On August 5, the Senate Appropriations ommittee released its report accompanying the FY2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Related Agencies spending bill (H.R. 3288). The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the measure on July 30 (see The Source, 7/31/09).
The committee report details a number of programs of interest to women and their families:
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Department of Transportation |
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Agency/Program |
FY2009 |
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Minority Business Resource Centers |
$912,000 |
$912,000 (p. 6) |
$923,000 (p. 17) |
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Minority Business Outreach |
$3.056 million |
$3.074 million (p. 3) |
$3.074 million (p. 18) |
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Department of Housing and Urban Development |
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Agency/Program |
FY2009 |
FY2010 Senate Report |
|
|
Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) |
$310 million |
$310 million (p. 14) |
$320 million (p. 131) |
|
Section 8 Tenant-Based Housing Vouchers |
$16.975 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million |
$17.836 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million (p. 119 of the Senate report) |
$18.187 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million (p. 119) |
|
Section 8 Project-Based Housing Vouchers |
$9.5 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million and P.L. 111-5 funding |
$8.1 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million (p. 152 of the Senate report) |
$8.1 billion, including an advance appropriation of $4 million (p. 152) |
The report states, “While officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have seen a decrease in the overall number of homeless veterans, unfortunately, there has been an increase in homelessness among our nation’s female veterans. Recent data from the VA indicate that the number of female veterans who end up homeless has doubled over the last decade, and in fact one out of every 10 homeless veterans under the age of 45 today is a woman. Faced with mental trauma related to military service and challenges in transitioning into the civilian workforce, these female veterans are between two and four times more likely to become homeless than other women. Many of these female veterans also have children in their care, which can make accessing housing services from the VA challenging. As the secretary [of the VA] looks to fund additional programs to serve families as part of the homeless competition in FY2010, the committee encourages special attention to programs that will provide services to female veterans and their children” (p. 151). Additional language on HUD programs for women veterans can be found on page 121.
The committee “has included $50 million to fund grants for public housing agencies to construct, rehabilitate, or acquire facilities to provide quality early childhood education and care to children living in and around public housing. Research has demonstrated that effective early learning can have an enormous impact on a child’s future success in school and in society. However, the cost of building adequate facilities that best serve children is high, which poses a particular challenge to serving low-income children. These grants will provide public housing agencies the necessary capital to leverage additional resources and increase their ability to work with state, local, nonprofit, and private sector partners to bring quality early childhood education and child care opportunities to children living in and around public housing” (p. 124).
