NHC is pleased to announce that Charles Lowery, Jr., is our new Senior Policy Director. Many of our members know Charles from his leadership role as co-chair of the Black Homeownership Collaborative’s Credit and Lending Workstream. He left New America Funding after a distinguished career that included leadership positions at Ocwen Financial Corp., the NAACP, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Responsible Lending. He is also the incoming chair of the Washington, D.C., Bar Association. Charles will direct all of NHC’s policy initiatives, and lead our work as executive secretariat of the Black Homeownership Collaborative.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) reintroduced legislation to create a tax incentive that would enable building or substantially rehabilitating 500,000 new starter homes in distressed communities across the country over the next ten years. The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (Neighborhood Homes) provides a tax credit that covers the "appraisal gap," or the delta between what it costs to build or rehabilitate a home and the market value of the home upon completion. Every state has communities where homes are in too poor a condition and where property values are too low to support new construction or substantial renovation. Designed after the successful Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit makes projects in these communities feasible, thereby reducing neighborhood "blight" and increasing the inventory of affordable starter homes for sale.

"Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Our bipartisan tax credit will drive housing investments and revitalize neighborhoods across Maryland while keeping them affordable for low- and moderate-income families," said Cardin in a press release. "This credit will allow individuals in these communities to build equity and wealth for their families. We must continue to make it more attractive to invest in the communities that need it most."

"It is vital that we, as a country, make equitable investments in our housing infrastructure — both for the stability of our economy and the well-being of families and communities across the country," said Kris Siglin, Vice President of Policy and Partnerships for the National Community Stabilization Trust, in a statement. "Neighborhood Homes encourages private investments in communities that would not otherwise have access to this kind of capital, creating new opportunities for families to put down roots in their own homes, strengthen their communities and build wealth for the future."

The Biden Administration is asking for $175 billion in housing investments in the President's 2024 budget, which the White House released on Thursday. The spending allocated for housing focuses on building and preserving affordable housing, promoting rental affordability and fairness, making homeownership a reality for first-generation homebuyers, and advancing efforts to prevent evictions and end homelessness.

The budget includes the creation of a Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit, which the proposed Neighborhood Homes Investment Act would create at the cost of $16 billion over ten years. The budget also invests $28 billion in expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit by increasing the allocation of tax credits states receive, lowering the 50% test to 25%, and repealing the qualified contract provision and right of first refusal provision.

The budget also includes several new significant housing-related requests. For example, the budget seeks a new $7.5 billion Project-Based Rental Assistance fund for extremely low-income households (ELI) that would provide long-term rent contracts for owners to rent new units to ELI households most in need. The budget also calls for some housing voucher guarantees. One guarantee would assist about 450,000 ELI veterans with "worst-case housing needs," and another for 20,000 youth who annually age out of foster care. And the budget aims to launch a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance Program that would provide $10 billion for first-time homebuyers whose parents do not own a home and are at or below 120% of area median income (AMI) or 140% of AMI in high-cost areas. If enacted, the Administration argues the program would help further financial equity by narrowing the racial homeownership gap. The White House estimates that 35% of the program's participants would be Back, and 25% would be Latino.

Other housing-related investments include $10 billion for reducing barriers to developing affordable housing that provides for $90 million for fair housing enforcement, $7.5 billion for preserving public housing, $1.8 billion for the HOME Act, $1 billion for Tribal housing, $32.7 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, $3 billion for eviction prevention, and $3.7 billion to prevent and end homelessness.

You can now register for a listening session on the Federal Home Loan Bank System. FHFA will host listening sessions daily from March 22-24, 2023. FHFA encourages participants with diverse experiences and views to sign up for a speaking slot and provide candid feedback on the FHLBank System.

FHFA is hosting the listening session as part of the FHLBank System at 100: Focusing on the Future initiative. The agency launched the initiative in Sep. 2022 to review the mission, membership eligibility requirements, and operational efficiencies of the FHLBanks, as well as the FHLBanks' role or potential role in addressing housing finance, community and economic development, affordability, and other related issues.

FHFA is also accepting written comments on the FHLBank System on its website. The written comment period is set to close on March 17. FHFA invites stakeholders to share these opportunities with their networks and to contact FHLBankSystem100@fhfa.gov with questions.

HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge penned a letter in response to President Biden's call to eliminate junk fees and add-ons, which increase costs and burdens on renters. "These fees limit options for renters and strain household budgets, particularly for renters with low and modest incomes who already face high rental cost burdens," said Secretary Fudge.

For renters, these fees include application fees for screening reports, move-in fees, late fees, high-risk fees, additional fees for online payments, and more. Fudge's letter notes that studies show that renters of color experience higher fees than white renters. The Secretary calls on leasing and property management services, providers, and rental platforms to move towards transparency in fees and ensure that fees charged to tenants cover only the costs incurred by housing providers. In addition, Fudge says HUD will continue to advocate for the transparency and fairness of fees. The agency will partner with the CFPB, FHFA, FTC, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop best practices for tenant screening reports. Fudge also committed HUD to provide research and tools to increase support for renters and opportunities for state, local, and housing providers to adjust policies.

This week the U.S. Senate Finance Committee held a hearing titled "Tax Policy's Role in Increasing Affordable Housing Supply for Working Families." In his opening remarks, Chair U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) underscored the committee's track record of bipartisanship and stated, "I strongly believe that the next opportunity for a big bipartisan initiative is affordable housing." Ranking member U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) built on this sentiment, offering several areas of agreement in his opening remarks, including the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, and Wyden's DASH Act (Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All). Crapo also stressed the importance of looking at how overly restrictive zoning and cumbersome regulatory barriers can "ultimately work against the goal of providing more affordable housing."

Witnesses included Denise Scott, president of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Steve Walker, executive director of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, Sharon Wilson Geno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, Mark Calabria, senior advisor at the Cato Institute, and Garret Watson, senior policy analyst and modeling manager at the Tax Foundation. The witnesses agreed that urban, suburban, and rural areas are feeling the lack of housing supply, with Scott emphasizing its impact on economic development. "We know that an inadequate supply of quality affordable housing in many rural communities is hampering their ability to attract employers," Scott said. Later in the hearing, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said, "The story I'm hearing repeatedly right now is we've made an offer to a really valuable recruit to come into the state and work for our business and they not only can't afford a place to live, they can't find a place I even if they could afford it."

Committee members seemed to share an understanding that a lack of available inventory of affordable homes is causing the nation's housing affordability challenges. Members cited two bipartisan housing supply bills, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA) and the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA), as tools to leverage private capital to increase housing supply. AHCIA and NHIA would add an estimated 2 million new affordable homes while having a positive economic impact. U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), lead Republican sponsor of NHIA, stated that in Indiana alone, the bill would, over ten years, "create 9,500 new homes built or substantially rehabilitated, about 2.5 billion dollars of total development activity… over 16,000 jobs in construction or construction-related industries will be created, over $900 million in wages and salaries will be generated, nearly $250 million in federal, state, and local tax revenue."

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a subcommittee meeting titled "The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness." Witnesses included Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Richard Cho, senior advisor for housing and services at HUD.

"When we consider households that are precariously housed people, people in substandard housing, and people who are severely rent burdened or 'doubled up'—where multiple families or generations are living together out of necessity—the numbers surge, adding millions to those who live each year without safe, adequate, and stable housing," Olivet said.

Cho noted there was a time when homelessness was decreasing in both sheltered and unsheltered settings and emphasized that those reductions did not happen by accident. Cho offered routes to help continue reducing homelessness at a national level. 

The Federal Reserve Board posted a new Senior Attorney/Counsel position in the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs. The position will play a senior role in the development and implementation of CRA supervisory policies, including efforts around CRA modernization. The role will also be involved in developing new interagency examination guidance, developing interagency examiner training, and helping create data tools to help examiners, bankers, and the public understand the requirements of CRA. The position does not require relocation to Washington, D.C. Interested candidates should submit their resumes by March 17.