On December 8, House and Senate budget negotiators agreed to provide $65 million for President Obama’s proposed Choice Neighborhoods initiative. The amount was included in omnibus budget legislation (H.R. 3288) that will fund several federal agencies, including HUD and the Department of Education. The House passed the overall package on December 10 by a vote of 221-202 and sent it to the Senate, which is expected to pass and send it to the president for signing into law by December 18.
Choice Neighborhoods is an administration proposal to integrate public housing revitalization efforts with social services. It is expected to operate alongside the Promise Neighborhoods program in several communities. The same bill containing the $65 million in Choice Neighborhoods funding also contains the $10 million in requested planning grant money for Promise Neighborhoods.
The final funding for Choice Neighborhoods differs from the administration’s initial proposal, which was to end the HOPE VI public housing revitalization program and convert it, with additional funding, into Choice Neighborhoods. Instead, the bill maintains and expands HOPE VI from $120 million to $200 million, creates Choice Neighborhoods as a subprogram within HOPE VI, and devotes most of the new funding to the new program.
Language from the bill’s conference report is below:
REVITALIZATION OF SEVERELY DISTRESSED PUBLIC HOUSING (HOPE VI)
The conference agreement provides $200,000,000 for the Revitalization of Severely Distressed Public Housing program (HOPE VI), compared to $250,000,000 as proposed by the House. The Senate instead proposed $250,000,000 for the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative. Of the amount provided, up to $10,000,000 is for technical assistance.
The funding also includes up to $65,000,000 for a demonstration of the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative similar to that proposed by the Senate. The goal of the demonstration is to transform neighborhoods of poverty into functioning, sustainable mixed income neighborhoods. Important in this effort is the inclusion of appropriate services and access to transportation, jobs and public schools. For this demonstration, grants may be used for both public housing and HUD-assisted properties. In addition, grantees may include local governments, public housing authorities, non-profit organizations and for profit organizations that apply in partnership with a public entity.
The Department is directed to issue the fiscal year 2010 HOPE VI NOFA within 60 days of enactment of this Act.
The Department is directed to provide the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations with quarterly updates on the status of projects and the expenditure of funds by grantees.