For
those who grew up listening to Top 40 radio, the word “hit” has an
altogether different meaning than it would to an embattled quarterback
behind a porous offensive line or someone who has run afoul of organized
crime. HOME’s most recent “hit” has nothing to do with music.
The bad
news first: while still coping with the impact of a retaliatory funding
cut following the revelation that the City of Buffalo had failed to
comply with a federal consent decree, HOME’s funding under HUD’s Fair
Housing Initiatives Program has not been renewed. As a result, our
revenues which stood at $628,300 one year ago have fallen to a projected
$384,400—a reduction of 38 percent.
What’s
going on?
Highly competitive
funding process
HUD
unveiled its Fair Housing Initiatives Program in 1988, five years after
then HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing Antonio Monroig (in
Buffalo to address HOME’s 19th Annual Meeting) was quoted in
the pages of the Courier-Express acknowledging it made sense for
HUD to directly fund fair housing agencies like HOME. Since 1989—almost
without interruption—HOME has repeatedly won support under this program.
In
2003-04 HOME’s budget included $165,000 from FHIP. These funds were
used to underwrite the cost of outreach to victims of national origin
discrimination following 9/11, the homeless and people with
disabilities; to publish an Arabic-English fair housing brochure; to pay
testers; to conduct accessibility and systemic investigations; and to
underwrite a portion of salaries and operating costs so that HOME could
help victims of discrimination in communities which don’t fund us.
While
participating in the FHIP program, HOME earned two HUD Best Practice
Awards (in 1999 and 2003) and HUD’s second annual Pioneer of Fair
Housing Award (2004). HOME also attained the highest possible score for
implementing its 2003-04 FHIP contract—meeting or exceeding
performance levels on each and every contract objective. Still that
was not apparently not good enough to win renewed support.
During a
debriefing, HOME was repeatedly complemented on the quality of its
unsuccessful application, which actually rated higher than some
which were funded (due to the use of a geo-diversity provision intended
to fund programs in more states). Ironically, there was precious little
geo-diversity in New York—where 92.5 percent of all fair housing funds
went to agencies in the New York metropolitan area.
The good news
Despite
trials which one observer termed “of biblical proportions”, HOME has
remained resolute—more determined than ever to continue our important
work.
Ever
entrepreneurial, we have entered into a contract with the City of
Niagara Falls to prepare an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing
study. Additionally, we are in discussion with another government
agency about a special project and, under the guidance of the Program
Operations & Planning Committee, are pursuing several other
possibilities.
With our
staff reduced from 13 to eight, we have reconfigured intake in order to
still provide services to new clients five hours each day.
During a
most difficult time, the Board and professional staff have rededicated
themselves to providing essential core services—which would be done by
no other if not for HOME.
