The Caps Hurt Communities campaign, spearheaded by the Campaign for Housing and Community Development (CHCDF), will host a webinar, Spending Caps, Budget Negotiations, and the Impact on Housing and Community Development in Your Community on Monday, October 19 at 3PM.
The webinar will focus on the current sequester budget caps and how a year-long Continuing Resolution would impact affordable housing, homeless, and community development programs. The webinar will also share what you can do to engage your local media by sharing stories of the impact these caps have on your community.
You can sign up for the webinar here.
More Information:
Caps Hurt Communities campaign aims to build a movement of individuals and organizations committed to bringing an end to federal sequester caps. Congress needs to lift the unfair budget caps to allow appropriators to increase resources for affordable housing, community development, and homeless assistance programs in the final FY 2016 spending bill.
Sequestration refers to mechanisms that were set in place to achieve spending reductions through the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA). One mechanism required nine annual sequesters of $109 billion (half from defense and half from non-defense programs) to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The first of these annual sequesters took effect in FY 2013, in the form of across-the-board cuts to programs’ already enacted spending levels. Since then, sequestration has been implemented by adhering to lowered defense and non-defense spending caps. However, since the Bipartisan Budget Act temporarily raised the caps for FY 2014-FY 2015 but has now expired, the caps we are facing for FY 2016 are much tighter than in recent years. Note also that the BCA also mandated separate discretionary sequesters if appropriations for any year exceed the annual caps set by the law.
The $2.185 billion spending level included for McKinney in the House bill (written at sequestration level spending caps) should allow programs to continue operating at their current capacities, but would not provide new housing resources. The $2.235 billion for McKinney in the Senate bill (also written under these caps) would provide limited new housing resources with a strong focus on youth homelessness initiatives, but would not make the critical investments in permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing that were included in the President’s Budget Proposal.
Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have publicly stated that these caps are too low, so along with our other partners advocating on behalf of NDD programs throughout the country, we have a shot at convincing enough Members to raise them. Join the effort to ensure that Members hear why #CapsHurt people experiencing homelessness today! |
