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| Action Alerts |
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6/28/2011 Tell Congress to Keep Title V of McKinney-Vento Participate.
Efforts are underway in Congress to change Title V of the McKinney-Vento Act, a program that has allowed homeless service providers to lease or own surplus federal property for free for homeless housing or services since 1987. Title V properties benefit 2.4 million homeless people each year, providing emergency and transitional housing, job training, and other services.
We need your help. Bills like H.R. 1734 and a forthcoming Senate bill could undermine the ability of service providers to provide much-needed housing and services to homeless people. In this time of economic crisis, family homelessness has risen 20 percent since 2007. Title V is not the problem, and now is the worst time to undermine it.
Please call or write your Members of Congress.
1. Urge them to preserve Title V of the McKinney-Vento Act so homeless service providers have access to unused government property at no cost. 2. Tell them Title V is not responsible for the backlog of unused federal properties. 3. Thank them for reforming federal property disposal without harming homeless people.
To contact Congress, click here for your Representative and here for your Senators.
To learn more about Title V protections, click here or contact Jeremy Rosen, the Law Center's policy director, at jrosen@nlchp.org. 5/11/2010 Call on Obama to Bring Human Rights Home Participate. President Obama has stated that "it
is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over
their
heads in a country as wealthy as ours," and expressed his desire for the
U.S. "lead by
example" in terms of human rights at home and abroad. He is now considering issuing an
executive order on human
rights. In this time of economic crisis, the executive order would
address the
human rights obligations of the United
States and put concrete action behind
President Obama's recognition that human rights begin at home. The
National Law
Center on Homelessness & Poverty, in partnership with the Human
Rights at
Home Campaign, has been pressing the Administration to issue a
comprehensive
executive order that would integrate the U.S.'s human rights commitments
into
all agencies of the government. This executive order presents President Obama with an important opportunity to uphold core American values of equality and justice for all by building a much-needed human rights infrastructure here at home. It would emphasize that human rights aren't just the responsibility of the State Department, but of the Departments of Housing & Urban Development, Health & Human Services, Justice, Labor, Education - all the agencies that help ensure Americans' human rights on a day-to-day basis.
Click here for sample letter text. Letters can be mailed to the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20500 or emailed to president@whitehouse.gov. 4/7/2010 Support Children's Rights to Adequate Housing Participate.
Contact the Law Center's Policy Director Jason Small with questions at jsmall@nlchp.org or by calling 202-638-2535. 2/23/2010 Developing a Federal Plan to End Homelessness Help Develop a Federal Plan to End Homelessness for All Americans and Support Funding for McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Grants Participate. Action Alerts provide an opportunity for you to make a real difference in the lives of homeless men, women, and children.
Please help today.
First, the federal government needs your help to develop a plan to end
homelessness. Need some guidance? Take a look at
the Homeless Advocates Group's letter
to USICH Director Barbara Poppe and/or Executive Director Maria
Foscarinis's written
submission to USICH. Our key recommendations include:
1/19/2010 Rural Housing Funds Available in 2010 Congress has completed Agriculture Appropriations for FY 2010. There are several provisions within the bill for rural housing development. A synopsis of this information follows. Rural Housing Insurance Fund Program Account The bill contains the following for gross obligations for the principal amount of direct and guaranteed loans as Authorized under Title V of the Housing Act of 1949: $13,226,501,000 for loans to section 502 borrowers, of which $1,226,501,000 shall be for direct loans, and of which $12,000,000,000 shall be for unsubsidized guaranteed loans; $34,412,000 for section 504 housing repair loans; $69,512,000 for section 515 rental housing; $129,090,000 for section 538 guaranteed multi-family housing loans; $5,045,000 for section 524 site loans; $11,448,000 for credit sales of acquired property, of which up to $1,448,000 may be for multi-family credit sales, and $4,970,000 for section 523 self-help housing land development loans. The bill includes $1,485,000 for section 538 multi-family housing guaranteed loans, and $18,935,000 for construction repair, and rehabilitation of section 515 rental housing. Any balances from previous section 515 demonstration programs shall be merged with the Rural Housing Service, Multi-family Housing revitalization Program Account. Rental Assistance Program $980,000,000 is available for rental assistance agreements, including $50,000 per project foradvances to nonprofit agencies or public organizations to cover direct costs incurred in purchasing projects. Over $2 million is available for newly constructed units under Section 515 of the Housing Act of 1949, and $3.4 million is available for units financed under sections 514 and 516 of the act. These agreements must be for one-year periods. Multi-Family Housing Revitalization Program Account $39,651,000 is made available for rural housing vouchers, as well as to conduct a demonstration program to provide revolving loans for the preservation of low-income multi-family housing projects and a demonstration program for the preservation and revitalization of multi-family rental housing properties. This money is available until its expended. $18,000,000 of the aforementioned money shall be available for rural housing vouchers to any low-income household residing in a property financed with a section 515 loan that has been prepaid after September 2005. The voucher size is specified as the difference between market rent and what the tenant pays for rent. These vouchers are subject to annual appropriations. The Secretary of Agriculture shall administer these vouchers with current section 8 housing voucher guidance from HHS in mind. If the Secretary of Agriculture determines that the amount applied toward vouchers is too much, the Secretary can use such funds for demonstration programs for the preservation and revitalization of multi-family rental housing properties. $1,791,000 million is to be available for the costs of loans to private nonprofit organizations or a demonstration program to provide revolving loans for the preservation of low-income multifamily housing projects. $19,860,000 of the funds in this heading are available for a demonstration program for the preservation of section 514,515,and 516 multi-family rental housing properties to restructure existing USDA multi-family housing loans, as deemed appropriate by the Secretary, expressly for the purposes ensuring the project has sufficient resources to preserve the project for the purpose of providing safe and affordable housing for low-income residents and farm laborers. The Secretary can determine that these funds be used for vouchers. If Congress enacts legislation to permanently authorize a multi-family rental housing loan restructuring program similar to the demonstration program described above, then the Secretary can use funds available for a demonstration program under this section heading to carry out such legislation with the prior notification of the Committees on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress. Rural Housing Assistance Grants $41,500,000 of this money is available under the bill for grants and contracts for very low-income housing repair, supervisory and technical assistance, compensation for construction defects, and rural housing preservation made by the Rural Housing Service. Any balances left in these funds will also be transferred to the Rural Housing Service, Multi-Family Housing Revitalization Program Account. Rural Community Facilities Program Account $6,256,000 is appropriated for a Rural Community Development Initiative, which is to be used solely to develop the capacity of private, nonprofit community-based housing and community development organizations, low income rural communities, Federally Recognized Native American Tribes to undertake projects to improve housing, community facilities, community and economic development projects in rural areas. Qualified private nonprofit and public intermediary organizations will receive the funds, provided they can get matching funds from other sources, including Federal funds for related activities. 12/1/2009 Call-in December 1 & 2 to Get Money for NHTF Be a part of the effort to create more affordable housing in the United States. Please call your representative and both of your senators on December 1 or 2. Tell them you want at least $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund before Congress adjourns later in December. Ask them to support any bill moving through the House or Senate that contains money for the NHTF. The Law Center is joining the National Low Income Housing Coalition and other advocates in this effort. Our goal is to create an early-December blizzard of phone calls from all over in a compressed period of time to demonstrate strong and urgent support for an initial infusion of money for the NHTF. The July 2008 passage of the National Housing Trust Fund was one of our key policy priorities. If well funded, this major victory will help communities across the country build and rehabilitate affordable rental housing for low-income households. Call 877-210-5351 to reach the toll-free congressional switchboard. Ask to be connected to the housing staffer for your representative's and senators' offices. Please pass this message on to others. Contact NLCHP Policy Director Jason Small with questions at jsmall@nlchp.org or by calling 202-638-2535. 11/18/2009 Make Violence Against Homeless People a Hate Crime Current hate crimes legislation does not track violence against people experiencing homelessness, but Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Susan M. Collins (R-ME) are trying to change that. The senators have introduced the Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act (S. 1765), which would add homeless people to the federal hate crimes statistics statute. The legislation has been placed on the Senate Judiciary Committee schedule and could be marked up as early as November 19, but more likely the week of the November 23. The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty joins the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) in encouraging homeless people, advocates, service providers and other concerned citizens living in districts served by senators on the Judiciary Committee to call and urge them to vote in support of S. 1765. Judiciary Committee senators include: Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Dick J. Durbin (D-IL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Herb Kohl (D-WI), and Russ D. Feingold (D-WI). To contact your senator, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to him/her. If the lines are busy, you can call their District offices or send an email to them from the senator's web page. To find your senators' web pages, go to www.senate.gov, and look them up by their last names. Urge your senator to vote "yes" on S. 1765, the Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act, and share with them any examples of local violence against homeless people of which you are aware. Background: Hate crimes are criminal offenses committed against a person, property, or society which are motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a certain class of people. In many cases, perpetrators of hate crimes do not know their victims personally and they do not seek material gain or vengeance; their actions are intended only to intimidate or dehumanize. The damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents; hate crimes leave a special emotional and psychological mark on victims and their communities, leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable, and unprotected by the law. The Law Center and NCH have documented a disturbing rise in unprovoked violence against homeless people since 1999, noting more than 700 attacks, 200 of which were fatal. These attacks ranged from beating a victim with a golf club to dousing a sleeping man with gasoline and setting him on fire. Victims included men and women, veterans, children as young as four, youth, and elders. Though these statistics are troubling, they do not represent the full extent of the problem, as countless acts of violence against the homeless go unnoticed or unreported. For more information, see "Hate, Violence, and Death on Main Street, USA," our report on hate crimes toward people experiencing homelessness. Contact Jason Small, the Law Center's policy director, with questions at jsmall@nlchp.org. 5/11/2009 Senate Passes HUD McKinney and Renter Protection Legislation to reauthorize the McKinney-Vento Act housing programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was passed out of the Senate today as an amendment to S. 896, the "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act." The amendment, authored by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) would codify the Continuum of Care process and consolidate three competitive HUD McKinney programs (Supportive Housing, Shelter Plus Care, and Section 8 Single Room Occupancy) into a single program with greater flexibility. The bill would also rename the Emergency Shelter Grant program as the Emergency Solutions Grant program and expand eligible activities to include short- and medium-term rental assistance, housing relocation assistance, and additional activities to prevent homelessness. Additionally, the bill creates new flexibility for nonprofits in rural areas and directs the Interagency Council on Homelessness to develop a national plan to end homelessness and work to eliminate laws and policies that criminalize homelessness. While the bill is not perfect, NLCHP believes that it represents an important step forward. In addition to Senator Reed's HUD McKinney amendment, S. 896 as passed by the Senate also included an important renter protection amendment offered by Senator John Kerry (D-MA). Senator Kerry's amendment would require that in any foreclosure made "on a federally-related mortgage loan or on any dwelling or residential real property after the date of enactment," tenants in such dwellings with bona-fide leases or tenancies would have the right to remain in the unit for the remainder of their lease and would have the right to 90 days notice prior to eviction. A recent review of state foreclosure laws by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition found that renter notification laws are uneven across states and in only a few states did tenancy survive foreclosure (a copy of the report, Without Just Cause, may be found here). NLCHP supported both the Reed and Kerry amendments. The Senate passed its version of S. 896 by a vote of 94-5. A companion bill to S. 896 has already passed the House but lacks the tenant protection and McKinney reauthorization provisions. The next step in the process will be for the House and Senate to appoint a conference committee to address differences between the two bills. Once the conference committee has agreed to the language, the bill must be passed again by the full House and Senate and be signed by the President in order to become law. NLCHP will be sending out an additional alert once conferees have been chosen. Thanks to all who made calls or sent emails in support of the legislation. With your help, we can provide new resources and protections to vulnerable individuals and families. For more information, contact Laurel Weir. |
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