House Approves $3.5 Trillion Funding Allocations
This week, the House of Representatives voted and approved the framework for $3.5 trillion in funding allocations for fiscal year 2022. With the passage of the framework bill in the House, Democrats have moved closer to achieving part of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has requested the various committee chairmen begin drafting relevant parts of the funding bill starting on September 2, with the goal of finishing the mark-ups by September 15. During this time, the $339 billion allocation in proposed funding for affordable housing will be finalized by the respective House committees and will most likely comprise a mix of direct, targeted investments and affordable housing related tax provisions. This includes a significant increase and expansion of housing vouchers as well as increased funding and additional tax incentives for the preservation, rehabilitation, and new construction of affordable housing.
In the Senate, an August 9th memo by Senate Majority Leader Schumer offered a glimpse of how the Senate committees are expected to use their allocations, by specifically mentioning historic investments in the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Housing Trust Fund, and Community Development Block Grants. The memo also called on the Senate Banking Committee to provide funds for rental assistance, for public housing, for down payment aid and other various homeownership initiatives.
Included in the framework bill was a provision providing a September 27 deadline for the House to vote on a separate $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate earlier this month. Votes on the funding bill and the infrastructure bill are not expected to occur in either chamber until at least September 20, when the House returns from its August recess.
Affordable Housing Legislation Introduced to Revitalize Underserved Communities
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and Insurance, recently announced the introduction of H.R. 4948, the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Act of 2021. The legislation seeks to support locally driven strategies to revitalize underserved neighborhoods by making permanent the Choice Neighborhoods grant program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), a senior member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Development Committee, introduced the companion legislation in the Senate.
The Choice Neighborhoods program leverages public and private resources to transform underserved neighborhoods with distressed public or HUD-assisted housing into mixed-income communities with improved access to jobs, high-quality public schools, and public transportation. Choice Neighborhoods projects leveraged seven dollars of private investment for every dollar in federal spending from 2010-2015, bringing in almost $3.7 billion in additional funding to revitalize distressed neighborhoods.
Specifically, the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Act would:
- Authorize $1 billion for HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program for Fiscal Year 2022 and such sums as may be necessary in each subsequent fiscal year;
- Strengthen program requirements relating to eligible applications, community involvement, and the temporary relocation of public and assisted housing residents.
The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Act of 2021 has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee for further consideration.
To view the full bill text, click here.
Supreme Court Lifts Eviction Ban
Last weekend, a federal appeals court declined to block the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium. A real estate group filed an emergency motion hours later with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to allow evictions to proceed, pointing out that even Biden administration officials have conceded the new eviction moratorium may not even be lawful. Therefore, they asked the Supreme Court to issue an administrative order blocking the eviction moratorium while the parties brief the justices more fully on the matter. The real estate group also argued the moratorium should remain blocked while the DC Circuit Court weighs the legality of the moratorium on the merits. In response, the Biden administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to leave in place the federal ban on residential evictions while the administration appealed the lower court ruling that found the eviction moratorium unlawful.
This Thursday, the Supreme Court lifted the Biden administration’s moratorium on evictions, with six justices voting in favor. The majority opinion, which was unsigned, stated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had exceeded its authority. “The CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts. It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant. But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” said the opinion.