National Housing Trust Fund Campaign Update

The efforts for the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act (S. 2523) was recently boosted by passage of the Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of 2008 by the Senate Banking Committee by a bipartisan 19-2 vote. It supports the basic tenets of S. 2523 by identifying dedicated funding sources to produce and preserve housing for the nation's lowest income households. Similar legislation had passed the House of Representatives by a 313-104 vote, with broad bipartisan support.

Legislation that would establish a National Housing Trust Fund is being negotiated between Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), the Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

This housing trust fund, drafted by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), would be a stand-alone fund that, in addition to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac resources identified in the bill, could also accept other sources of revenue. This provision will allow the housing trust fund to continue to grow over time so that more housing affordable to extremely and very low income people can be produced and preserved.

The bill would target at least 75% of the funds to be used for rental housing to people with income below 30% of area median. All of the funds would have to benefit people with incomes below 50% of area median. Furthermore, the bill places a cap on using housing trust fund resources for homeownership at 10%. This will help ensure that the housing trust fund focuses on the very lowest income households, which have the greatest housing affordability problems.

The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2007 (S. 2523) was introduced by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in December of 2007. There are currently 21 tri-partisan cosponsors, in addition to Kerry and Snowe, on the Senate bill. House passage was a huge victory for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) Campaign, its more than 5,700 endorsers and for low income people in the United States.

For more information on the campaign for the National Housing Trust Campaign, please visit the National Low Income Housing Coalition website.