A message from Julie Klein, Assistant to the President/Policy Outreach Associate, National Alliance to End Homelessness:

Dear McKinney Advocates,

The President is scheduled to release his FY 2016 Budget Proposal next Monday, February 2. The budget reflects the Administration’s funding priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and is meant to guide Congress as it continues to move through the appropriations process. The Alliance will host a webinar on Thursday, February 5 at 12 pm ET to review the Budget Proposal. During the webinar, presenters from the Alliance will review the federal budget process, analyze the Administration’s proposed funding levels for federal affordable housing and targeted homelessness programs, and provide information on this year’s McKinney Appropriations Campaign, which will be launched in conjunction with the webinar.

Click here to register for the February 5 webinar.

We will certainly have another uphill battle ahead of us this year, and are hopeful that the Administration will again demonstrate that they prioritize homeless assistance in the President’s Budget Proposal so that advocates can point to this support and use it as a baseline when reaching out to their congressional offices to advocate for increased McKinney funding.

Furthermore, the larger federal budget context will paint a grim picture for HUD programs this year, unless low budget caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 are raised through another large budget deal, and the President’s Budget proposal will give us a sense of the extent to which the Administration believes overall spending levels should be raised. Throughout the year, it will be important to advocate to increase federal funding caps (particularly for non-defense discretionary spending), in order to maximize the amount of funding available for programs that are most important to ending homelessness.

Join us for our President’s Budget Briefing as we launch our FY 2016 efforts to work with Congress to ensure that our federal government continues to serve and assist our nation’s most vulnerable people. Any efforts to spread the word about the webinar and this working group to your networks are much appreciated!