RCAC Home Page > News and Publications > Self Help Builder News March 2012 Volume 5 Issue #1 >

Washington, DC update

By Stanley Keasling, RCAC chief executive officer

On February 13^th, President Obama submitted the Administration’s FY 2013 budget (starts October 1, 2012). The Self-Help funding, while low, is not as bad as last year. The Administration has requested $10 million for the Sec. 523 Self-Help Housing Program and around $653 million for the Sec. 502 Direct Loan Program. The requests are better than the $0 for self-help and $200 million for 502 direct in last year’s budget request. But they represent substantial cuts from Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations of $30 million and $900 million, respectively. The most distressing aspect of the 502 number is that the administration has reduced the budget for direct lending authority by over 50 percent because the cost of the loans went down along with the amount of the request. In other words, the Agriculture Department budget request is over 95 percent of last year’s budget, but the request for the 523 and 502 loans are less than 50 percent of last year’s appropriation level. The concern for the 523 funding is that it is target to close out the program rather than continue it.

In other housing news, the Administration did not seek to increase the funding for the HOME program from last year’s appropriation level of $1 billion. Before last year the program was funded at $1.6 billion. The Administration has again requested no funding for the Self-Help Opportunity Program (SHOP).

In other words, we have our work cut out for us to achieve adequate funding for the rural housing programs.

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