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March Housing Update
Kathy Kregor
The Governor has released his FY2007 proposed Budget. It includes increases for both the Homeless Prevention Program and Supportive Housing. Thank you for your advocacy efforts for increased funding for these programs. The following is a summary released by Illinois Housing Development Authority.
State of Illinois FY2007 Budget Housing Programs
State resources will continue to help the residents of Illinois afford quality housing through programs that finance the creation of new and rehabilitated homes, provide rental assistance, prevent homelessness, and support housing programs for priority populations identified in the 2006 Illinois’ Comprehensive Housing Plan. Two existing programs received significant increases and several new housing programs will be created.
Highlights include:
• Homelessness Prevention Fund will increase by 120% in FY2007 to $11 million from $5 million in FY2006. These funds will be allocated from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
• Supportive Housing for the Homeless and Mentally Ill will increase by 43% to $13.84 million from $9.64 million in FY06. These funds will be allocated from the General Revenue Funds.
• The creation of new rental assistance and rehabilitation programs for veterans, senior citizens and people with disabilities with $6.3 million. These new programs will be administered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority with funds allocated from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
• Continued funding of $5.2 million for housing and rental assistance programs run by the
Departments of Human Services, Children and Family Services, Health and Family
Services, Veterans Affairs and Corrections to help seniors, people with disabilities, exoffenders and veterans. These funds will be allocated from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
• Illinois Housing Development Authority maintains at least $50 million in Affordable
Housing Trust Fund and $22 million in federal HOME Investment Partnership resources to continue to finance new construction, rehabilitation, homeownership and rental support programs for priority populations.
• The newly created Rental Housing Support Program, which will provide rental assistance statewide to very low and extremely low income households, will be funded at $25 million in FY2007, from a new dedicated source, real estate document filing fees.
The FY2007 budget ensures that all state resources available for housing are used for housing programs. The expanded use of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is possible due to the rise in property values and large number of real estate sales that have increased resources available in the Trust Fund.
State Legislation
Four pieces of housing legislation have passed out of committee and will be considered this session.
House Bill 4715: The Safe Homes Act: The Safe Homes Act would provide victims of domestic or sexual violence and their families with options to access or maintain safe housing, or to flee existing dangerous housing. For victims who are leaseholders and victims who are not
leaseholders, the bill defines distinct processes for changing locks and early termination of a rental agreement. The bill also defines what third-party evidence of domestic or sexual violence must be provided to the landlord.
House Bill 4758: The Residential Tenant Protection Act: Currently, no statutory penalty exists for the illegal eviction of a tenant. The Residential Tenant Protection Act would protect tenants against unlawful evictions in which landlords remove property, change locks, shut off utilities, or engage in other illegal actions. This bill would clarify that the Forcible Entry and Detainer Act, which outlines the eviction process, is the only proper legal method for evicting
tenants who do not uphold the requirements of their rental agreements. This bill protects tenants in non-home-rule areas who are not currently covered by a local ordinance.
Senate Bill 2885: The Location Matters Act: The Location Matters Act would allow the state to offer additional incentives to businesses to locate new offices or facilities in close proximity to affordable workforce housing, public transit or areas with large, unemployed populations.
Senate Bill 2290: The Comprehensive Housing Planning Act: This act require the state to develop an annual Comprehensive Housing Plan to coordinate and streamline the allocation of available housing resources in order to prioritize the development of housing for underserved
populations, including low-income households, people at-risk of homelessness and people with disabilities. This legislation turns Governor Blagojevich’s 2003 Executive Order on housing into law. (House Bill 5268: The Comprehensive Housing Planning Act is the same bill as Senate Bill 2290, with some additional reporting requirements on bond funding. This bill passed the House by a vote of 114 to 0.)*
Federal Budget proposal for Housing and Urban Development
President Bush submitted his FY07 HUD budget request to Congress on February 6. The President requests $33.6 billion for HUD, 1.8% below the FY06 HUD funding level. A summary of the proposed funding for the various HUD programs is at the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s site at www.nlihc.org/news/020906.htm
* State legislative summaries from February Housing Roundtable Update
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