FW: Increasing Funding for McKinney in FY 2012: Campaign Launch
Christine Johansen
From: Amanda Krusemark [mailto:AKrus...@NAEH.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 7:53 AM
To: Amanda Krusemark
Cc: Catherine Seif
Subject: Increasing Funding for McKinney in FY 2012: Campaign Launch
Good Morning Everyone,
The fiscal year (FY) 2012 McKinney Appropriations Campaign has officially begun! I know it seems really soon, since we just wrapped up FY 2011 a couple of weeks ago, but Congress is moving full speed ahead toward the upcoming budget – and we need to keep up.
Our Strategy:
With the President’s recommendation for about $2.4 billion for HUD’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants programs in mind, Congress is embarking on its own budget and appropriations process. The next month is THE most critical time for constituents to voice funding concerns. It is crucial that we get AS MANY LETTERS AS POSSIBLE to our Senators and Representatives now through the month of MAY, letting them now how important it is to provide $2.4 billion for McKinney programs in FY 2012. Congress is likely to begin writing appropriations bills in June – so NOW is the time to act!
YOU can make a difference! Please let us know if you can send letters! We’re here to help make it as easy as possible:
- Sample Letter (attached). Just personalize the letter to reflect your great progress locally. All letters should be faxed/emailed to Senators’ and Representatives’ Washington, DC offices, directed to the attention of the person who handles housing issues (let us know if you need help finding their name/email).
- Sample Action Alert (attached). In addition to sending your own letters, it would be great if you could ask OTHERS to send letters, too. You can use this sample action alert as a template for reaching out to your networks, colleagues, friends, and others. Ask them to tell us (or you) how many letters they sent.
To really take this to scale and fully track our impact on Congress, we’re going to TALLY TOTAL LETTERS SENT in the next several weeks. So, keep us posted by emailing Kate Seif at cs...@naeh.org or me at akrus...@naeh.org. All you have to do is send a VERY short email to tell us:
○ How many letters you sent (Did you contact one office or twenty?)
○ If you asked your network to send any letters
That’s it! It only takes 30 seconds to let us know! Feel free to tell us more (we love details!), but this is all we need. Together, we should be able to send HUNDREDS of letters to Capitol Hill. Collectively, our voices WILL be heard!
We have created a Campaign Website with additional information and resources. But here are further details:
What Are We Asking and Why?
We are asking Congress to fund HUD’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants programs at $2.4 billion for FY 2012. While we are thrilled that McKinney-Vento received a slight increase in FY 2011 ($40 million to $1.905 billion) – despite massive cuts to countless other programs – we all know that this is just NOT enough. We need to make sure Congress understands that this is unacceptable. We need a one-time, BIG increase in McKinney-Vento funding to more fully implement the HEARTH Act and address the lingering effects of the recession. The momentum from the small increase in FY 2011 will help show new Members of Congress how well-respected by their colleagues the McKinney-Vento program is.
What Will $2.4 Billion Do?
With $2.4 billion, we could:
○ Make substantial progress on HEARTH implementation;
○ Fund prevention and rapid re-housing activities through the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program;
○ Fund new Continuum of Care competitive projects; and
○ Mitigate the continuing effects of the recession.
These are PROVEN, cost-effective and cost-efficient programs CRUCIAL to helping our country’s most vulnerable people and ending homelessness once and for all. To reach the federal government’s goals of ending homelessness in five to ten years, we MUST be able to implement HEARTH and provide communities with the necessary resources to provide housing and services for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
Why NOW?
Because it took so long to finish the FY 2011 budget, Congress is WAY behind schedule on the FY 2012 budget, and they’re moving quickly to catch up. The Appropriations Committees are likely to begin drafting their FY 2012 funding bills in June…so the next 6-8 weeks are REALLY critical. They are trying to squeeze into May what normally would have been done in February through May. Things will slow down in August, when Congress is on recess for a full month, and in the fall. The fiscal year officially starts on October 1. It’s almost always much easier to affect the outcome at the beginning of the process than it will be later on. So, this really is our BEST opportunity to make sure we get the one-time big boost to McKinney funding that we need. Your help is CRUCIAL to this process!
What Do We Want Members of Congress to Do, EXACTLY?
We need to inundate Members of Congress with requests for them to contact HUD Appropriations Committee leaders in support of this funding level. We even have a sample letter your Member of Congress could send to HUD Appropriations Committee leaders – just let us know if an office is interested in that letter.
Other Questions? Just ask us!! We can’t wait to see how many letters we are able to generate!
Thanks!
Amanda
Amanda Krusemark
Program and Policy Associate
National Alliance to End Homelessness
1518 K Street NW, Suite 410
Washington, DC 20005