How much do you know about the HUD CDBG Program that Bush is killing?

[JanMichael]

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is a thirty year old Federal program that helps local and state governments work to improve the lives of Low Income Americans. It is a reliable funding source to help local communities address issues like substandard housing, homelessness programs, neighborhood revitalization, and a host of other things that help our poorest citizens. Without it people will suffer or your local property taxes will have to go up.

I know that many of you probably already know about it due to being activists and politically active, but most people don't have a clue as to what CDBG does.

That said it's being eradicated by Bush in his new budget proposal. He does this by eliminating CDBG (And several other programs that add up to an additional billion $$) from HUD's budget and creating a "new" program in the Commerce Department that's almost 40% less that the last years CDBG (And other supporting programs) budget. CDBG type activities go from 4.7 Billion to 3.7 Billion which is a 23% loss. The other activities plus CDBG were about 5.7 Billion which totaled is a HUGE cut in LOCAL Community Development dollars (About 40% but I'm too tired to look it up).

Plus, if they don't fund CDBG next year, many cities ill still need to pay back development loans (108 Loans) which were granted with the PROMISE that they would be repayed with future CDBG dollars! They would then have to be paid with LOCAL money. This is a GIANT debt redistribution from the top to the bottom.

This is part of the attack on discretionary domestic spend which is rationalized as being "Fiscally Conservative" but is really being caused by increased military spending and lost revenue due to tax cuts to the Rich, that's combined with the fact that they hate urban (BLUE) areas and their elected officials. So they hurt the poorest of the poor, to pay for their war, and pad their pocketbooks, the fuckers.

I've included the following from the National Community Development Association whose site is here: http://www.ncdaonline.org/

Here(pdf) is their 1st reponse to the destructive cuts.

Below is a "FACT SHEET" on CDBG. Contact your representatives if you care about these types housing, rehabilitation, community development, neighborhood stabilizing, types of programs.

Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)

FACT SHEET

• In FY 2004 alone, 94.9% of the CDBG funds allocated to entitlement communities went to activities principally benefitting low- and moderate-income persons and 96.4% of the CDBG funds allocated to States went to activities principally benefitting low- and moderate-income persons.

• In FY 2004, CDBG provided funds for thousands of local activities, assisting over 23 million persons and households.

• In FY 2004, CDBG assisted 159,703 households with their housing needs. Of this number, 112,000 owner-occupied single-family homes were rehabilitated, 19,000 rental units were rehabilitated, and more than 11,000 households became new homeowners.

• Over 9 million persons, of whom an estimated 74% were low- and moderate-income, were served by new or reconstructed public facilities and infrastructure, including new or improved roads, fire stations, libraries, water and sewer systems, and centers for youth, seniors, and person with disabilities.

• More than 13 million persons received assistance through a wide range of public services, including employment training, child care, victims of domestic violence assistance, transportation services, crime awareness, legal services, and services for seniors, the disabled and youth. Of this number, 1.6 million seniors were assisted through programs that provide meals on wheels and adult day care. More than 1.5 million youth were served by after-school enrichment programs and other activities designed to keep children safe. Child care services were provided to 100,065 children in 205 communities across the country, enabling parents to go to work with the knowledge that their children were in a safe environment. These dollars also funded nearly 700 crime prevention and awareness programs.

• More than 78,000 jobs were created or retained in hundreds of communities throughout the nation.

• For every one dollar of CDBG funding approximately $2.79 in private funding was leveraged in FY 2004.

• CDBG has a good track record in business retention, with over 80% of the businesses assisted through the program still in operation after three years.

• CDBG grantees are very efficient in spending their allocations. In 1999, 399 entitlement grantees out of 1,111 were considered “untimely” in spending their CDBG allocation, meaning they had at least 1.5 years of their current allocation remaining to be spent. In FY 2004, 55 entitlement grantees (5%) were considered “untimely” by HUD. Currently, however, only 3 (less than 1% of all entitlement grantees) of those grantees have failed to meet HUD’s requirement to spend their allocation in a timely manner.

Section 108 Loan Guarantees

Section 108 is the loan guarantee provision of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

Section 108 provides communities with a source of financing for economic development, housing rehabilitation, public facilities, and large-scale physical development projects.

• Since 1978, over $6.5 billion in Section 108 lending has helped to finance approximately 1,500 total deals and stimulated over $19.5 billion in private sector investment. These results have occurred at a cost of only around $150 million to the federal government.

• In FY 2004 alone, the program created or retained approximately 11,700 jobs.

• There has never been a call on this federal guarantee.

• For each dollar of Section 108 funding, approximately $1.54 in private funding is leveraged.

• The survival rate of businesses assisted through Section 108 is good, with over 80% of the businesses still in operation after three years.

Data for this Fact Sheet was derived from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development


PS! Almost all of the work, success, is in places that the private sector feared to tread...THEN after the Local/Fed development the Provate money hounds usually followed suit.

[DebJ]

1. Thanks for the info!

[JanMichael]

2. Thanks. I know it all sounds abscure and convoluted but these programs...

...help so many people that it's hard to count them all!

From rehabbed homes (Usually the frail elderly), to subsidizing Homeless Shelters, to building sidewalks around schools, it's all over the board, and by design too.

[CottonBear]

3. I've written CDBG grant applications.

I worked for an engineering firm in Georgia. We got grants for funding to install water lines in small, poor rural towns. I interviwed every household in 3 towns in NE GA. I had to get detailed income and family information. I mapped the entire town using the demographic information which I collected.

I had a big adventure and met many interesting people. I met several very old black families who lived in tiny 1800's era homes. They all had pictures of MLK & JFK on the living room wall. I met an old white woman in her 90's who had a complete Confederate soldiers uniform in her attic. I met a family who chief wage earner worked as a clerk at McDonalds. I met a future state representative. I met single white women with babies living in run-down trailers. I met a race car driver who drove at the local tracks. I met many people who could not read or write. I met Mexicans who were playing folk music with a fiddle and guitar. I met good, bad, sad, weird and some scary people. I met lots of big dogs.

The towns would qualify in part if they had such a small tax base that they could not afford to fund the utility construction. The reason for the grants was the need for clean water. These towns had small residential lots which were served by wells and septic tanks. The very small lot sizes would not be allowed for new construction with wells and septic tanks. The wells and septic tanks were too close together resulting in coliform and fecal coliform contamination of the well water. Your well might be uphill of your septic system but it would be downhill from your neighbors.

I took water samples from a statistical sample of the homes. (I also made some narrow escapes from unleashed pit bulls raised for dog fighting!) We got the grants. The residents could connect to the "city water" with no initial meter fee. The wells were disconnected from the homes to prevent possible backflow into the public system but could still used for outdoor watering purposes.

Public health is important. Clean water is important. I suppose * isn't as compassionate as he thinks he is. :cry:

[JanMichael]

4. Bingo! I knew that someone here would've been involved with CDBG funds

I'm guessing that the tiny towns went for a State administered "Small Cities" grant.

Those are competitive grants that can be be very, very helpful in public health, public safety ways.

Bigger place are usually labelled "Entitlement" cities which use CDBG to do things that their tax based simply won't do.

This is truly an attack on the one place where people acually have some control, Local Government.

[CottonBear]

5. Thanks for posting about this proposed CDBG budget cut.

The small towns are mostly populated by the old, poor, minorities and the disabled. These towns were in (at the time) mostly rural and exurban counties. Where I live (Athens, GA) CDBG funds are used for many projects in the poorer parts of the city which were historically underfunded and undeveloped. These are mainly black neighborhoods. We have a huge population of urban poor here.

I just can't believe how low Bushco will go. This cut might get the attention of the mainly republican engineers who work on these public utility grant projects. The consultant is paid a percentage of costs to design and supervise the projects.
It will hurt their income and thus their employees income as well.

Disclosure: I no longer work for the firm that pursued CDBG projects. My current work is in other areas of civil engineering and land planning.

[JanMichael]

7. This is the true test of how badly the system is broken.

You are correct that traditionally Republican businesses are the recipients of much of the construction/design CDBG dollars.

I've heard of some bidtime Republicans squirming over the last week or so, but truth be told, my sources are ever so slightly leaning toward capitulation.

Many of my contacts think the old paradigm will prevail and sanity will prevent the destruction of this, proportionally speaking, small program. On the other hand, a few more, feel that the Rep. whining is bullcrap and when the budget process resumes CDBG will be disolved into Commerce and the concept of "Entitlement" will go with it. They think the sympathetic ones will eventually say "Sorry, terrorism/War/Deficits" and give in.

This is some seriously scary stuff. I know that the war sucks, I protested in DC prior to the Invasion, I know the SS privatisation is absurd too, but this is the "True Believers" test---Most Republicans that I know like the CDBG Program, it along with the HOME Program do good things that they simply can't deny...However if they let this decent program go, even acknowledging its worth, knowning that it's focused on the poorest of the poor...Than it's over.

I give it a 25% chance of NOT going to Commerce. I give it a 5% chance of not getting cut a minimum of 20%.

Things are not looking good.

[JanMichael]

6. BTW it was Nixon and a Dem Congress that started the program.

Along with the EITC they dd a prety good job even though Tricky Dick was a la la la la lunatic.

[JanMichael]

8. Kick.

This shit is important.

[merh]

9. They say elephants never forget, but the truth is repukes have

very short memories when it comes to the harm caused when their leaders are in charge of our nation.

Raygun's administration cut millions from grant programs that helped local governments. The LEAA grants were cut out by Raygun and the city and county governments that had used the grants to hire law enforcement personnel were left holding the bag and it was empty. The departments had more personnel than it could afford. Cops were laid off and services were cut.

That is just one example of the many grant programs cut by Raygun. That is what is happening now, all local governments are feeling the impact and our personal property taxes are increasing in an effort to make up the difference. Cops are writing more tickets in an effort to supplement their budgets and of course, local governments are increasing all the fines and fees that they can.

One day these people will figure it out, my question of course is, WHEN?

[JanMichael]

10. The 20 years of reconstruction since RR has made this round of attack...

...potentially much more damaging.

Entire systems were created to provide services that our giant swindling machine economy ignored.

The web of financing with/in bonds, districts, municipalities, universities, etcetera is enormous.

This time, because we're now SO integrated, could be disasterous...

[merh]

11. I agree with you, it will be very devasting.

Why can't folks see that? :shrug:

[JanMichael]

13. Because they don't understand the relationships?

Maybe things, due to all sorts of changes, have (Even though people benefit from them) become too complicated for the averge Jill. She gets her information from a damned idiot box that doesn't have the ability to explain it in the first place! We have few ways I guess of explaining how a sidewalk suddenly appeared on the route to school. Some may know the funding source but I doubt that number is high.

I'm both tired and somewhat blocked no, sorry, "Tight" (Hemingway speak for drunk...) so I guess i'll let this thread that's too complicated die...

[G_j]

12. thank you

I bet many in Congress don't know much about this or about many of the other 154 programs they are being asked to cut or eliminate.
I don't, and I doubt Congress critters will have enough time to examine these programs which so many people have devoted blood sweat and tears in building. I have an idea, cut the insanely bloated military first...oh never mind....

[JanMichael]

15. How have you been?

I hope well and good.

As to this budget mess all I can say is that emails and letters to those rat bastard reps might help.

This is a bold, crazy, move by Bush, we'll see how many "True belivers" in the Congress there are. BTW I've met local folks, who deal with this program, that want to see all federal funding die. They're fuckin' nuts.

[G_j]

16. doing pretty well

thanks, playing music in a new band has helped counteract the insanity.. :-)

Here is a list of the programs Bush wants to cut or scrap for those who have not seen it. Of course no plans to eliminate tax cuts for the rich which contribute far more to the deficit than low income programs. (aprox. 48% compared to 6%)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050211-2256-programcuts-list.html

peace & love..

[JanMichael]

20. Sounds like fun.

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Good link too.

[Sugarbleus]

14. ATTEN: CALL TO ACTION!! Help Save Low Income Housing

Interested DUer's,

I connected with a group in MY area on the issues of housing. Some of the data represents OUR crisis BUT the overall message and activism asked for herein applies to all citizens across the country dealing with affordable housing and Bush's Budget. If you can, please forward this info and do what you can in terms of protesting the Bush FY06 Budget Proposal..especially if you are among those who depend on help with your housing issues.
................................................................
***Please forward this message to everyone and anyone who will be willing to help***

CALL TO ACTION FOR EVERYONE INTERESTED IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING:



Urge Members of Congress: REJECT the President's FY06 Budget Proposal during BUDGET CALL-IN DAYS, February 23 and 24, 2005!!


As you are aware, the budget proposal for 2006, and its accompanying 5-Year Plan, has devastating consequences for all domestic social programs. The disabled, elderly, and working families will be hit hard by cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Developments budget. Hundreds of key housing programs will be cut or eliminated, such as Housing for Persons with Disabilities (section 811), which is threatened to be cut in HALF!!!, and the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which has been vital to communities across the nation for 30 years by funding critical programs such as clinics, daycares, senior centers, shelters, and other essential components of a community now facing the prospects of ZERO FUNDING for 2006.



In addition to cutting these key low-income programs, the President proposes 5-Year spending caps that would freeze funding for low-income programs at low 2006 funding levels. Although the 2006 proposal restores approximately 50% of the 80,000 vouchers cut Nationwide in 2005, the 5-Year spending cap will force Housing Authorities to cut far more than that by the year 2010. The state of California alone will see a cut in 52,925 families from the Section 8 program in 2010 in addition to the 12,027 families cut in 2005. The Counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey face the elimination of 671 families each from their Voucher programs, including 175 disabled Voucher holders, 121 elderly Voucher holders for Santa Cruz County and 148 disabled Voucher holders, 174 elderly Voucher holders for Monterey County. The County of Santa Clara faces the elimination of 1,673 families from the program, including 284 disabled Voucher holders and 552 elderly Voucher holders. (This data is based on an analysis by the Center on Budget Policies and Priorities).



Congress is on a budget fast track and will attempt to begin work on a budget by March 7. Use the February 23 and 24 Budget Call-In Days to voice opposition to the President's budget!!!



What can you do on February 23rd and 24th:


1. Call 1-888-818-6641 and ask to be connected to their offices

2. Ask to speak to the Legislative Assistant responsible for Budget Issues

3. Call again to speak to your Senators' offices

4. Contact Sam Finkelstein at [e-mail] to let him know

the results of your calls.

5. Forward this to everyone who will make calls. Ask your friends, family, clients, and contacts to make calls!!!



The Message:



Representative/Senator, "please oppose the President's FY06 budget proposal:



The overall funding level for HUD is inadequate to fund ALL housing programs. We are calling for an increase in the entire HUD budget!!
The proposed budget will cap spending on housing programs and other key low income programs, causing a deeper cut to vital low income programs over time.
The proposed budget protects tax cuts for the wealthy, while gouging low income programs. You MUST oppose the President's FY06 budget!!!!!!!


Sam Finkelstein
Housing Choices Coalition
PO Box 1591
Soquel, Ca. 95073
[phone] - office
[phone] - cell
www.housingchoices.com
.........................................

*reposted from my other thread*

[G_j]

17. budget calls for sharp cuts in funding for housing programs in future

http://www.cbpp.org/2-18-05hous.htm

PRESIDENT’S BUDGET WOULD RESTORE SOME RENTAL VOUCHERS CUT
IN 2005 BUT REDUCE THE PROGRAM SUBSTANTIALLY IN FUTURE YEARS:
370,000 Fewer Families Could Receive Voucher Assistance by 2010

Executive Summary

The President’s budget for fiscal year 2006 proposes a modest increase in funding for the “Section 8” Housing Choice Voucher Program that is sufficient to restore about half of the 80,000 vouchers being cut in 2005 due to inadequate federal funding this year. This restoration would likely be temporary, however, since the budget also calls for sharp cuts in funding for housing programs in years after 2006, and the reductions could cause the number of families with vouchers to drop by 370,000 by 2010. The budget also proposes changes to the funding structure of the voucher program that would increase the chances that cuts of this magnitude would actually occur.

The voucher program, the nation’s largest low-income housing assistance program, currently helps about two million households — most of them senior citizens, people with disabilities, and working families — rent modest housing in the private market.

Proposed Voucher Funding Levels for 2006

The President’s budget requests $15.8 billion to fund the voucher program in 2006, which is $1.1 billion above the 2005 level. This increase reflects three developments:

Approximately 50,000 families will lose assistance under other federal housing programs this year, according to HUD. Many of these families are currently living in public housing units that are slated for demolition, substantial rehabilitation, or conversion to market-rate housing that will charge rents unaffordable to these families. Other families that will lose housing assistance currently receive assistance through other housing programs under which the federal government provides mortgage or rent subsidies to private apartment building owners in return for the owners agreeing to keep the rents in the building affordable to low-income families. When the owner decides to give up the federal subsidy — as many do each year — rents rise in the building, and low-income families often can no longer afford to live there. In both of these types of cases, the federal government provides families that lose this other housing assistance with a “tenant protection” voucher to ensure they still can afford a decent place to live.

The cost of renewing a housing voucher will rise modestly due largely to increases in rents. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average cost of a voucher will rise by about 2.7 percent next year, due to the growing gap between market rents and the incomes of low-income families. (Voucher subsidies fill the gap between rents and limited incomes; a family contributes 30 percent of its income toward the rent, and the voucher covers the remaining cost of a modest rent in the private market.)

Finally, some of the funds the President’s budget proposes for vouchers will enable HUD to restore in 2006 some vouchers that will be cut in 2005. Congress provided an appropriation for 2005 that has turned out to be inadequate to cover all of the vouchers that required funding. As a result, the number of low-income families that state and local housing agencies will be able to assist this year will be about 80,000 below the number that could have been assisted if Congress had provided adequate funding. The funding level the budget proposes for 2006 would be sufficient to restore about 40,000 — or half — of the vouchers cut in 2005.<1>

Temporary Restoration Likely to Be Followed by Sharp Cuts

..more..

[oldlady]

21. concerns about HUD Section 8 vouchers need to be locally addressed

the changes in the Section 8 voucher system are often misunderstood. Don't let your local govt. folks weasle out on this! The change is not necessarily a budget cut -- it's a shift in the way the fed/state/local groups handle the funds. In the current system, the feds allow a specific number of vouchers. Let's say that your city gets 20 vouchers, with the maximum value based on local fair market rents being $600, that means they have a "budget" of $1200 a month, plus the calculation for upkeep. The change is from a "number of vouchers" system to a "flat dollar amount" system. Now, what the city/state does with that is up to them. They could have more vouchers or less vouchers available to low-income families, depending upon their LOCAL decisions. For instance, landlords that accept Section 8 vouchers also receive rent for months the housing unit sits vacant, or charge $120 for a $80 toilet, etc. If the local agency chooses to put tougher rules on landlords (not tenants) the money could/will go further. Don't forget to ask your local folks what their plan is..
peace.

[Blue_In_AK]

18. Our mayor, Mark Begich, is very upset about this

and will be opposing it with other mayors around the country.

[JanMichael]

22. Is he a Republican? I only ask because I've been privy to comments...

...made by some commision/council Republicans and they've been blunt.

One said: It's got to start somewhere, why not here?

What a dick.

[Blue_In_AK]

23. No, our mayor is a Democrat...

...son of the late congressman Nick Begich, who disappeared in a mysterious plane crash in October 1972 with House majority leader Hale Boggs. In my opinion, Mark is a great young mayor and could have a national future, not unlike our former mayor Tony Knowles who almost made it to the Senate this year. Alaska needs all the good democrats it can get.

[DeepModem Mom]

19. kick