| March-April 2004 | Issue 199 |
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NPA Wins Victories from HUD | |||||||||||||||
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NPA leaders met with Alphonso Jackson, the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Washington, DC to address the housing crisis facing many of America’s neighborhoods, including the shortage of affordable rental housing, abandoned buildings, predatory lending, the need for home repairs, and homelessness. Leaders from 10 NPA cities met with Jackson and top HUD deputies - FHA Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of Housing Dr. John Weicher; Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development Roy Bernardi; Bill Russell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Housing and Voucher Programs; and other HUD key officials. “HUD wants to eliminate homelessness in 10 years,” said Chicago Neighborhood Housing Services leader Emily Dunn before meeting with Jackson. “If all of these proposed funding cuts go through, HUD will be creating homelessness. We want Jackson to work with NPA to turn this around.” Jackson agreed to NPA’s number one demand at the meeting: sending his top staff, Bernardi and Weicher, to visit nine NPA cities to address the housing crisis facing our neighborhoods. Jackson himself will visit Cincinnati. Jackson also agreed that HUD will: 1) Meet with NPA in June to hear NPA’s input on the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). HUD is currently rewriting the CDBG guidelines. CDBG is a program to benefit lower income families and to aid in preventing or eliminating “slums and blight,” 2) Work with NPA to develop local pilot programs in NPA cities to address the most pressing housing needs specified by NPA groups, 3) Restart a national Federal Housing Authority (FHA) Home Repair program in Indianapolis, and consider expanding it to Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Syracuse. “The meeting definitely strengthened our partnership with HUD,” said NPA Co-Chair Inez Killingsworth after the meeting with Jackson. “We look forward to working with Jackson in the future.” NPA leaders also pushed HUD to keep families who are receiving Housing Vouchers in the Housing Voucher program despite budget cuts. “To Jackson, this is just a job, but this program supports our livelihood,” said Marcia Battle from Cincinnati’s Communities United For Action. “Jackson heard our opinion…. and we hope he does the right thing.” After the HUD meeting, leaders met with U.S. Representative Jim Walsh’s (R-NY) staff and gave him several hundred postcards signed at NPA’s Sunday plenary, opposing the cutting of approximately 250,000 families from the Section 8 Housing Voucher program, which is a program that helps low-income families stay in affordable rental housing. Walsh chairs the Appropriations Committee, which will decide how much money to give to the program. Additionally, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities agreed to work with NPA to fight the funding cuts in the Housing Voucher program. NPA leaders called on Congress to support efforts to hold HUD accountable at the NPA House and Senate briefings. Battle and Dunn urged Congress to work with NPA to address the housing crisis and hold HUD accountable for their programs, especially the CDBG program, the Housing Voucher program, and the FHA Home Repair Program. |
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Disclosure
is published by the National Training
and Information Center. 312-243-3035 |
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