Related Items Full Coverage: White House Releases New Budget

By Justin Pritchard
LEGI-SLATE News Service
Monday, Feb. 2, 1998

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's outlays will increase $600 million, to $31.6 billion in fiscal 1999, under the budget proposal unveiled Monday by Secretary Andrew Cuomo Monday.

The department, which has undergone significant staff downsizing in the last year, would not add any new programs. Instead, Cuomo said, HUD will concentrate on bolstering 20 existing programs, such as empowerment zones and Community Development Block Grants.

"HUD today is smaller, faster and better than it was a year ago," Cuomo said. "Our budget will strengthen our partnership with business and local communities, so we can use HUD funds as a catalyst to stimulate far greater private investment."

Highlights of the HUD proposals include:

• $400 million for an expanded Community Empowerment Fund "to help economically distressed communities create and retain an estimated 280,000 jobs."

• $150 million for 15 new urban Empowerment Zones, a $50 million increase for Community Development Block Grants and $25 million more next year to redevelop contaminated sites in urban areas known as brownfields.

Many housing programs would also receive a boost under the proposal. Cuomo touted a $585 million request to fund for more than 100,000 new low-income rental housing vouchers, $135 million in new homeless program aid and $50 million in new funds to "finance capital improvements in public housing."

In addition, Cuomo announced his desire to increase the Federal Housing Administration home mortgage limit, an initiative without a scored budget cost.