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Housing Call: March 11, 2025

Organizational Updates & Reminders

REGISTER for Housing Day 2025 – April 9, 2025

Anyone interested in registering for Housing Day must do so by the end of the day on March 14, 2025. So far, we have representation from 52 out of 100 counties in North Carolina!

Federal Policy & Advocacy Updates

Advocacy Letter Update

  • We sent a letter to our congressional delegation on February 21, 2025 with over 400 signatures from individuals, organizations, and community groups across the state. With representation from all 100 counties.
  • Yesterday March 10, 2025 – we added over 70 individuals and 20 organizations and community groups who have signed on to our federal letter to the North Carolina Congressional Delegation since our first deadline at the end of February. This brings our total signee count to over 500!
  • You can still sign on to the letter by clicking here.

This is working, don’t stop. Especially this week. Keep calling and reaching out to your elected officials, and tag 2-3 of your biggest supporters and colleagues to join you.

Calls to Action from Webinar

  • For the next week – call Senator Ted Budd and Thom Thillis, and reach out to your Congressperson.
  • You can find their contact information here.
  • Then, reach out to 2-3 of your top supporters of your work or organization – and ask them to do the same.
  • Let us know what you are seeing! We cannot rely solely on the national communications – tell us by filling out this brief form here.

Talking Points & Key Messages

  • The decision to hold up federal funds and eliminate federal staff will cost people their homes.
  • The problem wasn’t waste, fraud, and abuse, the problem was always NOT HAVING ENOUGH RESOURCES.
  • Talk about the scale of the impact on your organization, but do not forget to make a direct connection to the impact on people and communities you serve.

Federal Budget – Possible Government Shutdown

We are 3 days away from Friday March 14, 2025, which is the federal funding deadline for Congress to reach an agreement on spending levels or else we will go into a federal shutdown..

On March 7, Speaker Mike Johnson released a 7 month funding patch to keep the federal government funded until the end of September when the budget year ends. It would extend the funding levels for federal programs based on the FY24 spending bill, and only provide increases to a limited number of key programs. The House is expected to vote on this as early as TODAY – March 11, 2025. Here are some key points from this proposal we’d like to point out:

  • NO ADDITIONAL Disaster Recovery Funds
  • No solutions for the summer deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling and avoid defaulting on the national debt.
  • To see a comparison of the Senate & House proposals and their impact on Housing and Community Development, read this analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
  • What this proposal does housing and community development programs:
    • $32.14 B to renew contracts under HUD’s Tenant Based Rental Assistance program (a $3.65 B increase from the previous fiscal year) unfortunately this will likely not be sufficient to cover the needed cost of voucher renewals, and about 32,000 vouchers would be lost.
    • $16.49 B for HUD’s project based-rental assistance program, a $48M increase from FY24.
    • $931.4 M for Section 202 – an $18 million increase from the last fiscal year. This program provides housing and supportive services for older adults.
    • $256.7 M for Section 811 – an increase of $48.7 M from the previous fiscal year. This program provides affordable, accessible housing and supportive services to help people with disabilities live in communities, rather than institutionalized settings.
    • Instead of adding additional funds for the HUD Homeless Assistance Grants program, it gives the HUD Secretary the authority to “Repurpose funds made available” for the Continuum of Care (CoC) Builds program to fund CoC renewals. This will likely shortfall the program by an estimated $168 Million.
    • $3.43 B for HUD’s Community Development Fund – a $3.29 B CUT from the previous fiscal year. Most of this is in the form of lost earmarks or congressionally requested funding for community development projects – things ranging from providing shelter and life saving services to families at risk of or experiencing homelessness, survivors of domestic violence, as well as older adults, veterans and people with disabilities

We will continue to reach out to our delegation and keep you all informed as we know more about what the status of the government may be after the 14th. That may mean additional calls to action, another webinar, and more, so keep an eye on your inboxes.

Additional Federal Policy & Advocacy Highlights

 

State & Local Updates

NC General Assembly

2025-2026 NC General Assembly Bill Tracker

So far, over 600 bills have been filed this session as of yesterday March 10, 2025. To see which bills we are tracking check out our bill tracker for the 2025-2026 legislative session, click here.

If you’re familiar with our 2025-2026 policy agenda we will be releasing a summary in the coming weeks looking at what bills have been filed, acted on, passed that relate to our priorities and our analysis on their potential impacts.

Here are some of the meetings we are tracking this week, March 10 – 14, 2025

  • There are several joint appropriations meetings, indicating budget talks are underway.

Tuesday – March 11

  • 3/11 – Judiciary 1 – H251 Disaster Response Funding/Non Discrimination

Wednesday – March 12

  • 3/12 – House Committee on Housing & Community Development at 3:00pm

Several of the NCGA recent decisions, as well as bill filings have made the news:

The Latest in Disaster Recovery

 

FEMA Assistance Ending

The U.S. Small Business Administration Disaster Loan application deadline has been extended to April 27. To date, they have granted over $144M in disaster loans to North Carolinians

FEMA possible extension?

Helene victims face end of FEMA housing program on March 7

CDBG-DR Public Comment period x 2

Public comment for NC CDBG-DR is March 20

Public comment for City of Asheville CDBG-DR Action Plan is ?

Asheville releases draft proposal for $225 million in Helene recovery funds

Rep. Chuck Edwards Asheville Town Hall 3/13

Congressman Chuck Edwards to hold town hall at A-B Tech on March 13 | AVL Watchdog

Any news from the town halls this week?

Local News Highlights 

Events

Reports & Resources

In the News

 

Recommended read

Housing Call: March 4, 2025

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