News
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Street Roots • May 26-June 1,2017
Trump's proposed budget threatens to unravel Portland's success housing veterans
BY AM A N D A WALDROUPE
Interagency Council on Homelessness
certified that Multnomah County had
virtually eliminated veteran homelessness -
fter living in his car, homeless, for a
making the effort perhaps the most
little over a year, Daniel Kallunki
successful focused attempt to end
moved into a one-bedroom apartment
near Troutdale last November, less than a homelessness in the Portland area’s history.
There are veterans who continue to
month after receiving a Veterans Affairs
become homeless. But those numbers are
Supportive Housing (VASH) voucher.
small and a new Veteran-By-Name list, which
He’s able to better manage his multiple
was created in 2015 and identifies all
sclerosis, a diagnosis he received in March
veterans who are homeless in the Portland
2014. The illness forced him to quit his job,
area, allows the system to quickly identify
which caused him to lose his apartment and
and provide housing to homeless veterans
then become homeless.
within 90 days.
Kallunki, 39, is also now able to see his
But those accomplishments may now
11-year old daughter regularly - she stays
hang in the balance. Not funding veteran’s
with him every Wednesday and every other
weekend. Kallunki lives near her school, and programs is largely considered political
suicide. But President Donald Trump has
he has a new job, working as a peer mentor
proposed the deepest cuts to the Housing
at Transition Projects, Inc.
and Urban Development (HUD) department
Living in an apartment again, he said, has
since the Reagan administration. Trump’s
been “a night and day” difference.
proposal defunds the Interagency Council
“I’m able to live a life,” he continued.
on Homelessness, and grant funding from
“That’s priceless.”
the Veterans Affairs administration, which
Kallunki is a Navy veteran and one of
played a significant role in ending veteran’s
more than 1,300 homeless veterans who
homelessness in the Portland area, expires
have moved into permanent housing since
this summer.
2015, including 461 veterans who were
chronically homeless (homeless for a year or
more), according to A Home for Everyone,
the city-county joint initiative to address
n Tuesday, May 23, the Trump
homelessness.
administration released its proposed
In 2015, the city of Portland, Multnomah
2018 budget. Among many drastic cuts to
County and Home Forward - the Portland
federal programs such as Medicaid, food
area’s housing authority - stepped up
efforts to house veterans, joining the nation stamps and other anti-poverty programs -
while increasing defense spending - the
wide Mayor’s Challenge to End Veterans
budget proposes to cut $7.4 billion dollars,
Homelessness, spurred on by President
or 15 percent, from the Housing and Urban
Barack Obama. One year later, the U.S.
Development (HUD) budget.
S T A F F W R IT E R
A
O
The cuts include eliminating the
Community Development Block Grant and
HOME Investment Partnership funds, which
provide funding for urban renewal projects
and which Portland has relied heavily upon
for its homeless service programs.
Rental assistance programs would be cut
by 5 percent compared to this year’s funding
levels. Those programs, which include
Section 8 and VASH vouchers, cap the
amount of rent low-income people pay at 30
percent of their income.
The National Low Income Housing
Coalition estimated in its analysis of the
proposed budget, released on May 23, that
approximately 250,000 households could
lose rental assistance, “putting them at
immediate risk of eviction and
homelessness.”
The proposed budget would not fund
additional VASH vouchers, which combine
Section 8 rent assistance and supportive
services available at VA medical centers,
and are reserved specifically for low-income
and homeless veterans. The vouchers are
considered the most important federal tool
that exists to end veteran’s homelessness.
Congress will not approve a federal
budget until October, so it is still unknown
how, exactly, federal housing programs in
the Portland area will be affected.
Michael Buonocore, the executive
director of Home Forward, is approaching
the situation with pragmatic optimism.
“There is always a significance distance
between the president’s budget and what
gets passed,” he said. “Everything we’re
hearing has reinforced (that) in this
particular case - the blueprint is not
grounded in a political reality that was
reflected in Congress.”
Bobby Weinstock, a housing consultant
with Northwest Pilot Project, a social
service agency for elderly low-income
people, thinks that not funding veteran’s
services is politically untenable.
“Any call for a cut in veteran’s funding
would be dead in the water,” Weinstock said.
“Veterans have more political support on
both sides of the aisle in Congress ... than
other homeless populations because there is
the desire among both Democratic and
Republican members of Congress to try to
do something for the people who serve the
country in that way.”
More money, not less, is needed to renew
existing housing vouchers, according to a
January 2017 report released by the Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities, a
progressive think tank that analyzes the
impact of federal and state budget policies.
The center estimates that approximately
$18.86 billion dollars is needed to renew
existing housing vouchers, due to inflation
and rising rents. The report found without
additional funding for housing vouchers,
“most housing agencies will be forced to cut
the number of low-income households they
assist.”
According to the report, 33,808 housing
vouchers were used in Oregon in 2016.
More than 400 vouchers were cut when the
Senate passed a spending bill earlier this
year. An additional 1,657 vouchers could be
cut under a continuing resolution currently
being considered to fund the federal
See VETERANS, page 5