No HUD for homeless

The loss next year of federal grant money for Maine’s homeless is disturbing news both for the programs directly affected and all organizations statewide that help this population. The rejection should spur Maine to improve its applications, but, more importantly, raises questions about a bureaucratic process that places the lives of a state’s homeless at risk.

The Maine State Housing Authority and the city of Portland this year applied for $4.36 million in Continuum of Care grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to subsidize permanent and transitional housing for people receiving treatment for mental illness or substance abuse. The grants are popular and competitive, and HUD determined that a score of 74 on a measure of a dozen or more application details — from the number of people served to the amount of other funding leveraged — was needed to win a share of the money. Portland scored 73; Maine scored 72. About two-thirds of the proposals nationally were funded.

Maine’s homeless, however, were out of luck. Not out of luck by a few thousand dollars because the applications were one or two points short of the qualifying level, but out of luck entirely, without warning and in subfreezing weather in a state where the homeless shelters already are struggling to make ends meet.

It is worth noting that the only other states that failed to get funding were Oklahoma, Kansas and North Dakota — rural states that Washington may feel do not have homeless problems compared with big cities. But as Sen. Susan Collins points out, it is the rural places that often do not have the same network of private and community services found in major cities. Options are fewer here, and trying to live under a bridge in January is not a good idea.

The state proposal also was to have funded mostly Southern Maine programs this year, but this half of Maine will feel the loss as well. Not only could the lack of services to the south put more pressure on services already strained here, but Bangor and Portland for the past several years have alternated applications for the HUD money.

Next year presumably is Bangor’s turn, but certainly Portland will need the money, too. The cities, which act as service centers for their regions, might profit from meeting before the next applications go out to devise some way to cooperate rather than compete with each other, with perhaps the state asking for a larger share next year and distributing the money to areas most in need.

Bangor and Portland officials already plan to get together next month with HUD officials to find out how they can better compete for the grants. That’s a good idea. In discussing the failed grant proposals with Rep. Tom Allen, HUD pointed to a couple of shortcomings in the applications that could have made the difference.

HUD officials, however, said they could not call the applicants before the grant decision was made to tell them about the shortcomings because the HUD Reform Act forbids them from talking with to applicants once a proposal is received. But that act was created a decade ago to rid the department of what a House report called “widespread abuses, influence peddling, blatant favoritism, monumental waste and gross mismanagement.” It was not created to kill an application that merely was missing some information.

Nevertheless, HUD’s interpretation of this rule, like its grant-awarding process, has had severe consequences for Maine’s homeless.

With the unexpected loss of the homeless money and HUD’s dismal funding response to last winter’s ice storm, Mainers could be excused for wondering whether they have done something to offend HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo.

But it wasn’t just these two events that prompted Sen. Collins to refer to HUD recently as “the worst-run department in federal government.” Complaints several months ago from the HUD inspector general, Susan Gaffney, about conduct with the department have Sen. Collins wondering whether the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, of which she is chairman, should look into HUD behavior. The senator’s challenge is to keep the investigation from appearing to be simple revenge for HUD’s treatment of Maine.

Given HUD’s history and the concerns of the inspector general, that may not be difficult.