SUPPORT FOR THE HOME PROGRAM

            WHEREAS, the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) program has been vital for housing low-income families for 20 years; and

            WHEREAS, local and state governments used HOME for affordable housing production and rehabilitation, preservation, and rental and homeownership assistance; and

            WHEREAS, from 1992, states and localities have used HOME funds to produce 460,692 home buyer homes, 423,154 rental homes, and 212,100 rehabilitated home buyer  homes; and

            WHEREAS, HOME has provided rental assistance to 264,715 families; and

            WHEREAS, HOME funding leverages more than $4 from private and public resources for every $1 of HOME; and

.           WHEREAS, over its 20 year history, HOME has leveraged an additional $100.2 billion in affordable housing funds; and

            WHEREAS, HOME is also an excellent job program, creating or protecting 18,000 jobs for every $1 billion of HOME funding; and

            WHEREAS, HOME has been severely cut by 41 percent since FY2011, from $1.6 billion to the FY2013 level of $948 million; and

           WHEREAS, HUD’s FY2014 Budget proposes to fund HOME at $950 million;
            and

           WHEREAS, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation,
            Housing and Urban Development cut HOME from $948 million to $700 million
            in FY2014; and

           WHEREAS, nearly 8.5 million very low-income families who do not receive
            government housing assistance pay more than half their monthly income for rent,
            lived in substandard housing, or both; and

           WHEREAS, as the number of families with worst case housing needs continue to
            rise, with the number up 2.6 million, or 43.5 percent, since, 2007,

            NOW, THEREFOR BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on Congress and the Administration to restore the HOME program’s funding in FY2014 to at least $1.6 billion.