HUD FY 2009 Congressional Budget Justification Site Has Buried Nuggets.

Each year, after the budget is presented in early February, HUD posts DETAILED justifications for various programs and organizational divisions.

HUD has now posted the budget justifications for the FY 2009 budget HERE.

This detailed budget information can yield interesting insights. Buried on page 130 of the 150 page PDF Housing section HERE, the budget estimate is that HUD will assist 43,000+ FEWER project based units in FY 2009 vs. the actual project based assistance provided in FY 2007. (1,243,233 vs.1,286,662). Similarly Public Housing units are also projected to decline by 25,000 units (1,155,377 vs. 1,130,343) for a combined two year net loss of 68,000 units in these two programs.

Coupled with reductions in families served by tenant based Section 8 vouchers (HUD does not break out unit counts for vouchers), HUD clearly is helping FEWER absolute numbers of households that it has done at any time in the recent past and is coming nowhere near close to keeping up with even simple population growth.