Nonprofit and religious groups are riled about a bill the US House of Representatives passed Oct. 27 that could force them to make a choice: Stop registering people to vote or lose out on proposed affordable-housing funds.
The Federal Housing Finance Reform Act would create more federal spending for affordable housing, with money going to hurricane-plagued areas before becoming available for other regions. When conservatives inserted an 11th-hour amendment, however, reaction from housing advocates and other nonprofits turned sour. The amendment would bar nonprofits or their affiliates — but not for-profit groups — from receiving affordable housing funds if in the previous 12 months those groups had registered voters, lobbied or held get-out-the-vote drives.
“I think it’s horrible,” said Angeles Ortega, executive director of the Latin American Coalition, one of two Charlotte organizations that signed letters opposing the measure. Eloise Hicks, executive director of the other opposing organization, the Regional HIV/AIDS Consortium, said politics, not principal, is driving the amendment. She said it is politics reminiscent of Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James’ efforts to throw out homeless people’s voter registrations. “A lot of what this is, they don’t want people to have access to being able to vote if they’re poor,” Hicks said.
Congressional debate over the measure was similarly emotional, with accusations from Democrats that Republicans hate the poor, and claims from conservatives that liberals just want to funnel money toward their interests. “This Congress and this President have established policies that allow virtually every American that has a job to find a way, if they desire, to own a home,” US Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida, a Republican, said in the Oct. 26 Congressional Record. “Some of our friends on the other side are very upset because rather than providing money for bricks and mortar, what they would like to do is to provide money for politics.”
One Democrat cited civil rights icon Rose Parks’ passing in his opposition to the restrictions: “…It is hard not to see the irony that two days after her death, we are going to debate and vote on a bill that will restrict the ability of the poor to have access to affordable housing and to vote in democratic elections in this country,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.
Opponents of the restrictions say the bill has safeguards already that would bar money from going to groups that engage in partisan electioneering.
The legislation’s primary purpose was improving oversight of mortgage groups like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not increasing affordable housing funds. A similar Senate version of the legislation doesn’t include affordable housing funds at all. But now, housing advocates are focused on keeping the restrictions they say are likely unconstitutional out of the Senate bill.
Hicks and Ortega weren’t the only North Carolina advocates to oppose the restrictions. Several other groups have protested the restrictions, including the United Way of NC, the NC Council to End Homelessness, the NC Council of Churches and the NC Housing Coalition. Many national religious organizations registered opposition as well, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Episcopal Church.
Mecklenburg County needs 11,272 more affordably priced housing units for people with incomes of 80 percent or less of the median, according to a draft of a 2006 plan that local officials submit to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Only about 5,800 affordable units are slated to be repaired or built in Charlotte — not nearly enough to meet demand. Nationally, home ownership was at an all-time high of 69 percent in 2004, though the amount of affordable housing continues to shrink, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
Both Regional HIV/AIDS Consortium and the Latin American Coalition offer housing information and assistance, although only the Coalition currently receives federal funds. Both groups’ leaders said they don’t advocate parties or candidates.
“Not at all,” Ortega said. “We don’t allow in the office any documentation from anybody who’s running for office.”
If the proposal becomes law, Ortega said, many nonprofit groups will stop offering voter registration forms — further reducing the likelihood that low-income people will register. “It’s disenfranchising a segment of the population,” she said.
This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2005.
