Includes Housing Trust Fund!
Includes $3.9 Billion in CDBG funds!
Includes a 10% increase in tax credit allocations!
On Friday July 11, 2008, the US Senate voted to approve HR 3221 by a vote of 63 to 5. The next step will be to reconcile the differences between the Senate and House bills. According to the NY Times, “the House approved its version in May, and though the White House has issued a formal veto threat - and repeated it on Friday - administration officials have indicated that a compromise was likely. Previous votes on the housing bills showed that a presidential veto could easily be overridden.”
The primary focus of the legislation will be to “let the Federal Housing Administration back up to $300 billion in new loans, enabling lenders and borrowers now saddled with unaffordable mortgages to refinance them and assume more manageable 30-year fixed-rate loans. To take part in the program, lenders would have to lower each debt obligation to 85 percent of a home’s current value.” It also includes dedicated funding for the National Housing Trust Fund, $3.9 billion in CDBG funds and an increase in the allocation formula for low income housing tax credits.
According the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “the National Housing Trust Fund Campaign has moved one step closer to accomplishing its core goal: establishing a housing trust fund at the federal level with a dedicated source of revenue (and potentially other sources) for the production and preservation of rental housing for the lowest income people who have the most serious housing problems.”
The bill also provides $3.9 Billion in Community Development Block Grants for the redevelopment of foreclosed properties; 25% of the funds were targeted to those at 50% of area median income or below.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) won Senate passage, by a vote of 63-5, of a package of tax measures in the housing bill, H. R. 3221. These include an increase in the annual amount of Federal low-income housing tax credits that may be allocated by each state from $2.00
for each person residing in the state to $2.20 for in 2008 and 2009. It also includes numerous proposals to simplify the technical rules relating to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). For more details click here.
All of the components of the bill could be beneficial in New Jersey as the foreclosure and sub-prime crisis spreads. According to the First Baptist CDC there are one thousand four hundred (1,400) properties in foreclosure in Somerset County.
To read our previous posts on this legislation click here.
For full details on the legislation click here.
Tags: Advocacy, foreclosures, Low-Income-Housing-Tax-Credits, Natioanl-Low-Income-Housing-Coalition, National-Housing-Trust-Fund, subprime crisis
{ 0 comments… add one now }