Greetings!
With five weeks to go until session commences, work has ramped up tremendously in committees! The House of Representative and Senate have until the end of today to pass all finance and appropriation bills through their respective finance committees. For the House of Representatives, this means the Ways and Means committee, chaired by Representative Marquart, will have heard all the omnibus appropriation bills, including the Housing and Health and Human Services bills. In the Senate, the Finance committee, chaired by Senator Rosen, will have heard the Senate’s version of omnibus appropriation bills. Once the bills are voted out of the finance committees they will be placed on General Ledger and taken to the House and Senate floors for a vote. After that, three members from each chamber will be assigned to a conference committee where differences in omnibus bills will be reconciled.
As a reminder, the Homes for All legislative agenda can be found here.
Here is where we currently stand with omnibus appropriation bills in the House and Senate.
Housing-related Omnibus bills: the House and Senate omnibus bills include the following items which are a part of the H4A agenda.
Health and Human Serviced related Omnibus bills:
Note: MFIP is a part of the H4A support agenda
Tax-related bills
The following policy related items were in the House Omnibus Policy bill:
>Longer Minimum Affordability Terms: HF 1574
>Manufactured Housing Right of First Refusal: HF 1571/SF615
>Tax Exempt Bond Reinstate Cost Oversight Language and Include Five Consensus Items: HF 2273
>Pay or Quit Eviction Protection: HF 1972/SF338
The following Homes for All Support agenda items were part of the House omnibus bill:
>Lead Safe Homes HF 1007/SF1798: $2M FY20/21, $1M base
>Manufactured Housing Relocation Trust Fund Cap Adjustment HF 282/ SF239: $3M base
Spring Recess
Lawmakers will be back in their districts for spring recess. This is a great time to connect with your Representative and Senate about why supportives service and affordable housing dollars are important. As you can access from the charts above, the position of housing in the House is better than the Senate. However, to effectively move the marker we need an infusion of funding in both chamber budgets. Expect an action alert once legislators return to the Capitol on April 16th.