USA, Bills to Alleviate and Prevent Homelessness Passed
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty Hails Measures as "first step", May 20, 2009
The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 was passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Obama. It includes a measure to reauthorize the housing and shelter programs of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act - the first andstill only major legislation addressing homelessness, for the first time in 17 years. It also includes a measure to protect the rights of renters in foreclosure - a major step that will help prevent them from becoming homeless.
"Both bills are important steps forward in addressing and preventing homelessness," said Maria Foscarinis, Executive Director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, which advocated for both bills. "They are an important first step by this Administration and this Congress towards ending homelessness in America. We look forward to working with the Congress and the President on the further, larger and urgent measures that are still needed to make real President Obama's stated view thathomelessness in America is unacceptable." Foscarinis was a key advocate for the original McKinney Act in 1987, and will be at the White House signing ceremony today.
The HEARTH Act, which reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will make a number of important improvements to the McKinney Act programs. Key provisions of the bill will:
- Set the authorization level at $2.2 billion for the HUD McKinney programs (FY09 appropriations are approximately $1.677 billion)
- Rename and amend the Emergency Shelter Grant program to allow nonprofits to provide a broader range of services, including short- and medium-term rental assistance, utility payments, housing relocation and stabilization services, and other servicesto keep people in housing or to move them quickly into housing. Families living doubled up would be eligible to receive services funded by this section
- Allow nonprofits in rural areas to serve doubled up households as well as households who meet HUD's definition ofhomelessness
- Expand the definition of homelessness to include unaccompanied youth and homeless families with children and youth who have a long-term history of housing instabilityand can be expected to continue to experience instability due to disabilities, substance abuse disorders, history of abuse, or multiple barriers to employment; as well as families living doubled up, living in motels or hotels or other housing and who are facing eviction within 14 days
- Expand the responsibilities of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness to require the Council to develop a national planto endhomelessness and to work to eliminate laws and policies that criminalize homelessness
The Tenants' protections portion of the bill will allow bona fide tenants to remain in their residence, pursuant to their lease, following a foreclosure of the property, except when the successor in interest or subsequent purchaser will occupy the unit as a primary residence. In that case, the tenant must receive notice to vacate at least 90 days before the effective date of such notice. A lease or tenancy is bona fideif it is the result of arms-length transaction and if the rent is not substantially less than fair market rent.
Tenants now account for 40% of evictions related to foreclosure, and many become homeless. Currently, laws vary widely in the 50 states, as highlighted in a recent report published by the National law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, together with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Without Just Cause .