NLIHC’s National Housing Trust Fund campaign has taken on new urgency in light of new opportunities and threats this year in Congress. National, state, and local organizations and local government officials are invited to join the campaign by signing onto our national letter to Congress. The letter urges Congress to expand the national Housing Trust Fund (NTF) to at least $3.5 billion annually in comprehensive housing finance reform legislation as part of a broad commitment to access and affordability in the housing market.
The HTF is the first new federal housing resource in a generation exclusively targeted to help build and preserve housing affordable to people with the lowest incomes. The HTF is currently funded by a small assessment on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s annual book of business, but far greater resources are needed to meet the need. According to NLIHC’s The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes report, there are just 35 rental homes affordable and available to every 100 extremely low income households in the U.S. As a result, 71% of these households pay more than half of their limited incomes on rent, forcing them to make impossible trade-offs between paying rent and buying groceries, seeing a doctor, or saving for college or an emergency. In the worst cases, they become homeless.
In 2014, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee voted to support housing finance reform legislation introduced by then-Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) that would have increased funding for the HTF to an estimated $3.5 billion annually. This should be the starting point for any future legislation considered by Congress.
Join the national HTF campaign by signing the national letter at: http://bit.ly/2FjBMK5
Learn more about the HTF at: http://bit.ly/2mm5Fmo
Read about how states have used their HTF dollars so far at: http://bit.ly/2fuy74I