The house and Senate bills differ greatly. The House bill cuts every housing and community development program (public housing, homeless assistance, fair housing, the Community Development Block Grant, Section 202 elderly housing, Section 811 housing for the disabled, etc.) except for Section 8 project-and tenant-based programs. The House bill also leaves the window wide open for a continuation of HUD's harmful Section 8 voucher spending mechanism, which has been in place since April 22, and which has caused increased rents, removal of people from the program, and/or cuts in the number of vouchers available to needy families.

The Senate bill provides adequate funding for Section 8 vouchers and project-based housing and provides for small increases in most housing and community development programs. The Senate bill also provides a marked improvement over the April 22 harmful Section 8 spending mechanism regarding the distribution of HUD funding.

The White House is pushing for all remaining appropriations bills to be completed by November 20. The White House and the House are also seeking to decrease what they see as budget gimmickry in the Senate bill (e.g. designating some spending such as veterans health care as "emergency" and thereby removing it from the bill's spending cap). Both VA health care and NASA are big priorities of the White House. If they refuse to allow some programs to be considered "emergency" spending, HUD programs are likely to be cut. People who count on HUD programs need your support now.