A federal budget under consideration by Congress could have serious consequences for the low income and unhoused populations nationally, including Springfield.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the president’s budget would slash Housing and Urban Development’s budget by 44 percent from this year, including a 43 percent cut to HUD’s rental assistance programs.
Currently, an estimated 421,000 people in 221 Illinois households use federal rental assistance. Of those, 67 percent are seniors, children or people with disabilities. Meanwhile, four in 10 low income people in the state are unhoused or pay more than half their income for rent and most don’t get rental assistance.
Bob Palmer is policy director of Housing Action Illinois: “It would really be a step backwards in terms of the federal government commitment to ensure people have access to affordable housing, which is woefully inadequate where we are today, and it would be making things much worse.”
Congress will approve its budget later this year, so Palmer said there is hope. "We will be working with others to advocate that they reject those harmful proposals."
“During the first Trump administration, Congress largely rejected what President Trump proposed in terms of these very deep cuts. But now, obviously it's a different political environment, so we can't take that as a given, which is why we're doing as much as we can to draw public attention to the harm that these proposals would have and make sure our members of Congress know about it, so as early as possible, members of Congress make clear on both both sides of the aisle in a bipartisan way that they don't support really significantly reducing the federal role in creating affordable housing and ending homelessness,’’ Palmer said.
According to Josh Sabo, executive director of Heartland Housed, the local agency overseeing efforts to end homelessness, “Springfield and Sangamon County, like communities across the county, have seen increases in rental costs over the past several years. Studies show direct correlations between rent cost and the prevalence of homelessness in communities,’ ‘he wrote in an email. “As we work to increase supportive housing opportunities that effectively reduce homelessness, we rely on partners like the Springfield Housing Authority and housing vouchers to support people in pursuit of stable housing. In addition to helping people meet the basic need of housing, programs like the Continuum of Care program and Housing Authority voucher program help our community preserve housing through rental support and inject hundreds of thousands of dollars into our local economy through working with local landlords.”
Meanwhile, the federal LiHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program), which provides electric bill support for low income households, including about $192 million a year for Illinoisans, is proposed to be cut in the president’s budget. Staff for the program was dismantled earlier this year.
Roger Pavey is president and CEO of the Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies, which represents 33 community action agencies in Illinois that provide utility bill assistance, Head Start programs, home weatherization, job training and other services. The LiHEAP program provides utility assistance to 360,000 Illinoisans.
Pavey said, “We were alarmed that they totally wiped out the LIHEAP staff on the federal level, and wonder who's going to help provide guidance to the states as we implement the LIHEAP program. We have been in touch with the HHS staff that have stepped in to replace the staff who are eliminated, and they are working with the state of Illinois.”
He continued: “For over 50,000 households per year, LIHEAP is able to either restore power or to stop a disconnection. LiHEAP also then makes energy affordable so people don't get disconnected.”
“People are understandably worried that this essential benefit that helps keep the power on for them and their family will be at risk, and wondering what they're going to do with winter coming .. but also summer .. cooling assistance, being able to stay connected in the high heat months is very troubling. If you think about a household where maybe someone uses oxygen, they have breathing problems or heart problems, this is a public health emergency if we don't have the ability to keep those households connected."
Dave MacDonna, the executive director of Sangamon County Community Resources, said, “We're operating on a day-to-day basis of helping as many county residents as we can for this fiscal year. And we'll have to wait and see what will happen, of course any type of change with any of the programs will affect the people that we serve here in Sangamon County.”
In the last 30 days, he said Thursday, his agency had 439 applications with an average benefit of $353.84.
