Title: Housing Homeless Veterans Act of 2019
Policy area: Housing and Community Development

Summary:
Housing Homeless Veterans Act of 2019
This bill establishes certain priorities for funding distributed under the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program and requires the reallocation of certain unused funds under the program.
Specifically, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in making VASH program funds available among public housing agencies (PHAs) for rental voucher assistance for homeless veterans who have chronic mental illnesses or chronic substance-use disorders, must give priority to PHAs that (1) serve areas that have the highest numbers of homeless veterans, (2) have fully utilized their available HUD-VASH funds for the preceding fiscal year, and (2) have demonstrated need for such incremental assistance.
Additionally, HUD must (1) recapture certain unused HUD-VASH assistance from PHAs in jurisdictions with decreasing homeless populations, and (2) reallocate the recaptured amounts to PHAs that have used their entire allocations of HUD-VASH assistance.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5135 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 5135

To give priority in allocation of rental assistance vouchers under the 
Veterans Affairs Supported Housing program of the Department of Housing 
   and Urban Development to areas having the largest populations of 
               homeless veterans, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           November 18, 2019

 Ms. Barragan introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To give priority in allocation of rental assistance vouchers under the 
Veterans Affairs Supported Housing program of the Department of Housing 
   and Urban Development to areas having the largest populations of 
               homeless veterans, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Housing Homeless Veterans Act of 
2019''.

SEC. 2. ALLOCATION OF HUD-VASH VOUCHERS.

    (a) Amendment to VASH Program.--Paragraph (19) of section 8(o) of 
the United States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437f(o)(19)) is 
amended by adding at the end the following new subparagraphs:
                    ``(D) Allocation criteria.--Notwithstanding any 
                other provision of law (including paragraph (6) under 
                the heading `Public and Indian Housing--Tenant-Based 
                Rental Assistance' in title II of division K of Public 
                Law 115-31), in making amounts for assistance under 
                this paragraph available among public housing agencies 
                in each fiscal year, the Secretary shall give priority 
                to public housing agencies that--
                            ``(i) serve areas having the highest 
                        numbers of homeless veterans; and
                            ``(ii) have fully utilized their available 
                        funds under this paragraph for the preceding 
                        fiscal year and have a demonstrated need for 
                        incremental assistance under this paragraph.
                    ``(E) Reallocation of unused vouchers for vash 
                assistance.--
                            ``(i) Recapture and reallocation.--
                        Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the 
                        Secretary shall--
                                    ``(I) recapture from any public 
                                housing agency described in clause (ii) 
                                any amounts of assistance provided 
                                under this paragraph to the agency that 
                                are not--
                                            ``(aa) under lease after 24 
                                        months;
                                            ``(bb) committed under an 
                                        agreement to enter into a 
                                        housing assistance payments 
                                        contract; or
                                            ``(cc) committed, under a 
                                        commitment of award letter that 
                                        has been approved by the board 
                                        of governors or other similar 
                                        governing body of the public 
                                        housing agency, for project-
                                        based voucher assistance for a 
                                        project; and
                                    ``(II) reallocate any recaptured 
                                amounts to public housing authorities 
                                that have leased their entire 
                                allocation of assistance under this 
                                paragraph.
                            ``(ii) Agencies subject to recapture.--An 
                        agency described in this clause is an agency 
                        whose jurisdiction is located within an area 
                        within which the homeless population has 
                        decreased, according to the point-in-time 
                        information of the Secretary for the two most 
                        recent reporting periods for such 
                        information.''.
    (b) Applicability.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall 
apply to amounts made available--
            (1) by paragraph (6) under the heading ``Public and Indian 
        Housing--Tenant-Based Rental Assistance'' in title II of 
        division K of Public Law 115-31, to the extent such amounts 
        remain unobligated as of the date of the enactment of this Act; 
        and
            (2) by any other provision of law enacted after the date of 
        the enactment of this Act.
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