White House Provides Progress Report on Housing Supply Action Plan
The White House recently announced key progress on implementing its Housing Supply Action Plan, a set of President Biden’s administrative and legislative priorities first announced in May, aimed at closing the housing supply shortfall in five years. The President is seeking to boost the supply of affordable housing, critical to easing the burden of rising housing costs for renters and aspiring homeowners while also addressing near-term housing affordability and fair housing challenges. The new steps announced by the White House should further reduce barriers to affordable housing construction and preservation and make it easier to build affordable housing. Efforts to improve federal financing for affordable housing production and preservation include:
- Finalized LIHTC Income Averaging Rule and Extended Deadlines for Placed-in-Service Rules for LIHTC Projects: As NAHMA has previously shared with members, Treasury and the IRS finalized the LIHTC income averaging rule, and provided an extension for the deadlines when an affordable housing project seeking to earn LIHTCs must be placed-in-service. The IRS also announced several additional deadline extensions to ensure that affordable housing projects delayed by public health, economic, and supply-chain issues can be built as expeditiously as possible and still qualify for LIHTCs.
- Providing $30 million for Thriving Communities Program: The Department of Transportation (DOT) and HUD are partnering to launch a new $30 million Thriving Communities Program to help communities plan and develop transformative infrastructure projects. Through Thriving Communities, HUD and DOT will support technical assistance to improve the coordination of housing and transportation planning, increase housing supply, increase affordable transportation options, enhance economic opportunity, reduce environmental burdens, and improve access and quality of life. Both agencies released Notices of Funding Opportunities to select technical assistance providers and capacity builders and DOT issued a call for Letters of Interest from communities interested in receiving Thriving Communities technical assistance.
- Utilizing the Federal Financing Bank’s Risk Sharing Program to Build More Affordable Rental Housing: Last September, the Administration announced that Treasury and HUD finalized an agreement to restart the Federal Financing Bank’s Risk Sharing program. The program provides loans at reduced interest rates to state and local housing finance agencies to create and preserve high-quality, affordable homes. Since the relaunch, HUD has committed more than $1.6 billion to create and preserve more than 9,000 rental homes.
- Reforming Forward Commitment Programs to Facilitate Creating More Long-term Affordable Housing: The Federal Housing Finance Agency has expanded Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s (Enterprises) Forward Commitment programs, which allow developers to secure financing to pay off a construction loan when construction has been completed and the housing project has been approved for occupancy. Specifically, the Enterprises are now permitted to provide $3 billion in Forward Commitments per year—above and beyond the multifamily purchase cap.
Other measures include continuing to promote more housing options near transit and other modes of transportation, coordination of transportation and housing planning, and rewarding jurisdictions that have removed barriers to housing development. Additionally, the Biden Administration continues to urge Congress to act on a bipartisan basis to support the construction and preservation of affordable housing and has asked Congress to expand rental assistance, assist aspiring homeowners with down payment assistance, and help create a more equitable housing market. The Administration is also working closely with state and local governments to reduce needless barriers to housing production, especially restrictive zoning, and land use regulations.
To view the White House press release, click here.
New Report Published on ERA Distribution Equity
The Treasury Department and the GSA Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) released a new research report, titled Equity in the Distribution of the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program. OES partnered with Treasury to understand how the demographic profile of renters who were eligible for ERA compared to the demographic profile of renters who received ERA. Existing research illustrates that Black and women renters were the most likely to receive eviction notices prior to the pandemic and the OES report found that Black and woman renters were most likely to receive funds, across all regions of the country. The report also highlights that among eligible renters, ERA funds were much more likely to reach those with the lowest incomes. Key findings include:
- Extremely low-income renters were overrepresented: at 64%, their share of the recipient population was twice their share of the eligible population.
- Black renters were strongly overrepresented among recipients of ERA – their share of the recipient population was 21-22 percentage points higher than their share of the eligible population.
- The share of recipients who identify as women was 14-15 percentage points higher than their share of eligible renters.
- Renters who identify as AIAN, Pacific Islander, or Hawaiian Native were overrepresented.
- Consistent with other benefits programs, Asian renters were underrepresented among recipients of ERA and OES recommends further research focusing on ways to boost access to and receipt of government benefits among this group.
To view the OES report, click here.
NAHMA Member Feedback Needed on Green Resilient Retrofit Program
HUD is seeking public comment on the new Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP). The Inflation Reduction Act, recently signed into law, provided $1 billion in funding to the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs to implement GRRP and support energy and water efficiency retrofits and climate resilience of HUD-assisted multifamily properties. HUD is seeking information and comments to help inform the program’s development and implementation. Page five and six of the request for information include questions that NAHMA would like member input on. If you would like NAHMA to submit your comments, please send them to NAHMA staff by October 25, 2022.