Most of the funding for the activities of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) comes from discretionary appropriations provided each year in the annual appropriations acts enacted by Congress. HUD's programs are primarily designed to address housing problems faced by households with very low incomes or other special housing needs. Three rental assistance programs—Public Housing, Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance (which funds Section 8 Vouchers), and Section 8 project-based rental assistance—account for the majority of the department's funding (more than three-quarters of total HUD appropriations in FY2014). Two flexible block grant programs—HOME and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program—help communities finance a variety of housing and community development activities designed to serve low- and moderate-income families. In addition, in some years Congress appropriates funds to CDBG to assist in disaster recovery. Other more specialized grant programs help communities meet the needs of homeless persons, including those living with HIV/AIDS. HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures mortgages made by lenders to home buyers with low down payments and to developers of multifamily rental buildings containing relatively affordable units. FHA collects fees from insured borrowers, which are used to sustain the insurance fund. Surplus FHA funds have been used to offset the cost of the HUD budget. Table 1 presents total net enacted appropriations for HUD over the past five years, including emergency appropriations, rescissions, offsetting collections, and receipts. (For more information, see CRS Report R42542, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Funding Trends Since FY2002 , by [author name scrubbed].) The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 ( P.L. 113-76 ) was signed into law on January 17, 2014. The final appropriations law provided year-long appropriations for all federal agencies, including HUD. Congress did not enact any final FY2014 appropriations prior to the start of the fiscal year on October 1, 2013, resulting in a funding lapse and partial government shutdown that lasted until a short-term continuing resolution (CR) was enacted on October 17, 2013. Under the terms of that CR ( P.L. 113-46 ), federal departments and agencies, including those typically funded by the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, were funded at their FY2013 levels, post-rescission and post-sequestration, back-dated from October 1, 2013, through January 15, 2014. Following enactment of another short-term CR ( P.L. 113-73 ), final FY2014 appropriations were enacted for all federal agencies. The final appropriation provided $32.8 billion in net budget authority for HUD, which is about 4% more than was provided post-sequestration in FY2013 (not including $15.2 billion in disaster funding in FY2013). Net budget authority is calculated by subtracting rescissions and offsetting collections and receipts from gross budget authority (appropriations) provided for HUD programs. The reductions in FY2014 primarily consisted of FHA receipts. In FY2014, gross funding for HUD programs was $45.5 billion, an increase of nearly 7% compared to FY2013 (not including FY2013 disaster funding). Unlike FY2013 HUD funding, FY2014 discretionary appropriations were not subject to sequestration. For more information about sequestration, see the Appendix . On December 16, 2014, the President signed the FY2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act ( P.L. 113-235 ), funding most federal agencies, including HUD, for the fiscal year. The House passed the bill on December 11, 2014, and the Senate passed it on December 13, 2014. Prior to enactment of P.L. 113-235 , the government had been funded with three continuing resolutions. The first, P.L. 113-164 , the FY2015 Continuing Appropriations Resolution provided funding from October 1, 2014, through December 11, 2014, at FY2014 levels, less an across-the-board (ATB) rescission of 0.0554% (unless otherwise specified). Congress enacted two additional CRs, P.L. 113-202 through December 15, 2014, and P.L. 113-203 through December 17, 2014, before enactment of P.L. 113-235 . P.L. 113-235 provides $45.4 billion in gross discretionary appropriations for HUD programs, not accounting for savings from offsets and other sources, about $90 million less than in FY2014 ($45.5 billion). However, net budget authority is higher than in FY2014, approximately $35.6 billion in FY2015 compared to $32.8 billion in FY2014. The primary difference between FY2015 and FY2014 is that estimated receipts from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan insurance program dropped by about $3 billion in FY2015 so that there were fewer offsets. The House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY2015 Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Act ( H.R. 4745 ) on May 27, 2014. Two weeks later, on June 10, 2014, the full House approved the bill after voting on a number of amendments. None of the adopted amendments changed overall funding for HUD programs. H.R. 4745 would have provided $44.7 billion in gross budget authority, and $35.0 billion in net budget authority. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY2015 THUD appropriations bill ( S. 2438 ) on June 5, 2014. Senate appropriators had planned to consider the THUD bill as part of a "minibus" with two other appropriations bills (those for the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, Science and Related Agencies; and the Department of Agriculture) the week of June 16, 2014, but parties were unable to reach agreement on the amendment process, and the measure did not proceed to the floor. The Senate Committee-passed bill would have provided $45.8 billion in gross budget authority, and $36.0 billion in net budget authority. On March 4, 2014, the Obama Administration submitted its FY2015 budget request. It included $46.7 billion in gross discretionary budget authority for HUD, which did not account for savings from rescissions and offsets from receipts and collections. The President's gross funding request was about $1.2 billion more than the amount provided in FY2014 ($45.5 billion). The amount of net budget authority requested in the President's budget was also higher than the amount provided in FY2014. This was largely attributable to reduced savings estimated to be available from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance fund. While HUD estimated that FHA offsets would increase by about $1.3 billion compared to FY2014, Congress uses the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) estimates of FHA receipts. CBO's estimate for the amount of offsetting receipts that will be generated by the loans insured under FHA's Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI Fund) in FY2015 was $4.2 billion lower than the estimate included in the President's budget. After the President's request was reduced to account for CBO's estimates of offsetting collections and receipts, net budget authority would have been $36.9 billion (compared to $32.8 billion in FY2014). Table 2 presents account-level funding information for HUD, with column (a) showing FY2014 enacted funding levels, column (b) the President's FY2015 proposal, column (c) the funding levels in the House-passed FY2015 THUD appropriations bill ( H.R. 4745 ), column (d) the funding levels in the Senate Committee-passed FY2015 THUD appropriations bill ( S. 2438 ), and column (e) FY2015-enacted funding levels in P.L. 113-235 . More than 75% of discretionary funding for HUD supports three programs: Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance (which funds Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers), Section 8 project-based rental assistance, and the Public Housing program. Together, these three programs serve more than 4 million low-income households. The following subsections discuss appropriations for these three programs, along with smaller associated programs, Choice Neighborhoods and the Rental Assistance Demonstration. The tenant-based rental assistance (TBRA) account funds the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program; it is the largest account in HUD's budget. Most of the funding provided to the account each year is for the annual renewal of more than 2 million vouchers that are currently authorized and being used by families to subsidize their housing costs. The account also provides funding for the administrative costs incurred by the Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) that administer the program. The account is funded using both current-year appropriations and advance appropriations provided for use in the following fiscal year. (For more information about the program, see CRS Report RL34002, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program: Issues and Reform Proposals , by [author name scrubbed].) As shown in Table 3 , the President's FY2015 budget proposed that total funding for the Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance account increase from $19.2 billion in FY2014 to $20.0 billion in FY2015, an increase of 4.5%. The President's budget documents indicated that the requested funding level would be sufficient to renew the roughly 2.2 million vouchers currently funded, and to provide new HUD-VASH vouchers for homeless veterans as well as tenant-protection vouchers for residents in properties that no longer provide subsidized housing. The President's budget request proposed to increase the amount of administrative fees paid to the local PHAs that administer the program.