By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The Carcieri administration acknowledged Tuesday that it probably won’t be able to scoop the entire $26 million it was hoping to take from Rhode Island Housing to fill a hole in the budget, and the head of the housing agency acknowledged he could probably turn over about $10 million.

Noting the $26 million in the governor’s supplemental budget that was supposed to be taken from the “unrestricted cash” of Rhode Island Housing, House Finance Committee Chairman asked Budget Officer Rosemary Booth Gallogly, “Can I assume that number is not going to be real?”
“We’re still working with Rhode Island Housing,” was Booth Gallogly’s answer.
“Anything less than that would present a hole in the budget,” Costantino countered.
Richard Godfrey, executive director of Rhode island Housing, explained that the agency’s financial statements are prepared “by CPAs for CPAs, so the terms that they use don’t necessarily mean we have money available.”
After dickering back and forth about what money the agency does have and how losing it would affect programs and operations, Godfrey and Costantino seemed to agree that the state could scoop about $10 million from Rhode Island Housing.
That exchange came in the middle of an emotional day during which the homeless and housing advocates rallied at the Statehouse, then came to testify against cutbacks to housing programs.
Tops on that list was the Neighborhood Opportunities Program, which has built more than 1,000 housing units in the last seven years, but is targeted for defunding by Carcieri in the current budget year and in the 2009 budget.
“These programs work and they work well,” declared Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless. “And we will not stand for them to go away.
“The need for safe, affordable homes has continued to outpace the (construction) of those homes,” Ryczek said.
Linda Watkins, associate director of the Amos House, a social service agency in Providence, praised the success of the Neighborhood Opportunities Program, which she said has made the difference between “people living in safe housing or living on the street.
“We have been able to watch people turn their lives around,” she said, with job training or by going back to college, things that may not have been available to them if they did not have a home. “Cutting these programs is like breaking the legs of people who have just learned to walk.”
At the finance committee hearing, advocates testified that the Neighborhood Opportunities Program (NOP) leverages $8 for every dollar invested by the state. The governor’s supplemental budget calls for cutting the entire $7.5 million in 2008 and appropriates nothing for the program in 2009.
Brenda Clement of the Statewide Housing Action Coalition told the panel, “Now is not the time to siphon gas from the economic engine that housing is.”
Rep. Joseph Almeida, a member of the finance committee who represents a section of South Providence, noted that “Rhode island Housing is investing big in the south side. If this money is taken away, what happens to the south side? Do we go back to vacant lots and empty buildings again?”
Ann Nolan, president of Crossroads Rhode Island, a Providence homeless shelter, said “I’m not sure the legislature realizes the impact Rhode island Housing has. They do the job the state has turned away from. Without them, I don’t think Crossroads could exist, and I am not exaggerating.”
“These proposed changes to the budget are coming at a time when the housing sector is already reeling and on the brink,” said Nellie Gorbea of HousingWorks Rhode Island. “The proposals as they stand fly in the face of what voters in November 2006 registered at the polling place, which is a deep concern about housing.”
David St. Germain, an advocate for the homeless, told committee members “it is incumbent on you to stand up for us.”