On Tuesday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee released its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025. Overall, the bill mostly mirrored the version that passed the House last month – MRVP funding was the same at $219 million ($40 million more than FY 24), RAFT received $197 million ($7.4 million more than FY 24), and HomeBASE came in at $57 million ($20 million more than FY 24).
Encouragingly, Senate Ways and Means proposed $3 million more than the House for the Public Housing Operating line item – $115 million, which is an increase of $8 million from last year.
Still, there remain items of concern. Access to Counsel, which was included for the first time in the House budget with funding of $2.5 million, was absent from the Senate budget. And funding for the Alternative Housing Voucher Program is $500,000 less than FY 24.
Senators have until the end of this week to file amendments to the Senate Ways and Means Proposal. The full Senate is expected to debate the budget during the week of May 20.
The Building Blocks Committee will meet on Thursday, May 9 at 1pm to discuss priority amendments and advocacy strategy. If you are interested in joining that meeting, click here to register and for the Zoom link.