| 
Susan Gittelman
We’re getting accustomed to gridlock in Washington, and it’s unsettling.
Stalled budget agreements and sequestration are consequences of the ongoing stalemate between Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Because of the continued disagreement over the size and role of government, we’ve fallen into this pattern. And because disagreement on budget priorities has not resulted in a widely perceived catastrophe – say, like a government shutdown – there’s a perception that it’s business as usual in America today.
But it’s not. This isn’t just policy wrangling. The quality of life for our most vulnerable neighbors hangs in the balance.
One program is particularly at risk right now, and its loss will be devastating to millions among us trying to build a better life for themselves and their families. It’s appropriately called the HOME program (although its formal name is the HOME Investment Partnership Program). HOME, a successful initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was allocated $1.8 billion in fiscal year 2010 and $1.6 billion in 2011. But, it was funded at only $900 million in fiscal 2015, and the current Senate proposal for the next fiscal year would decimate it. A final decision will be made in December.
Why Does HOME Matter?
It matters because HOME over two decades has created or saved more than a million homes affordable to low-income families, including senior citizens, people with disabilities, families with children and veterans.
HOME is the only federal entitlement grant dedicated to the production of affordable housing. It is a block-grant program – meaning few strings are attached – and it is heralded for that very flexibility. States and local organizations can use the money in a number of creative ways, depending on local and regional needs, to increase housing.
Massachusetts’ own allocation is $25 million annually. In Holyoke, a former Catholic high school is able to be turned into 58 affordable rental apartments with the benefit of $750,000 in HOME funds. One of our own new housing efforts, an approximately $17 million, 100 percent affordable development called the Coolidge in Sudbury, wouldn’t have been possible without almost $650,000 of HOME funds.
HOME allocations can be used to fill gaps in multifamily development budgets, but they can also facilitate homeownership for first-time buyers in the form of down payment assistance, rehabilitate single-family homes in distressed neighborhoods or retrofit individual residences to be handicapped accessible. Because of its versatility, HOME has been a critical tool both in investing in blighted neighborhoods as well as building affordable housing in affluent ones.
The HOME program has been truly successful, leveraging almost $120 billion to date in public and private resources. And it has historically had bipartisan support. Most recently, with the help of the New England Housing Network, a draft letter signed by five out of six governors including Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, will soon be tendered to its Congressional delegation in support of President Barack Obama’s budget request for funding HOME.
“The HOME program allows each of us to tailor its use to our unique housing markets and challenges,” the draft letter says. “The HOME Program is a critically important part of our overall housing strategy.”
So why is HOME highest on the chopping block?
Ironically, it is its very flexible nature (making a variety of types of projects doable in creative ways) that may be its Achilles heel. Unlike other federal housing programs, including the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and Section 8 for very low income residents, it does not have a single strong political constituency. This absence may well be its undoing, in this political environment.
Yet HOME is too valuable a tool to lose. It provides the glue to make other housing programs like the tax credit program work, and it serves the needs of homeowners who want to invest in our communities.
There is no easy fix. Looking beyond the current temporary budget extension through Dec. 11, “the best hope we have is that Congress will be successful and increase the budget caps for two years, and appropriators will get new numbers and room to do better,” said Jennifer Schwartz, assistant director for tax policy and advocacy for the National Council of State Housing Agencies.
And for this to happen we need to become the strong voice to preserve this critical resource. Because Congress needs to hear from all of us. And soon.
Susan Gittelman is the executive director of B’nai B’rith Housing, a nonprofit, affordable housing developer currently working in Andover and Brighton.
