Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Votes on Cuts for HOME — Essentially Eliminates Program


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CARH’S BROADCAST E-MAIL – Legislative Update

June 23, 2015

This morning, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (THUD) voted to essentially eliminate funding for the HOME program. The Subcommittee voted to fund the program at $66 million. The House version of the THUD bill (H.R. 2577) would fund the program at $767 million, a decrease from the Administration’s requested level of $1.060 billion. (There is no Senate bill number assigned to the Senate’s version of the THUD bill. A bill number is not assigned until after full Committee action). CARH understands that Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and THUD Subcommittee will offer an amendment on Thursday, June 25, to restore funding for the program to a level of $1.2 billion.

It is essential that CARH members who have Senators that serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee, call or email them and ask them to support Senator Coon’s efforts to restore funds to the program. Committee members are:

Republican Members

  • Thad Cochran (Chair)(MS)
  • Mitch McConnell (KY)
  • Richard Shelby (AL)
  • Lamar Alexander (TN)
  • Susan Collins (ME)
  • Lisa Murkowski (AK)
  • Lindsey Graham (SC)
  • Mark Kirk (IL)
  • Roy Blunt (D-MI)
  • Jerry Moran (KS)
  • John Hoeven (ND)
  • John Boozman (AR)
  • Shelley Moore Capito (WV)
  • Bill Cassidy (LA)
  • James Lankford (OK)
  • Steve Daines (MT)

Democrat Members

  • Barbara Mikulski (Vice Chair)(MD)
  • Patrick Leahy (D-CA)
  • Patty Murray (WA)
  • Dianne Feinstein (CA)
  • Richard Durbin (IL)
  • Jack Reed (RI)
  • Jon Tester (MT)
  • Tom Udall (NM)
  • Jeanne Shaheen (NH)
  • Jeff Merkley (OR)
  • Chris Coons (DE)
  • Brian Shatz (HI)
  • Tammy Baldwin (WI)
  • Christopher Murphy (CT)

Click here to access contact information for all Senators. Even if your Senator is not a member of the Appropriations Committee you should make the contact to show support for this very vital component of affordable housing.

In contacting your Senators please make the following points:

  • HOME uniquely empowers state and localities to respond to the housing needs they judge most pressing, allowing them to serve the whole spectrum of need from homelessness to rental to disaster recovery assistance.
  • HOME is flexible and can be used in rural or non-rural areas.
  • The program is a vital piece in financing numerous affordable housing developments, many of which would not be able to go forward and many of which would not provide housing for low-income families with HOME assistance.
  • HOME does not replace resources committed to rural areas, but is an important gap financing program.
  • States and localities leverage HOME by generating almost four dollars of other public and private funding to HUD.
  • CARH Members should also include specific transactions which show the usage of the HOME program in the states.

If CARH members are able to receive a commitment from your Senator’s office for increased funding and in particular Senator Coon’s amendment, please let the national CARH office know by emailing us at carh@carh.org.


Don’t miss CARH’s 2016 Midyear Meeting
January 25-27, 2016, at the Westin Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio, Texas!


Council for Affordable and Rural Housing

1112 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

703-837-9001 Phone; 703-837-8467 Fax

carh@carh.org; www.carh.org

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