NEW YORK STATE RURAL ADVOCATES

S 497a allows up to 10 % in administrative costs for RARP and would also cover the Main Street Program (as it is now administered) . Please let your Senator know that these are important programs to your community and require administrative cost recovery to administer. Ask them to support the passage of S 497a.

There was an interesting convergence of events this week as the National Low Income Housing Coalition released its annual report on the affordability of rental housing on Monday and our State Legislature passed its largest housing capital budget in two decades on Wednesday.

NLIHC’s Out of Reach report has become the gold standard for measuring the cost of rental housing relative to the buying power of low income households. The long and short of this year’s report is that rental housing has continued to become less affordable to low wage workers in most of the country. According to OOR, “there is still no metropolitan area or rural county in the U.S. where a full time minimum wage earner (40 hours per week/52 weeks a year) can afford the rent on a modest one-bedroom rental home at the Fair Market Rent (FMR)”.

For non-metro New York, Out of Reach finds that “In New York Non-Metro area, the Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment is $705. In order to afford this level of rent and utilities, without paying more than 30% of income on housing, a household must earn NA monthly or $28,188 annually. Assuming a 40-hour work week, 52 weeks per year, this level of income translates into a Housing Wage of $13.55.”

As if to respond to the Out of Reach report, the New York State Legislature struck a deal with Governor Paterson this week to add $200 million the State’s existing housing capital programs for the State fiscal year that began on April 1. Combined with the $100 million contained in the Governor’s budget proposal, and with resources like the state and federal low income tax credits and federal HOME and CDBG block grant funds, state officials and affordable housing developers in our state will have more resources to work with than at anytime in our history.

This budget represents a huge win for New York’s affordable housing advocates and there are scores of people and organizations to thank for this outcome. New York State Rural Advocates is proud to have been a participant in the effort and we all look forward to a very busy year turning this finacial commitment into high quality affordable housing.

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Its Saturday morning and the state budget is now five days late. There is progress and we understand that legislative staff will be working all weekend (for the second weekend in a row) to try to tie this deal up.

As we reported yesterday afternoon, the “TED” bill passed yesterday. The bill contains restorations of RPC and NPC and also funds an expanded Urban Homeownership program. As in the past, UHAP is restricted to cities with populations of 60,000 or more. We had hoped for a Rural Homeownership program as well. There was consideration of RHAP but in the end, there just too many priorities and not enough money.

We were not able to report anything about capital yesterday although at the end of the day, we learned that there was agreement to do $200 million in housing capital. In a bit of a new twist, it sounds as though the housing capital will be divided three ways to include the senate, the assembly and the executive. The executive doesn’t usually get to play at this point but there was some side deal made and so capital will be divided three ways. Each of the three parties seem to have a pretty good idea of what they want to fund. Much of this will be split in the traditional forms with the Senate funding AHC and some of the programs that work so well Upstate (RARP, RESTORE, Access and Main Street and perhaps even IDDP) and the Assembly doing the Trust Fund and Homes for working families. With the Executive at the table, we may still see some money deposited in the Housing Opportunity Fund.

This has been a strange year for the budget process. We saw nothing of the public conference committees that we have seen in the last several years. Those conference meetings at least gave everyone the feel that these were open negotiations, even if much of the work was still being done behind closed doors. This year, it went right back to three men in a room and rank and file members of the legislature were left to wander around and complain about being shut out. The claim was that the talks where just too delicate to be held in the open and they had to insulate themselves from the influence peddlers.

And, a final note of caution about all of this. As we have been reporting all along, State revenues are down, down, down. Still, its election year so the budget makers have spent, spent, spent. In the end, many are expecting that the legislature will have to come back to town to rescind some of what they have done. Any of the restorations that are being done now, could be taken back later. Please be careful how you budget and spend.

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Thanks to the good job you do informing your legislators of the positive impact your work has on your community, the legislature has shown their support for the preservation program by fully restoring the cuts made by the Executive Budget.  They  believe in the work you do and I hope to report new funding for Rural Capital Programs soon-Programs YOU can use to bring decent quality housing to the people in your community

… for budget news. News reports indicate that there are expectations that the budget will be done sooner than later, maybe by the end of this week. Things seem to be bogged down on the revenue side, but there are indications that they are starting to pass budget bills. No news is… no news

Rural Advocates met with housing leaders in Albany this month to share ideas, discuss housing needs and learn new ways of assisting their community. Senator Betty Little thanked Advocates for their hard work and contributions to the community. Alan Hipps presented on the

Adironndack Community Housing Trust, and Kevin O’ Connor presented on economic and demographic forecasting to plan affordable housing. DHCR Commissioner VanAmerongen joined us as our luncheon speaker and Assemblyman Lopez addressed the group as well. Senator Bonacic joined us at our reception. A productive few days in Albany!

The budget negotiations are about to begin.  We are asking all of you to write your State Senator, Assemblyman and leadership to add 3 Million dollars to the Governor’s proposed budget so that the RPC s receive at least $87,500 next year.

According to North Country Public Radio, Democrat Darrel Aubertine won Senator Wright’s Republican seat in the NYS Senate, in a close race against Republican Will Barclay. In Albany,  with all sides fairly close on their revenue projections, leadership is on schedule for an on time budget this year.

There’s still time for last minute registration for the NYS Rural Advocates Legislative Meeting in Albany.  All are welcome to the Sunday, March 2 Board Meeting where the agenda will be debated and finalized over a wonderful dinner.  Please leave a note if you have questions or decide to attend and I’ll do my best!  If you haven’t sent me a list of your appointments, please remember to do so.  Thanks!

http://www.ruralhome.org/infoAnnouncements_2009budgetproposed.php

The Housing Assistance Council has the latest Executive  federal budget posted on their website, above.

Some lobbying on “the hill” this winter may be in order!