SUMMARY OF BUDGET ESTIMATES

1. SUMMARY OF BUDGET REQUEST

   A total of $283 million is requested for Welfare to work vouchers.

2. CHANGES FROM 1997 ESTIMATES INCLUDED IN 1998 BUDGET

   Not Applicable.

3. CHANGES FROM ORIGINAL 1998 BUDGET ESTIMATES.

   Not Applicable.

EXPLANATION OF INCREASES AND DECREASES

Not Applicable.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND ACTIVITY

These funds would provide 50,000 housing vouchers to be used to help families make the transition from welfare to work. Lack of affordable, stable housing, or housing located close to employment, impedes the efforts of families moving from welfare to work. These vouchers will provide States and communities with a new flexible tool to help families who need housing assistance in order to achieve self-sufficiency.

The additional vouchers will be available on a competitive basis to the local housing agencies (including Indian housing authorities.) Local housing agencies will submit an application plan, developed in consultation with State, local or Tribal welfare agency and the local Welfare-to-Work formula funds grantee (generally to local Private Industry Council), allowing both state and local participation in the effort. The vouchers will be used where they are essential to a successful transition from welfar e to work, that is, where housing assistance is critical for a family to get or keep employment. For example, a family could use a welfare to work housing voucher to move to an area where there are more job opportunities, to reduce an extremely long commu te, or to stabilize its housing situation in order to improve attendance and performance at work.

Families who receive the vouchers must be initially eligible for or currently receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or have received TANF within the past year. However, local agencies will have great flexibility to design and operate th e welfare-to-work voucher program within broad national guidelines. For example, the agencies would propose whether to focus on particular groups of welfare recipients and how to structure the assistance to meet local needs. The application would request any waivers of administrative provisions or statutory provisions of the United State Housing Act of 1937 that are needed to substantially further the objectives of the program. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will review and select t he local plans after consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor. HUD will evaluate the impact of this program.