Homeless Aid Bills Vie for Tight Federal Dollars

President Bush has called it a disgrace. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp has vowed it will be his top priority. And Barbara Bush, calling on the nation’s volunteer spirit, has visited a community center to make sandwiches for homeless children.

It all adds up to a growing belief that the Bush Administration--backed by Congress--will go beyond rhetoric this year and expand the federal government’s commitment to easing the problem of homelessness. Just how much is another question, however.

“President Bush sounds more helpful than the previous Administration, but that’s easy,” said Maria Foscarinis, general counsel to the National Coalition for the Homeless. “I think everybody’s waiting to see what he puts on the bottom line.”

Pledged Full Funding

Bush, who is to unveil his budget revisions Thursday, during the campaign pledged full funding of the McKinney Homeless Act, which supports temporary programs ranging from emergency housing for families to soup kitchens and shelters for the homeless. Last year, Congress released only 60% of the money originally authorized for these programs, and additional federal cuts have taken a heavy toll in California and other states.

During the past year, for example, California’s share of federal funds to help homeless mentally ill people plummeted to $258,000 from $6 million the year before. In Los Angeles, those cuts threaten to shut down new programs to offer shelter beds in Venice and professional staffing of a Skid Row hotel that caters to the homeless. In San Diego, programs of counseling for homeless women are in jeopardy.

“When the federal money goes, so do the programs funded with those monies,” said Roberto Quiroz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. “Those cutbacks, coupled with our own local budget cuts, mean we have an impending crisis on our hands.”

Now, some members of Congress have introduced legislation for full financial backing of the McKinney law. They say it is time for Washington to keep its promise to the homeless, but they are unsure whether Bush will agree to so much new spending--about $255 million this year--given the budget deficit.

Others question how receptive Bush and Kemp will be to a bipartisan bill that would set aside $2 billion for renovation of about 280,000 units of public housing over two years. Sponsors estimate that the legislation, which seeks a more permanent solution to the crisis of homelessness, could make new housing available for nearly a million people.

‘Past Good Feelings’

“We’re past the point of rhetoric and good feelings with this issue,” said Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.), who is sponsoring both proposals. “It’s time for specifics.”

As speculation about the initiatives increases, much of the attention is on Kemp, who has promised to bring “new energy and new ideas” to the problem of homelessness. Although he is reluctant to discuss spending, Kemp said in an interview that the federal government has a major role to play.

In particular, the HUD secretary said, he would be exploring initiatives to help the homeless mentally ill, who make up between 20% and 25% of the homeless population. He noted that many of those now living on the streets were released from state mental hospitals during the “deinstitutionalization” programs of the early 1960s.

Those programs envisioned the construction of community-based homes for the former mental patients, Kemp said, “but that promise was never kept. There was a 1963 federal law passed to encourage the building of these centers, but they were never built. That’s why I think we should find a way to get Congress and state governments back into this problem.”

Kemp also said he would promote economic partnerships for homeless aid between government and the private sector. During a Christmas Eve visit to a community shelter, the former New York congressman said, he and his wife “saw the great possibilities” in the idea of developers, church groups and the federal government coming together to run such facilities.

Ideally, federal, state and local governments could help secure sites for shelters, he said. Other costs, such as personnel and security, would be borne by volunteer groups and the private sector.

“There’s just not enough money in the federal Treasury to pay for all of those costs,” Kemp said, “but imagine the possibilities if we got more churches involved, more synagogues, and families would each sponsor a homeless person. Imagine the work we could do!”

Kemp conceded that many of those involved in aiding the homeless “felt neglected” by former President Ronald Reagan, who several times suggested that many people sleep on the streets because they choose to do so. Under Reagan, HUD’s commitment to building housing for low-income people shrank to $7.12 billion in 1987, from $32 billion in 1981, according to federal statistics.

“I’m going to use my role (at HUD) as a bully pulpit . . . to call attention to the problem, to marshal energies in government and in the private sector,” Kemp said. “There are government programs that need to be utilized, and I’m certainly not an enemy of what works.”

Still, Kemp was reluctant to discuss dollars and cents, and indicated that the Bush Administration would proceed cautiously in proposing new spending.

“Are there needs that we should be addressing, areas where we should be doing more? Absolutely,” he said, “but does that automatically mean new funding? Maybe, maybe not.”

In Congress, however, some members of both parties are convinced that the severity of the problem requires a greater government investment in solving it.

Estimates of the homeless population range from 560,000 to nearly 3 million in recent surveys. The National Coalition for the Homeless has reported that Los Angeles, with an estimated 50,000 homeless people, has only 5,000 shelter beds available on any given night. Only New York City, which has between 70,000 and 90,000 homeless residents, has more people on the street without permanent shelter.

Last year, a report of the U. S. Conference of Mayors concluded that the McKinney Homeless Act was effective in meeting a variety of needs, even though it provided only temporary relief and was not fully financed. The mayors’ report went on to say that the government should be addressing long-term problems such as the growing number of homeless families, mentally ill people living on the streets and the shortage of affordable rental housing.

Some advocates fear the homeless issue, because of its complexity, may get lost in the budget shuffle. Vento, for example, suggested that Bush “may want to talk about doing this (full funds for the McKinney Act) next year. That’s what I fear, because this money is needed now.”

Others are not so pessimistic. In view of the President’s pledge, “it’s definitely in the realm of possibility” that emergency legislation will be passed, said an aide to Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N. M.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Last year, Congress authorized $1.3 billion for the McKinney Homeless Act, $633.5 million for the current year and $655.5 million for fiscal 1990. After budget cuts, however, only $378.23 million was released this year. In his last budget, Reagan recommended spending $310 million on homeless programs in 1990.

A bill to restore the full amount of money, sponsored by Vento and 52 others, is expected to come up for a vote in April. Its backers are optimistic that it will pass, but they are less confident about a second, $2-billion proposal to build permanent housing for the homeless.

That bill, co-sponsored by Vento and Rep. Patricia Saiki (R-Hawaii), would authorize spending over the next two years to provide shelter for homeless people whose incomes are 50% or less of the median income in their area. It would upgrade and make use of vacant public housing and other rental properties--a cost-effective approach, since the units are already in place, sponsors say.

“The virtue of this is that we’re not re-inventing the wheel or setting up a new bureaucracy,” said Saiki. “We’re going to get a lot of bipartisan support for this because it’s so logical. The investment has already been made to build these properties.”

As for the cost, Saiki acknowledged that “Republicans are naturally concerned about the deficit . . . but we’re talking about fine-tuning existing programs here. It’s just a matter of whether we can fit it into the total budget.”

Another complication may arise from rival housing legislation sponsored by Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.). Under their bill, about $3 billion would be allocated to different groups, ranging from low-income tenants and renters to young families struggling to make down payments on first homes.

With money for new programs so scarce, Congress may allocate funds to a variety of housing programs rather than to the homeless alone, Senate aides said.

“These bills represent clearly different approaches, and I suspect you’re not going to find the money for both,” said one aide. “That $2-billion price tag (for the Vento-Saiki bill) is a pretty hefty amount. I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing the new Administration is really going to consider.”

Regardless, Congress expects Bush to deal with the homeless issue, and soon. Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has sponsored several bills for the homeless, said he looks forward to a “solid, open dialogue” with Kemp and the Bush Administration.