National Housing Law Project Housing Law Bulletin

Senate Adopts FY 1996 HUD Funding Bill with Floor Amendments

On Wednesday, September 27, 1995, by a vote of 55 to 45, the Senate adopted the Fiscal Year 1996 funding bill for VA, HUD and Independent Agencies.¹ Overall funding for HUD was at $20.1 billion, compared with $19.5 billion in the House, representing a roughly $5 billion reduction from HUD's FY 1995 pre-rescission funding level.

Several administrative actions taken on the Senate floor are important to low-income persons. An amendment striking a provision barring HUD from spending any of its appropriated funds to enforce a regulation on the application of the Fair Housing Act to property insurance was sponsored by Senator Feingold on behalf of himself and Senators Moseley-Braun, Mikulski, Simon, Kennedy, Bradley, and Wellstone was adopted. The defeat of the provision frees HUD to investigate the discriminatory practice of insurance "redlining" which forecloses opportunities for minority and low-income persons to purchase homes in certain neighborhoods.

With the support of a broad range of interests from the civil rights community to realtor and owner groups, Senators Simon and Moseley-Braun also won approval of an amendment to delay until April 1997 the proposed transfer of HUD's Fair Housing Act functions (and funding) to the Department of Justice in order to permit the judiciary and banking committees to examine the ramifications of the proposal.

Senators Kyl and Faircloth gained passage of an amendment to prohibit preservation of the national occupancy standard of two persons per bedroom. The purpose of the amendment was to negate the effectiveness of HUD internal action that sanctioned a more flexible, less restrictive standard that would permit more options for low-income persons.

The House and Senate appropriations bills now await conference to resolve differences in funding levels as well as the administrative provisions of the two measures.

1. See Senate Appropriations Action: Big Cuts, Big Changes, 25 HOUS. L. BULL. 147 (Sept. 1995), for some details of the Senate Appropriations Committee-reported version of the bill. See also debate on appropriations bill, 141 CONG. REC. S14337-94 (Sept. 27, 1995).