From the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania (http://www.thecaap.org):
As of January 25th, 2019, the longest government shutdown in American history ended as President Trump signed a bill that temporarily opened the government until February 15th. When the shutdown began on December 22nd, 2018, 7 of the 12 appropriation bills had not been passed yet include funding for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Homeland Security, among others. Of these bills, several included funding for federal safety net programs. Fortunately, a continuing resolution was signed before the partial shutdown took place. The signing of the resolution appropriated funding for the departments in need for January. As a result of the shutdown, local organizations and state governments, including Pennsylvania, needed to plan and implement strategies to get benefits on time to recipients. States, and funding for essential human service programs like SNAP, TANF, and HUD will look to February 15th as the next potential road block as they attempt to recuperate from the damage done by the 35-day shutdown.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was immediately affected by this partial government shutdown. The beginning of the shutdown stopped HUD from renewing their rental assistance contracts. Without the renewal, 650 section 8 housing contracts expired on January 5th which put roughly 21,500 families’ housing in jeopardy. Among those families, almost two-thirds of them are elderly or have a disability. If a compromise would not have been reached by the federal government, another 20,000 homes would have been affected by expiring contracts at the end of January. Similar effects of the government shutdown were felt by HUD’s public housing, housing voucher, and rural housing programs. Private property owners, as recommended by HUD, had to dip into their own personal funding reserves to pay for the costs that HUD would normally cover during the shutdown. On January 26th, HUD was awarded $2 billion in renewal grants for 5,800 community-based housing and service providers as they begin to repair the damage caused by the shutdown.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) lost its federal funding as a result of the shutdown. This forced the states to pick up the financial burden until the shutdown ended – a cost that amounted to over $4.2 billion covering January through March. Pushing this unexpected cost burden onto states was of great concern, as they could have stopped funding TANF at any time due to budget limitations. Arizona faced this scenario during the shutdown in 2013 and was met with harsh criticism for the 5,200 families that were in peril. Governor Tom Wolf assured Pennsylvania’s TANF recipients during his January 23re press release that their benefits would be safe until mid-April, by using left-over federal funding the commonwealth had received last year. On January 24th, Pennsylvania and the rest of the country received even better news when President Trump signed the TANF Extension Act of 2019. The act reauthorized quarterly TANF payments until the end of June this year.
When the shutdown began, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was being funded by a continuing resolution, which was passed right before the government shutdown began. January SNAP benefits had already been distributed through that continuing resolution. SNAP benefit funding was set to expire 30 days after the signing of the resolution; to superimpose this expiration, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) worked with states to distribute February SNAP benefits before the January 20th deadline. Pennsylvania was able to distribute their SNAP benefits on the 18th and urged recipients to stretch their benefits for as long as possible in February – a pretty senseless request to make of those who are already stretched thin. As USDA employees (who oversee SNAP and WIC) return from their furlough, they will have to sift through 5 weeks’ worth of backlogged work in order to get benefit distributions back on track.
The issues that plagued our families during the shutdown had a seriously negative impact on hardworking individuals who were utilizing critical human service programs to help stabilize their resources as they worked to regain their financial independence. If Pennsylvania and other states had not been proactive, this shutdown could have been even more harmful than it already was. This temporary bi-partisan compromise is a band-aid for the problem, not the end-all solution. As the February 15th budget deadline approaches, we hope our legislators develop long-term solutions so that hard working families can focus on their future and not live in fear of government created instability.
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