A proposed senate bill would cut funding for housing programs. Senator Chuck Schumer visited a neighborhood in the southwest part of Rochester to talk about his concerns.
The bill would cut millions of dollars from the housing assistance program HOME Rochester, which has rehabilitated over 600 houses since 2002. HOME Rochester buys, fixes up, and sells houses to first-time homeowners, and provides them with necessary assistance.
The program is intended to help low to middle income families, which is exactly why Senator Schumer says he wants to protect it.
"When a family gets to own their own home they do better. Their kids do better at school. The parents do better at work. Everything works out better, even the health of the family."
But the impact of rehabilitating homes in Rochester neighborhoods extends beyond the families that move into them, Schumer says.
"If you get one home that is abandoned, one home that deteriorates, one home that is empty, the whole neighborhood goes down the drain."
The proposed cut would reduce the HOME Rochester's spending budget from $900 million this past year to $66 million for the coming fiscal year.