The Carroll Standard

Obama Requests $542 Million in Crack Housing Aid for Drug Addicts

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(CNSNews.com) -- President Barack Obama has requested over half-a-billion dollars for Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs that provide housing assistance to homeless or HIV-positive people in drug treatment.

For the Fiscal Year 2013 National Drug Control budget, Obama has requested $25.6 billion, including $542.4 million to fund HUD programs that provide housing to individuals in drug treatment, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which is charged with developing that budget.

According to the ONDCP, the requested FY 2013 budget will “reduce drug use and its consequences in the United States.” (The fiscal year 2013 runs from Oct. 1, 2012 to Sept. 30, 2013.)

The $542.4 million in drug control funding for HUD marks an estimated 18 percent increase of $96.4 million over the FY 2012 enacted level of $446 million.

Specifically, the nearly half-billion dollars in FY 2013 taxpayer-funds will be used to support programs that provide housing assistance under the Community Planning and Development Program to people with AIDS and homeless persons, a HUD spokesperson explained in an e-mail to CNSNews.com.

The drug control funding for HUD is used by the Community Planning and Development Program component to support, specifically, two housing assistance initiatives: The Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and the Continuum of Care-homeless assistance programs, Jereon Brown, a HUD spokesperson, told CNSNews.com. ... continues...