House advances Duffy proposal to update nation’s low-income housing programs

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 412 to 5 to approve a proposal from U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) that would better support American families living in public housing.

The Family Self-Sufficiency Act, H.R. 4258, which Duffy introduced on Nov. 6, 2017, would encourage the development of local strategies that coordinate the use of specific federal public housing assistance with public and private resources aimed at helping eligible families “achieve economic independence and self-sufficiency,” according to the bill’s text. The House approved the bill on Jan. 17 and sent it to the Senate, where it has been referred to the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee for consideration.

“This kind of artful review of policy that our committee has done on a bipartisan level brings us to reforms that can look at the successes of a program, but build upon those successes and make them work for more families,” said Rep. Duffy, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.

The lawmaker, speaking on the House floor before the bill’s passage, explained that H.R. 4258 combines two existing family self-sufficiency (FSS) programs operated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — one for families in the housing choice voucher program, also known as Section 8, and the other for families in the public housing program.

This would enable HUD to “streamline and reduce regulatory burdens,” the congressman said, adding that the FFS “is a program that actually works, that helps people get from public assistance to self-sufficiency and hopefully into home ownership.”

At the same time, according to Duffy, the bill would broaden the scope of supportive services being offered to families by including a path to General Equivalency Degree attainment or post-secondary courses toward a degree or certification. “More than 10 percent of the people who graduate from the program go on to buy a home,” said the lawmaker.