The NC General Assembly has gone home after passing a budget for the next two years and a number of important bills. However, for the first time in several years, very little happened that was beneficial for affordable housing. For the first time in three years, the Housing Trust Fund received less than it had in the previous year. This was especially painful given that $100 million was appropriated to the NC Rural Center for water/sewer and the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund for open space preservation. It is clearer than ever that we have much more work to do across the whole spectrum of affordable housing advocates, developers, lenders, managers, and residents to convince the leadership in the House and Senate to invest more funds in affordable housing production through the Housing Trust Fund.
The good news is that all of the bills we worked on will be back next year in the short session along with our effort to get the NC Housing Trust Fund (NC’s largest state appropriated source for affordable housing production) to $50 million a year.
Next week we will provide a full synopsis of the legislative session in our final Legislative Update.
NC Housing News - NC Housing Preservation Project
We spend a lot of time here focused on increasing resources for the increased production of new quality affordable housing in our state. Another very important issue is the preservation of the affordable housing stock already in place.
Two week’s ago we held the first meeting of interested parties in the NC Housing Preservation Project at the NC Housing Finance Agency. The goals of the project are twofold: to compile a complete list of all the subsidized rental units (including vouchers and PHA units) in the state, and to establish a “monitoring” network that will ensure that any units threatened with conversion or demolition can be preserved as affordable units.
If you are interested in being a part of such a preservation effort, please contact us at the NC Housing Coalition.
National Housing News - Housing Trust Fund Bill moves to House Floor!
For the first time since the campaign began in 2001, legislation to establish a National Housing Trust Fund moved out of committee. H.R. 2895 directs funds from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration into a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Thus, as with the best of state and local housing trust funds, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund does not depend on annual appropriations. The combined amount estimated to be in the Fund for the first year is $800 million to $1 billion.
As has been the primary goal of the National Housing Trust Fund Campaign since its onset, the bill focuses on the production and preservation of rental housing that is affordable for extremely low income (ELI or 30% AMI or less) families. Three-quarters (75%) of the Fund must be used for ELI families, with 30% of the total going to even poorer families, those whose income is no more that the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit level. The remaining 25% of the Fund can go to households with incomes up to 60% AMI, until the Fund reaches $2 billion a year. After that threshold is passed, 25% of the Fund can be used for households with incomes up to 80% AMI. For complete details on the bill's provisions, go to www.nhtf.org.
House Passes Small PHA Bill
On July 30, the House of Representatives passed legislation to exempt certain small public housing agencies (PHAs) from some of the requirements of the annual PHA plan. The bill, H.R. 3067, applies to housing agencies that administer less than a combined total of 250 public housing and voucher units. In addition, the PHAs cannot be designated as troubled under the public housing or voucher assessment scorings. The bill would apply to about 58% of all PHAs, which administer about 6% of all public housing and voucher units.
The small PHAs covered by the bill would have to submit an annual civil rights certification to HUD, establish resident advisory boards (RABs), consult with the RABs, consider the RABs’ recommendations, and hold public hearings regarding the annual hearing to discuss the goals, objectives and policies of the PHA and any changes to them, and invite public comment.
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