The President’s FY 2017 Budget provides the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with $48.9 billion in gross discretionary funding, Joshua D. Mosshart

The Deptartment of Housing Mission:

HUD's mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.

The President’s FY 2017 Budget provides the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with $48.9 billion in gross discretionary funding and $11.3 billion in new mandatory spending over ten years, with an emphasis on supporting 4.5 million households through rental assistance; increasing homeless assistance; supporting tribal communities and providing opportunities to Native American youth; and making targeted investments in communities to help revitalize high-poverty neighborhoods and improve housing affordability. 

This includes: 

1. Providing over $38 billion in rental housing assistance to support 4.5 million low-income families through the Housing Choice Voucher, Project-Based Rental Assistance, and Public Housing Programs; 
2. Ending family and chronic homelessness, and continuing to make progress across all targeted populations, by investing $11 billion in mandatory spending and $2.8 billion in discretionary spending for targeted homeless assistance; 
3. Improving mobility for low-income families to access higher opportunity areas by investing $15 million for a Mobility Counseling Demonstration, and ensuring that Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) have sufficient resources to promote mobility by increasing PHA administrative fees to a fully-funded level of $2.1 billion; 
4. Investing $200 million to transform neighborhoods with distressed HUD-assisted housing and concentrated poverty into opportunity-rich, mixed-income neighborhoods through the Choice Neighborhoods program; 
5. Providing $786 million to address the housing and community development needs of Native Americans, including $20 million targeted to Native youth; 
6. Narrowing the digital divide for students and families in HUD-assisted housing through actions that include a strategic investment of $5 million for the ConnectHome initiative; 
7. Preserving affordable housing units through the Rental Assistance Demonstration program by providing $50 million and a targeted expansion to include certain properties that provide housing for the elderly; 
8. Investing $300 million in local community efforts to reduce barriers to housing development and increase housing affordability; and 
9. Increasing job training and financial incentives for employment for public housing and Native American households through Jobs-Plus, an evidence-based program funded at $35 million. 

Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Reforms: 

1. Enhances local decision making, improves program accountability, and provides more options for regional coordination and planning through a series of reforms to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. 
2. Updates the formula of the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program by using HIV incidence rates and adjusting for fair market rents and poverty rates to better reflect the current nature and distribution of the epidemic. 

HUD’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Prioritizes Ending Family Homelessness and Increasing Opportunity for Resident of Low-Income Neighborhoods through these initiatives:

1. Ends family homelessness and chronic homelessness, and continues to make progress across all targeted populations. 
2. Provides Opportunity for Vulnerable Families through Housing Assistance. 
3. Improves mobility through the Housing Choice Voucher program. 
4. Expands Opportunity in High Poverty Communities. 
5. Improves Employment Outcomes for HUD-Assisted Households. 
6. Supports Local Efforts to Improve Housing Affordability and Economic Opportunity. 
7. Provides Communities with New Flexibilities to Help Families Achieve Self- Sufficiency. 

Invests in Programs that Serve Native Americans, including Native Youth, The Budget invests $700 million for Native American Housing Block Grants, $50 million above the 2016 enacted level.

Contractors or businesses that provide services to aid in HUD's initiatives are in the front of the line for grants, cooperative agreements and contracts.

Source: HUD

Joshua D. Mosshart MSFS, CHFC, CASL, CLU

Sustainable City Development-Joshua D. Mosshart MSFS, CHFC, CASL, CLU

Today, it is recognized that social, cultural, economic and environmental considerations are completely interconnected. In the city context, this means that sustainable urban development is not a choice but a necessity if cities are to meet the needs of their citizens. 

Urban centers must be socially equitable, culturally aligned, economically successful and environmentally sustainable if cities are indeed to be the home of humanity’s future.

Successful city development cannot operate efficiently in isolation from its environment. It must balance social, cultural, economic and environmental needs. A successful city must offer investors security, infrastructure and efficiency, and should also put the needs of its citizens at the forefront of all its planning activities. Poor urban planning and management can have grave results for the urban economy, the environment and society.

Poorly managed urban settlements will be unable to keep pace with urban expansion, and unserviced slums will proliferate, bringing with them poor health, poverty, social unrest and economic inefficiency. Environmental hazards are responsible for the most common causes of ill-health and mortality among the urban poor.

Local governments have an enormous influence on how urban-environment relationships develop, and on how their cities interact with their hinterlands and with the wider global community. Effective local governance can make cities more competitive, more efficient and more attractive to investors and workers by promoting the sustainable development of the urban environment.

Sustainable development is multi-dimensional. It requires an understanding ofcomplex and often conflicting relationships. These issues call for an integrated approach and an integration culture. A variety of strategic approaches to integrating the environment into the urban planning process exist. 

Environmental activities can be targeted at different levels.

No single recipe for managing change can be applied to all cities. Cities are affected by their location, their climate and natural features. Cities and urban settlements don’t operate in isolation—they are part of a national structure, subject to central government, strengthened or limited by regional and national infrastructure, budgetary policies, development priorities, decentralization policies.

Clean air is essential to a healthy environment.

Rivers and water bodies provide drinking water and act as natural pollution filters.

Biodiversity is essential for food, materials, medicine and improved quality of life, not just locally but also globally. Biospheres range far beyond the boundaries of a city, and urban activity in a single location can damage forests thousands of kilometres away, or disrupt migratory patterns. Biodiversity increases the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change.

Forests serve as watersheds, habitats, carbon sinks, leisure amenities and tourist destinations.

If managed sustainably, forests are also a source of energy and building materials.

Wetlands filter and process waste and act as a nursery for fisheries.

Sand dunes, coral reefs and mangroves protect cities from storm surges, prevent erosion and siltation, and in the case of the latter two act as nurseries for fisheries. Attractive coasts draw tourism.

Parks and greenbelts act as sinks for carbon dioxide (CO2) and counteract the heat island effect of large built-up areas. They also provide essential open space for urban residents, flora and fauna, counteract traffic noise and improve the general ‘liveability’ of a city.

The arguments for sustainable development are clear and universally accepted. For a city to grow and develop in the long term, it cannot disregard its environment. Theenvironment cuts across all sectors, income groups and management areas.

The foundation for Sustainable Urban Planning is building upon Clean Energy Technologies to stay on the sustainable energy path.

                                    Key Elements of a Sustainable System

Consistent: the short term actions are compatible with long-term goals and the viability of the system;

Renewable: the system depends on renewable resources and operates using environmentally clean technologies;

Diverse: the more diverse a system is, the more able it is to adapt to needed change;

Inclusive: all elements of the system are valued and used for the good of both the individual parts and the whole;

Interdependent: each element of the system is both dependent on and depended on by several other elements; the greater the interconnection, the stronger the system.

Source:UN-Habitat & ICLEI

Joshua D. Mosshart MSFS, CHFC, CLU, CASL