Supportive Housing Providers Association

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FY 2015 Budget Passes House and Senate! Good for Supportive Housing!!
The House and Senate have passed a budget bill for FY 2015 (HB 6096, House Amendment #1) including an additional $2.6 million for supportive housing, bringing the total funding amount for supportive housing to $30.4 million, a 9% increase in funding over FY 2014. These funds will provide support services for an additional 896 people in projects scheduled to begin in FY 2015 and will continue all existing supportive housing services. A total of 12,000 people will be provided supportive housing in FY 2015.
Congratulations to One and All! Thank you to all Legislators who helped with the expansion of supportive housing.
Next step is asking the Governor to sign the budget into law. Stay tuned!

One Week to Go on Legislative Session! Budget Action Needed!
The Legislative Session has roughly one week to go, and we do mean “rough”. The Illinois budget proposal sits with two wildly different proposals and at least one revenue proposal. One set of budget proposals, passed May 15th in the House, keeps human services intact and helps supportive housing continue to grow. The other (HB 3792) would bring disastrous reductions to large sectors of human service provision, including a 20% reduction in service capacity to supportive housing. HB3792 failed in the House on Friday, May 23rd. Only five State Representatives (Madigan, Berrios, Bradley, Crespo, and Duncan) voted to approve the bad budget bill. Please call your state legislators to say thank you for voting against HB 3792 and ask him or her to continue to work to find adequate revenue to fund human services. Please note that the budget bills passed on May 15th which supported human services and the bill (HB 3792) that failed on May 23rd have been held in the House of Representatives due to a "Motion Filed to Reconsider Vote." This means that they can be called up again for a vote at any time.
The revenue proposal (HB 395, House Amendment #1) which would make the personal income tax permanent at the current 5% passed out of the House Executive Committee 11-0 and has been held on Calendar of “Second” reading. Bills are generally called for a final vote after “Third” reading.
Currently, the House Revenue Committee is scheduled to hear HB 395 HA #1 on Tuesday, May 27th. To file an electronic witness slip in favor of (proponent for) HB395 HA #1, please click here: http://my.ilga.gov/WitnessSlip/Create/70343?committeeHearingId=12101&LegislationId=70343&HCommittees5%2F29%2F2014-page=1&committeeid=0&chamber=H&nodays=7&_=1400781486374. The House Revenue Committee is currently scheduled for both May 27th and 28th. Strap on your seatbelt, stay close to your internet connection, take a deep breath and watch things closely during the week of May 26th. More to come! And, please keep inmind SHPA’s three points of emphasis: `
Extend the Temporary Income Tax Increase! The state needs a revenue solution for FY 2015!
Maintain current supportive housing funding levels at $27.8
Expand supportive housing service funding! Increase funding by $2.3 million!

Witness Slip Dashboard for the Illinois General Assembly

Thanks to all those who participated in the Residents Conference call yesterday. Another special thanks to Resident Leaders Aaron Parker Jr and EdgeAlliance for hosting.

After conducting a survey with the residents and assessing the results, SHPA's Residents' Conference Calls have been slightly changed. The calls will be held on the on the third Tuesdays of the month at 1:00 p.m. This is an hour earlier than the previous schedule. We missed out on January's call and we are ready for February's call, Tuesday, February 18th at 1:00 p.m. SHPA also has a new conference call number. The new number is 1-866-951-1151 and the code is 9278634 #.

We look forward to talking to all the residents next week. A huge thank you to all those that particiapted in the survey calls.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Johnna Lowe, Resident Education & Advocacy Coordinator at 312-202-0256 or at [email protected].