Cisneros Pitches $450-Million Plan for Housing

WASHINGTON — The Clinton Administration asked lawmakers on Tuesday for an additional $450 million for moving poor families out of decayed housing projects and experimental efforts to aid the homeless.

Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros said $250 million would be used to create 5,000 homes for tenants of “severely distressed” public housing. He said the remaining money would finance pilot projects for the homeless.

Cisneros announced the plans at a House Appropriations panel hearing on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed $29 billion budget for 1994.

The housing secretary told the lawmakers the $450 million would spawn a more flexible and creative approach at HUD.

“Innovation today is highly constrained,” he said.

As an example, Cisneros cited a proposed pilot project designed to shrink the homeless population in the nation’s capital. He said the proposal would not fit in as HUD’s programs are currently structured.

Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on HUD, said his panel “can probably work with you” on the housing proposals.

But he warned that another feature of HUD’s budget could be rejected: a proposed reduction in fees paid to housing authorities that administer federal housing assistance programs.

“I think you’re going to find our subcommittee resistant,” Stokes said. “The savings is not that great.”

Reducing the fees, from 7.5% to 6% of rents, would save about $6 million in fiscal 1994, according to the National Assn. of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, an organization for public housing administrators.

“Six million against the HUD budget is a drop in the bucket, but the impact on local agencies is more than a drop in the bucket,” said Rick Nelson, executive director of the housing and redevelopment association.