Housing Assistance Efficiency Act

Mr. Speaker, many laws are intended to ensure efficiency in Federal agencies but often have unintended consequences, preventing agencies from serving the public and costing taxpayer money. Currently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Continuum of Care Program spends too much time fulfilling administrative obligations instead of helping individuals and families transition out of homelessness and putting them on a path to independent living.

Twice a fiscal year, HUD has to reallocate emergency solutions grant program funds that are unused, returned, or otherwise become available in the program, but because almost no funds are unused or become available under the program, the reallocation of funds takes a lot of time and unwarranted human capital to complete.

It is administratively more efficient to reallocate funds only once a year. This frees up HUD employees to provide more human resources toward providing better service to constituents, and we shouldn't saddle HUD with more administrative work that isn't helping anyone.

In addition to mandatory fund allocations, HUD also faces a mountain of paperwork when it comes to administering rental assistance. Prior to 2009, private nonprofits could administer rental assistance through HUD's Continuum of Care. The HEARTH Act, however, obfuscated rental assistance laws, and private nonprofits were left off the list of entities allowed to administer rental assistance.

Currently, only States, units of general local government, or public housing agencies can dispense housing assistance despite nonprofits' substantial experience and their ability to reach vulnerable populations. Private nonprofits can still execute other homelessness programs, but they have to go through public housing agencies or another layer of bureaucracy to get rental assistance to their clients or the landlord. This creates more bureaucratic burdens when individuals and families really need the help quickly to stay in their homes.

H.R. 2790, the Housing Assistance Efficiency Act, would remedy both these problems, would make HUD a more efficient agency and get homelessness assistance to those that need it more quickly. This is important in particular to San Diego. We have the third largest homeless population, and it is widely supported in my district and across the country.

I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

In their statement supporting this legislation, the San Diego Housing Federation said this bill removes barriers to helping get important resources to those who need it the most, and that is what it is all about.

So I urge my colleagues to help pass this legislation to take substantive action to improve government efficiency and help fight chronic homelessness in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2790) to authorize private nonprofit organizations to administer permanent housing rental assistance provided through the Continuum of Care Program under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials for the Record on H.R. 2790, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Housing Assistance Efficiency Act was introduced by Scott Peters in July of 2013 as a technical correction to the 2009 HEARTH Act amendments to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Changes include restoring nonprofit organizations' ability to administer rental assistance programs, as well as alter the way in which HUD reallocates funds.

Originally enacted in 1987 as the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, this legislation created a number of new programs to assist homeless Americans' needs, including food, shelter, health care, and education.

Since 1987, it has twice been reauthorized. In 2000, it came to be known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, with updates including the creation of the HUD Homeless Assistance Grants, the Department of Labor Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, and others. In 2009, the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing, the HEARTH Act, amended McKinney-Vento Homeless to combine the Shelter Plus Care and the Supportive Housing Programs into a single, competitive program.

Supported by HUD and the administration, the bill before us today will correct unintended consequences created by the HEARTH Act by allowing existing nonprofits that operate CoC programs for leased housing to homeless families and individuals to continue to manage their McKinney-Vento grants as rental assistance.

It restores nonprofit participation and maximum community flexibility by delegating authority to these institutions to administer rental assistance. It allows Innovation of Promising Practices. Providing nonprofits with administration of rental assistance will allow these groups to implement new housing practices, which would better assist the communities they are in. It reduces administrative work by allowing reallocation to occur once a year instead of semiannually.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would again like to thank the gentleman for his hard work in this area and for bringing this bill forward.

We have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I really rise to congratulate and thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters) for championing this bill and bringing to our attention a real tremendous cost savings in this HUD program with H.R. 2790, and really providing, using the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to provide services to the homeless rather than just additional legal fees, operating costs, additional insurance issues, establishing new internal controls and tracking systems. This is really innovative in terms of how it maximizes the McKinney-Vento moneys. The bill does not include more money, Mr. Speaker. It just allows us to use the small ``c'' that we have more effectively.

I yield as much time as he might consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters), the author of H.R. 2790.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.