Additionally, in case you've missed the announcements on various lists,
there are cuts to library services which impact local libraries, regional
talking book libraries, and Bookshare.
Miriam
A homeless person sits near the White House in Washington, D.C. (photo:
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Entire Homelessness Agency Could Be Eliminated by Trump's Budget Cuts
By Alastair Gee, Guardian UK
19 March 17
Shuttering the agency and cutting funds for low-income housing remind
experts of Reagan's deep spending cuts that 'ushered in a new age of
homelessness'
While much of the attention given to Donald Trump's budget proposal has
focused on dramatic cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and the
state department, amid the many cuts in the plan is the elimination of the
US Interagency Council on Homelessness (Usich).
In addition, Trump's budget would cut billions of dollars of funding for the
Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps provide low-income
housing.
Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, warned
in a statement that the proposal contained some of the deepest housing cuts
since "President Reagan dramatically reduced funding in the early 1980s.
Reagan's deep spending cuts ushered in a new age of homelessness."
In an interview, she said the reductions might result in 200,000 low-income
people no longer receiving rental assistance, putting them at risk of losing
the roofs over their heads. About 550,000 people were experiencing
homelessness on one night in 2016.
"At a time when we have reached new heights of an affordable housing crisis,
and lowest-income people are being impacted most severely, cutting resources
is the wrong approach to ending homelessness," she said.
The budget proposal is just that and will probably encounter pushback from
Congress.
The plan also envisions cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development of $6.2bn, or a 13% fall from 2016 levels. These include
programs that enable the development of affordable housing.
The cuts are explained in the proposal as reflecting a commitment to "fiscal
responsibility", and it foresees the slack being taken up by state and local
governments and the private sector.
Shuttering the Usich, meanwhile, would free up its relatively meager budget
of about $3.5m. Yet keeping it open is "simply a prudent investment", said
Nan Roman, head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
"This is one of the places where I think it's penny wise and pound foolish,"
agreed Barbara Poppe, who headed the council under President Barack Obama
until 2014.
The council was formed in 1987 and serves as a bridge between the various
federal agencies with a stake in homelessness, such as the departments of
veterans affairs or health and human services. It also connects localities
both with resources and with each other as they seek to bring people off the
streets.
Usich "has been essential to the progress we're seeing across the county
that's resulted in cuts to veteran homelessness by one half," Poppe said.
Homelessness in general has also decreased gradually since the recession. A
Usich spokesperson declined to comment.
While localities are taking a greater role in addressing homelessness - Los
Angeles voters approved a $1.2bn bond measure to house homeless people in
the 2016 elections, for instance - they probably cannot make up for federal
investment, especially not if that investment declines further.
"They decided to take this on locally because they already had a federal
deficit situation," Poppe said.
In an email to staffers after the numbers emerged, Ben Carson, the new HUD
secretary, asked them to "take some comfort in knowing that starting numbers
are rarely final numbers".
Roman, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, agrees. But she is not
reassured. "It's a very low starting point," she said. "That's distressing."
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