Fund Is Double Amount Reagan Requested; Easy Senate Passage Expected : House Approves $642 Million for Aid to the Homeless

The House, more than doubling President Reagan’s request, Wednesday approved $642 million for next year to continue housing, health and education programs for the nation’s homeless.

The measure sailed through the House by an overwhelming vote of 333 to 80 and goes to the Senate, where its chances of passage are regarded as excellent in this election year.

Reagan, who requested a total of $265 million for these programs, personally took no position on the House bill. But Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen notified Congress that he opposed the bill because its provision of $116 million for health care for the homeless “substantially exceeded” the President’s proposal for $68 million.

The House-passed bill would merely set spending ceilings on a variety of programs for the homeless during the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, and the real battles may come later over the amount of funds that Congress will appropriate. For the current year, for example, Congress authorized up to $475 million for the homeless but appropriated only $358 million.

Far Too Little

Even proponents of the House-passed measure said it would do far too little to alleviate the plight of those who are living on the streets or in city parks.

Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), for example, said that even though Congress has already approved more than $600 million for the homeless, two of three cities still deny services to the homeless because they lack the resources to help.

“Unlike other cruel afflictions, homelessness can be cured,” Wright said. “The problem is that the Reagan-era budget deficits make it very difficult to find the funding needed to erase homelessness in America.”

Republicans joined with Democrats in supporting the measure, and there was scant vocal opposition to the idea of renewing the homeless programs started a little more than a year ago.

Key Provisions

The House bill would authorize:

--$297 million for housing programs, including experimental efforts to provide transitional housing for homeless families.

--$129 million for emergency food and shelter programs, with up to $75 million approved for job training and community service programs designed to increase the income of homeless persons.

--$116 million for health programs, with $10 million of that set aside for new techniques for treating alcohol and drug abuse.

--$75 million for educational programs for homeless children and literacy training for adults.

--$25 million for homeless veterans, including those who are chronically mentally ill.

The sharpest debate came over an attempt by Republican Reps. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Marge Roukema of New Jersey to combine three emergency housing programs into a single block grant starting Oct. 1, 1990.

They argued that the change would give states and local governments greater flexibility to deal with the problems of the homeless without having to meet more narrow, detailed requirements in the categorical grant system now in effect.

Opponents said a block grant would spread the money too thinly. Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the money would be more effective if it were concentrated on areas with the worst homelessness.

One provision of the House-passed bill would provide $800,000 for a federal government interagency council on the homeless that would keep states, cities and nonprofit organizations informed of funds available under the law.

For fiscal 1989, the bill would continue the 25% matching requirement for states, local governments and nonprofit organizations, but it would raise the matching requirement to 33.3% in subsequent years.