Senate Passes Padilla Amendments on Evacuation Route Planning and Veterans’ Access to Housing Vouchers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) Nov. 2 announced secured over $23 million for projects across California and passed amendments to improve emergency evacuation route planning and to help streamline veterans’ access to housing vouchers in the Senate’s first bipartisan FY24 appropriations package. This legislative package includes the Senate Agriculture, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bills.

“I am proud to see the Senate unanimously adopt key amendments I led to strengthen local emergency evacuation route planning and to improve housing assistance for veterans experiencing homelessness,” said Sen. Padilla. “ … I also worked to secure $23 million for local projects across the state, which will strengthen our transportation infrastructure, expand access to housing interventions for low-income and unhoused Californians, and reinforce our resiliency against increasingly devastating wildfires. With so much on the line for our veterans, our housing crisis, our public safety, and our disaster preparedness, it is critical that we pass full-year government funding bills. The Senate is moving forward in a bipartisan manner — and it is time for House Republican leadership to do the same.”

Amendments introduced by Sen. Padilla that were included in the minibus appropriations package for the local region include:

Emergency Evacuation Routes: This amendment directs the Department of Transportation, in consultation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, to develop and publish best practices and guidelines for states, cities, counties, and Tribal governments to utilize when conducting local emergency evacuation route planning, both for evacuating communities and bringing in emergency personnel and supplies.

Preventing the Underutilization of HUD-VASH Vouchers: This amendment expedites the stalled Congressionally-directed requirement for the Department of Veteran Affairs or VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to publish guidelines to allow for temporary, transitional case management by public housing authorities instead of the VA in areas in which public housing authorities have vouchers that are available and allocated but are underutilized due to the lack of VA referrals.

Padilla secured funding for the following local projects across California:

City of Los Angeles’ Inside Safe Program Expansion: $3,000,000. This funding will be used to support the city’s Inside Safe Program to help address street homelessness, including proactively engaging with those living in tents and encampments and provides immediate permanent supportive housing.

Metrolink’s Rail Crossing Integration Technology for Safety and Congestion Relief Project: $1,600,000. This funding will support a project to implement wireless crossing nearside station stop technology at key Metrolink crossings in Southern California to minimize gate downtime, vehicular and pedestrian traffic congestion, and unsafe driver actions.

LAX Suites, a supportive housing project in LA County: $620,000. This funding will support construction costs of LAX Suites, a permanent supportive housing project in the unincorporated neighborhood of Del Aire Los Angeles County, that will house 47 households.

Additional highlights of the FY 2024 minibus include:

$25 million to increase pay for homeless service providers to ensure that they can keep up with cost of living increases while providing critical services to those experiencing homelessness.

$45 million to increase technical assistance to make it easier for state and local entities to access vital federal housing resources.

$5 million for better coordination between behavioral health care services, including substance use disorder services, and homelessness care. This funding aligns with legislation that Sen. Padilla introduced last Congress.

$100 million in competitive grants to allow for localities to identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation to increase the supply of housing and lower housing costs.

$5 million to research the impacts of wildfire smoke on wine grapes.

$6.3 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC, a $615 million increase over FY 2023 levels.

Full funding for Child Nutrition Programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, without new restrictions on eligibility, to ensure low-income families continue to receive healthy, nutritious meals.