In a year when we have heard all about adding 30 police officers to our City budget and the police department budget went from $50 to $53 Million, and we have also heard vague promises about trying to address the root causes of crime and poverty, seems odd that Housing Issues have been cut and there are no new programs. Even the programs that have been funded, with the small COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) increases agencies get, the agencies are losing out as the COLA increases don’t cover the real costs that agencies have. So, in addition to losses through the so called COLA, here are some of the other housing issues that didn’t get funded.
Fair Housing Center
This is the oddest one of them all. The Fair Housing Center got cut. However, I’ve never seen a budget note that seems as mean spirited and untruthful as this one.
Elimination of funds for a contract with the Fair Housing Center of Greater Madison for fair housing testing ($30,000). Performance under the contract was not up to expectation. DCR will continue to incorporate other elements of the contract such as complaint intake and investigation, information and referral, technical assistance,
dissemination of information, and educational programming into existing outreach efforts of the Equal Opportunities Division.
The alleged issues were not discussed with the staff at the Fair Housing Center, according to the conversations I’ve had with a couple of their staff people. This note seems nearly mean spirited. And I have to say, I’m not sure the City Staff at the EOD can do the same type of outreach efforts as a community organization can do.
10% TIF set aside program
(It looks like the link has been removed from the Planning and Community and Economic Development website.)
This program was approved during the Bauman administration and has been undermined ever since. It took forever to get a process in place to make decisions and then when projects were approved through the process, they were informed that in fact, the money was not set aside and so we’d have to get it into the Capital Budget. This year, we got it into the Capital Budget through an amendment but unlike other programs that are usually reauthorized, the Mayor zeroed out this program in his budget. Here’s the budget description from the Capital Budget (project 27)
The Council adopted a method to promote affordable housing within TIF districts that reserves 10% of the estimated increment for projects selected through a separate decision process which includes neighborhood representation and Council oversight. Funding in 2008 would reauthorize the 2007 amounts and provide financing to developers for the construction or conversion of housing that meets the TIF 10% set-aside guidelines.
Affordable Housing Trust Fund
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund took two hits in the budget. Once in the Capital Budget (project 13) and once in the Operating Budget.
The Capital Budget ignores MGO 4.22 and takes $3M of the $3.9M from the Affordable Housing Trust fund, to pay for a road. Well, at least that is what it appears to do, the details are a little fuzzy.
The Operating Budget (see pages 9 & 17) for the first time since 2002, fails to add any money to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Typically, this fund recieved $300,000 to $500,000 per year, but this Mayor has slowly eroded this support.
Homeless Proposals
We have a plan to help end homelessness in 10 years. I think it was required that we do this by HUD. So, we created a plan. The only way this is going to happen is if we fund it. (More info on homelessness in the 2006 Annual Report) Here’s some of the things they asked for in a letter sent to the Mayor’s office, asking to be include programs in this years budget.
Double the total annual commitment to eviction prevention and housing stabilization programs through funding from the city and the county. We request that the City of Madison provide an additional $103,500 to the ESG/THP/HPP budget in CDBG.
$65,000 to fund half of the operation of a year-round overflow family shelter.
$80,000 in order to triple the funding of the Transit for Jobs program, and allow bus tickets provided through this program to be used for housing purposes and other travel to access services.
$30,000 for the operation of a storage facility that will allow homeless individuals to store personal belongings.
$35,000 to pay for at least 100 motel vouchers that can be used as emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence.
$2,000,000 of its operating budget this year and every year into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
For 10% of what the police department got (ignoring the trust fund issue), this funding could make a huge difference in this community. However, check out the Mayor’s quote about their request in this article.
Clearly, housing and ending homelessness are a part of the solution for our community. People need good jobs, safe and quality affordable housing, affordable childcare, affordable healthcare and decent affordable transportation in order to live in this City. No one of these issues can be addressed by themselves. They are all part of the solution to making sure that this City creates a high quality of life for everyone who lives here. It seems of obvious. However, apparently, not to this Mayor.
At the last Affordable Housing Action Alliance Meeting, even before we got the rest of the bad news, someone asked if we had a process to un-endorse the Mayor. I think he can pretty much assume he has lost our support, but perhaps we’ll make it official.
