President Obama Requests $1 Billion for National Housing Trust Fund
(as reported by the National Low Income Housing Coalition) President Barack Obama's FY10 budget request now includes $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund. The budget request calls for providing the first funds into the housing trust fund to finance the development, rehabilitation and preservation of affordable housing for extremely and very low income households. Indeed, these would be the first federal funds for extremely low income housing production since 1974.
President Obama's request notes that the housing trust fund, which was enacted in July 2008, was originally authorized with a dedicated funding stream from assessments on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but that these assessments were indefinitely suspended by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The $1 billion request is on the mandatory side of the budget, which means that these funds would come from a dedicated revenue source that is separate and apart from the appropriations process. The President's budget request does not identify the dedicated revenue source; that information is expected in the more detailed budget request the president will make to Congress in April.
During the February 26 Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing on HUD's home foreclosure avoidance programs, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a champion of the eight-year effort to establish a National Housing Trust Fund, remarked on his pleasure over the $1 billion funding request to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, the hearing's witness.
Senator Reed said that, when reviewing the budget request, he was particularly thankful for the $1 billion to launch the affordable housing trust fund included in the budget. "It sends a signal," Senator Reed said, "that our housing policy cannot rest simply on homeownership, that there are scores of American families whose best and wisest course of action is to be in affordable rental housing because of their family situation or their economic situation."
Take Action on on redevelopment and help protect housing funds now!
In continuing efforts to increase access to supportive housing for high utilizers of public health resources, and maximize the efficient use of scarce public resources, City and County Departments issued the first collaborative Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) last month.
