On Sunday, Congress unveiled the details of a bipartisan infrastructure agreement. The agreement unfortunately does not include any housing provisions, but this package is just the first step in what will be a complicated, multi-step infrastructure package. So, you’re not off the hook on your August advocacy letters this week.

The bipartisan agreement is the product of months of negotiations between the White House and a bipartisan group of Senators. In June, the group announced that it had reached a deal for a nearly $1 trillion package but had been hammering out the specific details of the legislative text since that announcement. The bill text was released over the weekend and the Senate has been working on passage of the bipartisan agreement this week.

The bipartisan package will be accompanied by a budget resolution, which the Senate has yet to craft but is expected soon. The resolution will allow Democrats to move a second, larger infrastructure package without needing the support of their Republican colleagues, who do not agree with the size or scope of the package being discussed. This process is known as reconciliation.  

The House will consider both the bipartisan agreement and approve a reconciliation package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) has indicated that she will not allow the bipartisan agreement to pass without the reconciliation package.

Housing is expected, but not guaranteed, to be included in this larger reconciliation package. Since the details of the reconciliation package have yet to be determined, your letters this week are timely and incredibly important to this process. The more we speak up in support of housing as infrastructure, the more Congressional offices know that it is a priority for constituents.

Make sure your voice is heard this week in support of housing and community development programs in the infrastructure reconciliation package- send a letter every day to remind your Congressional offices and the White House that housing is critical infrastructure.

In August, NAHRO hit a major advocacy milestone by sending nearly 13,000 letters to Congress and the White House urging support for affordable housing and community development programs. So what? What impact does sending a bunch of pre-written letters actually have?

Sending letters can be frustrating. Sometimes when you send a letter, you do not hear back. If you do hear back, often you receive a canned response that does not directly address the points you raised in your letter. Don’t be dismayed- your letter actually has an impact in Congressional offices, even if you don’t see it.

What Happens to Your Letter?

Once you hit “send” in NAHRO’s Advocacy Action Center or on the Advocacy Center App, your letter is emailed straight to your lawmaker. Each Congressional office is different, but typically an intern or a lower-level staffer will read each and every correspondence they receive, whether it be a hand-written note that is mailed through USPS, an email sent to the office, or a comment submitted to their web site. That staffer will make note of the topic of your letter and file it away. Offices receive a significant number of letters each day, so this process can take time, especially now.

Tip: During COVID-19, many offices have not been hiring interns, which means your letters have been read by permanent office staff. Though these staffers are likely lower level, these staff frequently are promoted within the office to take on more responsibility and legislative work. That means your letters during the pandemic could have an even larger impact on offices.

Why Did I Receive That Response?

The staffer who reviews your letter will also select a response to send back to you. These response messages are pre-drafted and approved by your lawmaker. Since offices receive so many letters, offices can’t address every single topic they are contacted about, which is why sometimes the email you receive back doesn’t quite match what you wrote to them about. Don’t get frustrated by this – get motivated!

Tip: Unless you took the time to edit the letter in NAHRO’s Advocacy Action Center (which you can do, and which we encourage!), you also sent your lawmaker a pre-drafted, non-personalized letter. So, receiving a non-personal response is fair.

Why Did We Ask You to Send So Many Letters?

The reason why we focus so much on letter goals during our advocacy campaigns is because within Congressional offices, volume matters. The more people who contact a Senate or House office about things like Section 8 Administrative Fees, the more likely the office is to actually think about what that funding does and form policy positions around the topic.

Your letter was one of 13,000 and helped to elevate affordable housing and community development within offices. Every single letter matters, even if you don’t always see how. Your letter may have pushed Congressional offices to:

• Have a conversation with the boss: Step one to getting an office to prioritize affordable housing is to get them thinking and talking about it. If you and your colleagues sent enough letters on voucher access or the Public Housing Capital Fund, the staff will alert the member of Congress that their constituents (the people who they represent in their states or Congressional districts) are talking about this issue. If the office doesn’t know enough about the topic, this can push staffers to do more research and be prepared to brief their boss. Your letters help create awareness and understanding of affordable housing policy in offices.

• Draft a specific response letter: NAHRO’s more seasoned advocates have noticed a trend in the past couple years: the pre-drafted responses to their letters they are receiving are beginning to actually address specific HUD programs rather than housing or federal funding in general. Many offices have a specific number of letters they need to receive on any given topic to draft a response to it. In the past, letters on things like Section 8 vouchers or public housing would elicit responses like “I too care about homeownership.” Not quite right. Now, we’re seeing some responses that actually articulate support for things like increasing funding for the Capital Fund. Your letters are working.

Tip: Because of the volume of letters sent in August, while you may have received a slightly off topic response over the summer, since then offices may have changed their housing responses. Try contacting your Congressional offices again to see if you sent enough letters to change their response!

• Consider Being More Active in Housing: If members of Congress think that their constituents care deeply about certain topics, that impacts the decisions they make as individual members of Congress. This can result in a lawmaker doing things like giving speeches about housing, choosing to publicly support housing legislation, drafting housing legislation, or even joining a Congressional committee that makes decisions about housing policy. The more their constituents care, the more likely the member of Congress is to prioritize housing when making these decisions. Your letters help communicate that affordable housing matters in your community. This is how we build future champions for affordable housing in Congress.

Want to Do More?

If you’re ready to take the next step in advocacy, consider calling your lawmakers’ Washington, DC offices to follow-up on your letter. You can find their office number on their web site or you can be connected directly through the Capitol switch board: 202-224-3121. When you call, ask to speak with their housing staff. Introduce yourself and your agency, ask if they’ve seen a copy of your letter (they may not have), and briefly discuss how the highlights of the letter relate back to your agency and your work. If you need more help honing your messaging before calling offices, contact NAHRO’s Director of Congressional Relations Tess Hembree (thembree@nahro.org).

Our Letters Work

Your letters create higher funding levels and meaningful policy changes for HUD programs. Since FY 2018, HUD funding has been increased every single fiscal year, even during extremely difficult fiscal climates. You’ve affected the first legislation that specifically addresses the challenges of small public housing authorities. Your letters even helped end the longest government shutdown in history.

So next time you send a letter but don’t see an immediate impact, remember that every single letter raises awareness of affordable housing and community development in Washington, DC. Thank you for doing your part.

(Washington, D.C. – March 20, 2020) Today, NAHRO CEO Adrianne Todman participated in a phone call with HUD Assistant Secretary of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) Hunter Kurtz and other HUD staff, affordable housing industry groups CLPHA and PHADA, and public housing authorities (PHAs) from across the country to share important guidance on housing operations and respond to questions. 

Todman stated that NAHRO is calling on HUD and Congress to provide more than $20 billion to housing providers who operate public housing and Section 8 programs, and $10 billion for other critical community development projects needed during this unprecedented time. She also called for the creation and funding of a temporary assistance account for low-income workers who are unable to make rental or mortgage payments during the pandemic. 

NAHRO Is also asking HUD and Congress to give immediate relief to housing providers who are trying to respond to real-time needs while balancing federal regulatory red tape. “Housing providers should be focused on people, not paper,” Todman said. “Paying Section 8 landlords, sanitizing their property, adjusting the rent of families who have lost income because of the pandemic, helping families move into units – this is the critical work that needs to be done, not worrying about whether they will reprimanded in months when they are trying to do the right thing now.” 

“PHAs and housing providers are responding in real time to the needs of millions of families during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NAHRO President Sunny Shaw, Executive Director at Housing Alliance and Community Partnerships of Pocatello, Idaho. “As this extraordinary crisis continues, these agencies will need the help of both Congress and HUD to continue to provide shelter and aid to the families, veterans, seniors, persons with disabilities and children who live in public and assisted housing, while protecting their staff, residents and communities from the coronavirus.” 

A detailed list of NAHRO’s requests to HUD and Congress is available here. 

For more information, contact Sylvia Gimenez at sgimenez@nahro.org. 

The House on Tuesday approved a spending package that would provide HUD, particularly community development programs, with the highest funding levels seen in several years. Unfortunately, unless the Senate and the White House agree to the overall spending increases proposed by House Democrats, the funding levels contained in the bill are likely to change.

Along with Transportation-HUD, the minibus spending package included the FY 2020 Commerce-Justice-Science, Military Construction-VA, Agriculture, and Interior-Environment (HR 3052) bills. Consideration of the minibus began last week, and legislators worked through over 200 amendments before final passage of the bill. It was approved by a largely partisan vote of 227-194. A list of approved HUD amendments is below.

NAHRO’s coverage of the legislation, including in-depth analysis, can be found here (member protected).

The House will narrowly miss its target of completing all appropriations work before July, passing 10 of the 12 spending bills before adjourning for the 4^th of July recess. The Legislative Branch bill was pulled from a prior spending package because of a controversy over Congressional pay raises and the Homeland Security bill is being held from the floor because of disagreements over border wall funding.

While the House has made significant progress on FY 2020 spending, the Senate has not yet begun its appropriations work. The Budget Control Act of 2011 set arbitrary spending limits on federal spending through FY2021, but Congress has mostly avoided the limits by passing bipartisan budget deals to raise the caps. The current budget deal expires in FY2020 and a new deal will need to be reached to avoid massive spending cuts and sequestration next fiscal year.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) did not want to start writing spending bills until a spending deal is reached. However, with negotiations dragging on and the time to deal with appropriations before the beginning of the fiscal year becoming increasingly limited, Chairman Shelby is expected to instruct appropriators to start consideration of bills in July.

It isn’t clear what spending level the Senate will use, but it seems likely that it will stick with the current FY 2019 level, which is $88 billion lower than the topline level used by the House. As a result, the FY 2020 House and Senate THUD bills are likely to be very different. Unless the Senate and White House agree to a budget deal at the House-proposed level, the funding levels contained in the House THUD bill will almost certainly be lowered in the final version of THUD.

Approved HUD Amendments:

• Homeless Assistance Grants: Proposed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cali.). Increases funding for the Homeless Assistance Grants by $5 million. Another amendment proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) funding by an additional $1 million, bringing the total funding level to $2.806 billion.
• Continuum of Care: Proposed by Rep. Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-Del.). Requires HUD to study the continuum of care program and its impact of awarding transitional family housing grants via competitive assessments and the effectiveness of these programs versus alternative programs in achieving long-term housing stability.
• Fair Market Rent Calculations: Proposed by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Cali.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). Requires HUD PD&R to study alternative methods for calculating Fair Market Rents in rental markets with rapidly rising rents.
• Community Development Block Grant Disaster Relief: Proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas). Requires the HUD Office of Inspector General to investigate the Department’s delay in releasing over $5 billion in Hurricane Harvey Disaster Community Block Grant funds.
• Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing: Multiple co-sponsors: Increases funding for the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program by $2 million, bringing the total funding level to $42 million.
• Public Housing Oversight: Proposed by Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) and Sean Duffy (R-Wisc.). Orders HUD to continue to work with the HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG) to incorporate findings and recommendations of the OIG investigation, “Final Evaluation Report – HUD’s Oversight of Alexander County Public Housing Authority” and “Alexander County Housing Authority’s improper usage of HUD subsidized Asset Management Project Funds,” for the purposes of protecting public housing residents and improving agency oversight and enforcement of public housing regulations.
• Family Self-Sufficiency: Proposed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). Increases funding for FSS by $5 million, bringing the total funding level to $105 million.

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved the FY 2020 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) spending bill by a vote of 29 to 21. The bill now moves to the House floor, though the timing on a full House vote is unclear.

The spending bill was approved with a single amendment, a manager’s package that includes a provision mandating HUD report on which small agencies are included in regulatory relief provided by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Reform, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018 (frequently referred to as S. 2155). Congressman Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) requested the language be included at the advice of NAHRO.

Full details of the bill can be found on NAHRO’s web site (password restricted).

The House will consider a five-bill omnibus package next week, but unfortunately THUD is not included in the package. Timing of when the THUD bill will move to the floor isn’t known, though House Democratic leadership said they intend to approve all spending bills by the end of June. The Senate has not begun appropriations work yet, insisting that they will wait for a budget deal to be approved.

Prior to the full committee mark-up, report language was also released on the bill. These notable provisions were included:

• Sexual Harassment in Housing – Committee wants a report no later than 90 days after enactment on the activities of an interagency task force between HUD and DOJ to combat sexual harassment.
• Tenant-based rental assistance:
  • TPVs – more funding for TPVs is not to reposition public housing, but to address anticipated closures of certain PHA properties.
  • Fair Market Rents – committee directs HUD to work with authorizing committees to “develop statutory flexibilities” so that vouchers will be usable in rapidly rising rental markets.
  • Purchasing power of vouchers – committee directs HUD to report on impacts of rising rental market prices on purchasing power of vouchers. HUD should develop recommendations regarding funding levels necessary to ensure that PHAs can serve the same number of households.
• PD&R
  • Studies in the works:
    • Collaborating with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – how Medicare and Medicaid funds can be used to support programs that use affordable senior housing as a platform for coordinating health, etc.
    • A study of alternative methods for calculating FMRs in rental markets with rapidly rising rents.
• Public Housing
  • Secretary must evaluate requiring carbon monoxide detectors in HUD rental housing.
  • HUD must continue improving REAC inspections, as required in the House bill. This includes looking into potentially using civil monetary penalties to ensure PHAs and landlords maintain physical quality of HUD rental units. Congress also asks HUD to solicit comments from stakeholders, including tenants, on how they can improve REAC inspections. HUD needs to submit a 60-day progress report to Congress.
  • Congress asks HUD to create more stringent inspections for lead.
  • HUD must release S. 2155 FSS regulations within 90 days of enactment.

 

The historic government shutdown ended Friday night after Congressional leaders and the White House came to a deal to pass a short-term spending bill that expires on Friday, February 15.

The three-week continuing resolution was quickly approved by voice vote in both the Senate and the House. The President signed it shortly after it was cleared by Congress. The measure provides backpay to federal workers and resources for state governments that may have covered expenses otherwise covered by the federal government. It also extends the Violence Against Women Act.

 

NAHRO analysis suggests that the CR may support payments for March, and perhaps April, but we are waiting for confirmation from HUD. If the government had not reopened before the end of February, funding for the Public Housing Operating Fund and the Housing Choice Voucher program would have stopped.

While reopening the government is a positive step, the political situation in Washington is still contentious and it is possible another shutdown will happen at the end of the current CR.

If you’ve contacted HUD during the shutdown, it may take employees time to respond to your email, as workers have a month-long backlog of work to try to get through. NAHRO deeply appreciates the dedication of HUD employees who worked hard without pay during the shutdown to ensure that the impact to PHAs and residents was minimized.

Your voice throughout this shutdown was critical – NAHRO members sent more than 3,300 letters to Congress and the White House in just three weeks. NAHRO and its members were also featured in dozens of national and local news stories about the impact of the shutdown. Please continue to tell us your stories; if the government shuts down again, your stories will be needed to communicate to Congress and the media.

The President signed a spending package this afternoon that includes a continuing resolution providing funding for the government until Friday, December 7. This averts a government shutdown for the departments and agencies funded by the seven appropriations bills that will not be finalized before the beginning of FY 2019 on October 1. The package also includes an extension of the Violence Against Women Act, which was set to expire on September 30.

Congress approved five spending bills for FY 2019, the highest number in over 20 years. Negotiations were in progress on a four-bill package that included the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill, but unfortunately progress stalled this week and the package was never formally introduced. Negotiations broke down over issues with the Interior-Environment and Legislative Branch spending bills; reports are that THUD was easily negotiated.

The expiration of the CR on December 7 ensures that Congress will have to address spending in the lame duck, the time period when Congress returns to Washington after the election before the 115^th Congress adjourns for the final time in December.