure funds through the rural account.

NCH regrets that the above-mentioned weaknesses in the legislation were not adequately addressed in the HEARTH Act prior to passage. However, we will work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other stakeholders to assure implementation of the HEARTH Act in a manner as inclusive and protective as possible as the law affords for people experiencing homelessness and for homeless assistance service providers. The brief two-year authorization period for HUD McKinney-Vento programs provides a quick opportunity to ask Congress to redress weaknesses with the new law.

NCH thanks the many individuals and organizations who over this past decade educated us about the challenges in addressing homelessness in their lives and in their communities, who helped us shape our policy recommendations for HUD homeless assistance reauthorization, and who responded to our repeated calls for action.

We urge individuals and organizations who encounter barriers to accessing HUD homeless assistance programs as a result of the new law to report those concerns to their Members of Congress. Please also report them to NCH so that we may attempt to rectify challenges through HUD policy, regulation, or Congressional action.

NEOCH, the Cleveland Homeless Coalition, agrees with these comments along with our previous posts. We had such high hopes for this legislation, but we will have to continue to work on these issues.

Brian

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

McKinney Vento Law Signed

Obama Signed Housing and Homeless Law

This is an example of having to vote for a big bill that will help millions despite some of the negatives. The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act was signed into law on May 20 by President Obama. There are so many good things in this bill, but there are some big problems in the homeless piece of the legislation. Overall, the new law begins to address some of the huge problems within the housing market and corrects some of the problems in previous foreclosure bills. The press release from the White House about the bill only mentions briefly the homeless piece of the legislation.

• The flawed foreclosure bill from 2008 was corrected to help those homeowners underwater with their mortgages. There is also a provision to permit modification of federally guaranteed farm loans.
  
• The law attempts to increase lending, and will extend the increase in deposit insurance. It will increase borrowing authority for the FDIC, and will allow the credit union administration to create a stabilization fund to allow America's credit unions to lend.
• This law establishes protections for renters in foreclosed homes. This is one of the most important components of the law in that existing leases will be honored and will require a minimum of 90 day notice before an eviction can take place.
  
• The new law will allow borrowers to know who owns their loan, and they must be told when their loan is sold or transferred.
  
• The law, if given proper appropriation, will significantly increase funding for homeless services and will prioritize funding for homeless families.
  
• Fraud enforcement and recovery act, which bring brokers and other private mortgage institutions under the criminal code. This new law prohibits the manipulation of the mortgage lending business.
  
• The law corrects problems from the TARP legislation, and extends commodity futures and options market into the anti-fraud statutes. The law will hire additional fraud prevention and enforcement staff to investigate and prosecute fraudulent activities in the mortgage industry.
  
• Overall, the law will strengthen the federal government's regulatory and enforcement power to prevent future instability in the housing sector.
  

The homeless portion of this bill was given scant attention by the White House or the media, but this is actually a major step forward. All of the legislation that impact homeless people are wrapped up in the McKinney Vento law, but that has not been renewed by Congress since 1992. This was hold over legislation from the last Congress. The bill made it through the House, but did not clear the Senate. It was disguised as the HEARTH Act, but the real HEARTH Act was introduced by Congresswoman Julia Carson who passed away. This was a compromise legislation that is going to cause a lot of anxiety in the field. There is a tension in DC between those who are big supportive housing advocates and those who want to serve every homeless person. There is also a split between privacy activists and those who feel that it is in the best interest of the United States to count homeless people.

I stand firmly on the side of those who believe that homeless people should be able to remain private even if they want a bed from a publicly funded shelter. Of course, I want everyone to have access to housing assistance, and not just those with a disability or those who have been homeless for a long period of time. Here are the problems with the "HEARTH" portion of the law that was passed:

• The definition of homelessness was expanded, but not to the much better Department of Education definition. The problem for the local community is that the new definition is several pages long and will be very difficult for the local shelter case worker to figure out if the person in front of them meets the definition.
  
• Prevention and rapid rehousing will be a eligible activity under the Emergency Shelter Grant funds. This is helpful if there is a significant increase in ESG funding. If there is not then emergency shelters will have to compete for funds from the new projects being funded as part of the homeless prevention stimulus funding.
  
• The Homeless Management Information System will now be a part of the law, and case workers may have to collect a lot more personal information from their clients. These systems are expensive and rarely provide useful data. In Cleveland, this system is a big drain of resources to a corporation down in Louisiana that has yet to give us anything of value.
  
• Consolidated the various homeless programs under one program to make it easier for communities to access these dollars. This could present problems for rural communities.
• A set aside for 10 percent of the funding must be used for homeless families. Again a good idea, but it takes the away the decisions at the local level and forces those decisions to a bureaucrat in DC.
• In addition, there are goals to reduce family homelessness to 30 days or less as well as an incentive program to develop rapid rehousing programs for families.
  
• The new law will require 30 percent of the funding for permanent housing for people with serious disabilities. This a good concept, but it forces small communities to use their resources for permanent housing even if that is not the priority.
  
• Families are added to the offensively named "chronic homeless" definition. This would allow heads of households who have been homeless for a long period of time could gain access to some of the housing resources previously available only to single adults.
  
• Finally, there is a provision that prevents age discrimination of children. This is not a big deal in Ohio, because the state had outlawed separation by the shelters of 14 year old or older boys from being separated from their parents.

The big picture is that the law will help millions of homeowners, renters and yes, even some homeless people. The bill could have been so much better. The homeless portion of the bill could have help move toward an end of homelessness in America. We waited 17 years since the McKinney Vento bill was reauthorized. I hope that we do not have to wait until 2026 to get another homeless bill through Congress.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Upcoming Senate Session Advocacy

We Do Not Support Pseudo-Hearth Act--Drop S. 1518 until 2009

On October 2, the House passed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (HEARTH Act), which re-writes the portion of the McKinney-Vento Act that governs HUD's homeless assistance grant programs. The original HEARTH Act had the support of many homeless advocacy groups, and was introduced by the late Rep. Julia Carson of Indiana. However, the version of the bill just passed by the House is a compromise version of the legislation reached behind closed doors and passed with only 34 minutes of debate on the House floor. It is an almost unrecognizable version of the bill that was introduced, and we would like it dropped by the Senate. We would like the Senate and House to take up a new bill that has the support of a new administration early next year. Although there are many areas of improvement over the current McKinney-Vento legislation, such as key protections for homeless children and youth, NEOCH has several areas of concern. This legislation currently awaits action by the Senate in the form of S. 1518. We urge you to call Senator Sherrod Brown to encourage the Senate to hold this law until 2009. We do not support the current compromise legislation. Some of the biggest problems include:

The New Definition of Homelessness is Overly Complicated and Contains Some Arbitrary Timeframes and Provisions that Will Exclude Individuals and Families in Need: The bill expands the definition of homelessness and is an improvement over current law and practice. However, the new definition would be very complicated to administer at the local level, which might result in many families that need homeless assistance being found ineligible. It also arbitrarily excludes many persons and families in urgent need of assistance (ex. a family living in a motel but which has enough funds to stay at the motel for over 14 days), which limits flexibility for communities seeking to respond to the economic and foreclosure crisis with help to families becoming homeless. People at the local level should be given a larger role to determine eligibility for services based on need.

The Bill Places a Definition of Long Term Homeless into Law. The bill uses the offensive term “chronic homeless”, and while it expands the definition to include families we do not believe it is necessary. We should not segment the population and provide additional assistance to those based on the length of time they have spent homeless. Every homeless person needs help and our goal should be to end homelessness for everyone we come in contact.

The Bill Requires Every Group Receiving Federal Dollars to Submit Personal Data About Their Clients to a Central Database. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless does not support forcing shelters to have to submit personal data about their clients to a central database. We do not support the unfunded mandate, because of the privacy concerns of homeless people. We also have seen this data used to inaccurately reflect the total number of homeless people in a city, and we fear that it will be used as the basis for distribution of the federal funding.

The Bill Must Balance Homelessness Prevention with Needed Services for People Who Are Already Homeless: The bill increases the flexibility with which communities can use funds from the re-named Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which is a positive development. However, the bill does not set any minimum required amount for communities to spend on emergency shelters, meaning that communities could choose to eliminate emergency shelter in favor of spending all of their grant money on homelessness prevention. Although an end to homelessness is our ultimate goal, in reality there will be individuals and families who will need emergency shelter. Also, the bill sets aside a higher percentage of overall funds for the ESG program, which means less money for the main McKinney-Vento program to assist people who are already homeless. Therefore, the McKinney-Vento appropriations must be increased to ensure that we are sufficiently funding both homelessness prevention and services for people who are already homeless.

Mandatory Set-Asides Should be Removed: The House bill maintains the current requirement that 30% of funds to go to permanent housing for individuals with disabilities or families with a disabled head of household, and adds a 10% required set-aside for permanent housing for homeless families with children. Although the goals of these set-asides, to ensure permanent housing for individuals and families in need, are to be commended, this is the wrong approach because it severely limits communities’ flexibility in responding to homelessness. For example, it would inhibit the ability of a locality that funds transitional housing or innovative programs to be more cost effective than permanent housing or that already has permanent housing resources to use the funds in the way best suited for the particular community.

We Need You To: We ask that you call Senator Sherrod Brown’s office 202/224-2315 asking him to hold this bill until the 2009 Congress and the new Administration. For more specific information, contact NEOCH at (216) 432-0540. Please call us if you get any feedback from the Senator’s office. A full analysis of the bill and comparison to existing law can be found at the website of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness. The full text of the bill passed by the House can be found with the highlighted link.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Congress and Homeless Dollars

Congress Working to Renew HUD McKinney Vento Homeless Funding

(Photo by Pleasure Simmons graduate of the Grapevine Photo Class--For prints of any of the photos from the class contact NEOCH.)

BACKGROUND: HUD McKinney-Vento (HMV) programs make funds available to service providers in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the nation to provide emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, and supportive services to persons experiencing homelessness. Congress has not formally reauthorized the HMV law since 1992, leaving policymaking about HUD homeless assistance programs largely to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, with limited Congressional involvement. Congress is currently considering HMV reauthorization legislation. In the House, the Financial Services Committee is considering the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act, H.R. 840. NCH strongly supports the introduced version of the HEARTH Act.

STATUS: The Financial Services Committee postponed a markup session for the HEARTH Act that had been set for Tuesday, July 15, 2008. While a new markup date has not been rescheduled, it is expected that the Committee will call up a substitute amendment to the introduced version of the HEARTH Act later this month or in September.

WHY ACT: The substitute amendment will reportedly contain provisions that weaken the original HEARTH Act (which NEOCH supports) in some significant areas from the standpoints of homeless consumer access and protection and community flexibility. Among them:

• Ineligible People – The amendment’s definition of “homeless individual” for purposes of eligibility for HUD programs (and other federal and state programs that use the HUD definition) fails to include some living situations understood to be homeless, meaning that people in those situations will, with rare exception, remain ineligible for HUD-funded homeless assistance.
• Weakens Community Decision-Making – The substitute amendment does not assign a role to homeless people or service providers as formal decision-makers in a geographic area’s collaborative application for funding, as did the original bill.
• Restrictions on Eligible Activities – The substitute amendment puts into the force of law restrictions on a community’s use of funds that exist now only as administrative practice … and adds some new restrictions. This step will further reduce geographic areas’ flexibility to respond to homelessness the way it makes most sense.
• Privacy Concerns – The substitute amendment authorizes a data collection and reporting system on clients of HUD-funded homeless assistance, but does not ensure client privacy and safety of their data.

ACTION NEEDED NOW: Please fax letters or make telephone calls NOW! Markup of the HEARTH Act was postponed for July 15, but could be brought up again by the Financial Services Committee at any time. Financial Services Committee members need to hear from you as soon as possible. The message to your Congress member is that we support the original HEARTH Bill as proposed by the now deceased Rep. Julia Carson, and we do not support the anticipated changes. We urge Congressional leaders to work with the National Coalition for the Homeless on a bill that would work for Cleveland.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CALL OR E-MAIL NEOCH AND TO REPORT ANY FEEDBACK TO NEOCH:

Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.