As senior living and other aging services providers await finalization of fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, LeadingAge is calling on leaders in Congress to provide the “highest possible funding” for affordable senior housing programs.
In a Feb. 5 letter to House and Senate appropriators, LeadingAge Vice President of Housing and Aging Services Policy Linda Couch noted that US Department of Housing and Urban Development affordable housing programs, including HUD’s flagship Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program and the Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance programs, serve more than 2 million older adult households.
The White House delivered an overview of its fiscal year 2024 budget request to Congress on March 9, 2023, and the Senate passed the FY24 HUD funding bill as part of a three-bill appropriations package on Nov. 1.
The House and Senate struck an agreement on topline spending limits for FY24 on Jan. 7. Jan. 11, increasing the supply of affordable housing was a focus of a HUD oversight hearing held by the House Committee on Financial Services.
Couch pointed to a HUD “Worst Case Housing Needs: 2021 Report to Congress” that showed the number of older adults experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 73% between 2019 and 2021. During that same two-year period, the number of older adults experiencing sheltered homelessness increased by 10,000, making older adults the fastest-growing age group of those experiencing homelessness and accounting for almost half of the total homeless population.
“HUD’s programs, including HUD’s multifamily programs, are critical to preventing and ending homelessness and to meeting the nation’s severe shortage of affordable housing,” Couch wrote.
Focusing on LeadingAge’s 2024 funding priorities, Couch urged Congress to provide:
- $1.08 billion for Section 202 to fully renew all Project Rental Assistance Contracts, or PRAC, and $152 million for new Section 202 homes funding, as called for in the Senate version of the budget. The House committee bill would cut Section 202 funding by 15% compared with 2023 funding levels.
- $120 million for full renewal of grant-funded service coordinators, as well as additional funding for new service coordinators.
- $6 million for rent increases for Section 202 PRACs undergoing preservation conversion in the Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD.
- $15.79 billion for Section 8 PRAC renewals, including an additional $32.9 million for rent adjustments to certain properties with health, safety or operational deficiencies.
- $3.9 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants.
“We urge Congress to not enact any year-long continuing resolution, which would fund HUD programs at fiscal year 2023 levels for the entirety of fiscal year 2024, and thereby jeopardize housing for nearly 700,000 HUD-assisted households,” Couch wrote.
