The House FY 12 T-HUD bill by the numbers

• By Clare Duncan, National Housing Conference
• September 22, 2011
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This post originally appeared on National Housing Conference's (NHC) web site. Read more from NHC by visiting the Open House blog.

Yesterday the Senate Appropriations Committee marked-up its fiscal year 2012 Transportation and Housing (T-HUD) budget, following a markup by the THUD Subcommittee on September 20^th. The bill includes $55.3 billion for both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), $100 million less than enacted in FY 2011. The House FY 12 THUD bill provided $55.1 billion for these two agencies, which passed the House Appropriations THUD Subcommittee on September 8. There was one manager’s amendment that passed during the committee mark-up but as of this posting details have not been released. 

As with the House FY 12 THUD bill, there’s good and bad news for housing programs (recognizing that in this budget environment, flat funding counts as good.) 

The good

• Tenant-based and project-based Section 8 rental assistance would be fully funded, with $18.9 billion and $9.4 billion respectively
• Level funding for homeless assistance at FY 2011 levels.
• $125 million for housing counseling, including $60 million for HUD’s housing counseling  (which was cut in FY 2011) and $65 million for the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program
• $90 million for the Sustainable Communities Initiative
• $120 million for the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative 

The bad

• The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and the HOME program would be cut severely from FY11 enacted levels, deeper than in the House FY12 THUD bill, receiving $2.85 billion and $1 billion respectively
• The Section 202 program would be cut from FY11 enacted levels receiving $368 million, a sharp contrast to the House bill, which would increase funding for the program. The Section 811 program would be funded at the same level as FY11 but is also lower than the House bill, which also increased funding for the program.
• The public housing operating and capital funds would both be cut from FY11 enacted levels, although not as much as in the House bill. 

The House and Senate continue to work to pass these appropriations bills, which will likely be through one omnibus bill.  However, it is unlikely that any of the FY12 appropriations bills will pass both chambers before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, requiring another short-term continuing resolution to keep the government running. For more information, please see the Senate bill summary.  

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