Congress

The House Financial Services Committee approved several housing-related bills, including Chairwoman Maxine Waters’ Housing Is Infrastructure Act (H.R. 5187). This bill would authorize more than $100 billion for public housing, Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), the HOME Investment Partnerships program and other programs.

President Trump’s Administration released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget request, “A Budget for America’s Future.” HUD is allocated $47.9 billion in funding, a 15.2 percent decrease over FY 2020 enacted levels with notable zeroing out of the HOME program, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), Public Housing Capital Fund, Choice Neighborhoods and HOPE VI.

Last week House Democrats released a $760 billion infrastructure framework, which calls for strengthening existing infrastructure financing tools, like LIHTC, the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) and the Historic Tax Credit (HTC). Specifically, the Moving America and the Environment Framework calls for expanding the three tax credits, as well as expanding the national volume cap for private activity bonds (PAB). The framework also includes $86 billion over five years to pay for the deployment of high-speed broadband in unserved and underserved communities, low-interest financing for broadband deployment and digital equity activities.

During the 2020 State of the Union (SOTU) address to a joint session of Congress President Donald J. Trump said the following on Opportunity Zones, “Jobs and investments are pouring into 9,000 previously neglected neighborhoods thanks to Opportunity Zones, a plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) as part of our great Republican tax cuts.”

HUD released its 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, which found that 567,715 persons experienced homelessness on a single night in 2019, a three percent increase over 2018. Homelessness among veterans and families with children continued to fall, declining 2.1 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, in 2019.

The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Treasury launched an internal investigation on abuse in the Opportunity Zone program. Rich Delmar, the department’s acting inspector general, said in a statement he expects “to complete our work and respond to the congressional requesters in early spring.”

A bipartisan group of four Senators recently introduced a bill that would require that ten percent of the annual New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation be made to community development entities (CDEs) for investment in developments in Indian and Native lands

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, announced several updates to the Committee schedule:

January 29 at 10:00 am ET – The full Committee will convene for a hearing entitled, “The Community Reinvestment Act: Is the OCC Undermining the Law’s Purpose and Intent?”

January 29 at 2:00 pm ET – The Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance will convene for a hearing entitled, “Examining the Availability of Insurance for Nonprofits.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the following financial services bills to support veterans, benefit investors, provide housing opportunities, hold regulators accountable, promote Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs) and improve cybersecurity:

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted to approve federal funding for the remainder of FY 2020, which will provide $738 billion to the military and $632 billion to non-defense agencies. The Senate is expected to pass the measures before the current continuing resolution expires on December 20, and the White House has indicated President Trump will sign them into law.

Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the Eviction Crisis Act of 2019 to shed light on the root causes of the eviction crisis, reduce preventable evictions and limit the devastation to families when eviction is unavoidable.

Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act. The legislation would create seven grant programs to upgrade public housing units through decarbonization and mixed-use development and repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which prohibits new public housing units above the amount of units owned, operated or assisted by a PHA as of October 1, 1999.