Today, National Low Income Housing Coalition President and CEO Sheila Crowley testified at a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing, asking members of the committee to protect and fund the National Housing Trust Fund as they pursue housing finance reform legislation.
The hearing, titled “Housing Finance Reform: Essential Elements to Provide Affordable Options for Housing,” was the seventh hearing on federal housing finance reform convened by Committee Chair Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Ranking Member Michael Crapo (R-ID).
The National Housing Trust Fund was created in 2008 as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA). The National Housing Trust Fund was designed to build, preserve, rehabilitate, and operate rental homes for people with the lowest incomes; however, it remains unfunded.
Meanwhile, the need for the National Housing Trust Fund is greater than ever. “All housing markets are local, but there is no community in our country that has a sufficient supply of decent rental homes that are affordable to extremely low income families, those with incomes at or below 30% of the area median,” said Crowley. Crowley informed the committee of the 7.1 million shortage of rental homes that are affordable and available to extremely low income households in America.
Seeking to highlight the housing struggles of many retail clerks, day care workers, waitresses, and other low income workers, Crowley explained how in every state there is a stark difference between the average renter wage and the housing wage, or the minimum income needed to afford a modest two-bedroom rental. “These data are about families who have to choose between food or heat, coats or medicine, and often get behind on the rent anyway and lose their homes.”
Crowley explained how the National Housing Trust Fund would directly address the shortage of affordable housing in a manner that existing federal housing programs are unable to. “No federal housing program produces rental homes targeted for extremely low income households. More critical, our current programs are grossly underfunded,” said Crowley.
The National Housing Trust Fund was designed to be funded through dedicated sources of revenue so that it is not subject to the annual appropriations process. The initial sources were to be contributions from the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie were taken into conservatorship shortly after the passage of HERA, and their statutory obligation to fund the National Housing Trust Fund was suspended. “Given the dire housing circumstances of so many poor Americans, it would be a godsend if the conservator agreed with us, but unfortunately he does not,” said Crowley.
Crowley thanked Senators Corker and Warner and the other co-sponsors for including the National Housing Trust Fund in S. 1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013. Crowley asked the members of the committee to preserve the National Housing Trust Fund as enacted in HERA for the core purpose of expanding rental housing affordable to extremely low income households, and to maximize the funding provided to it through the dedicated source of revenue created in the bill. Further policy recommendations are outlined in Crowley’s written testimony.
Other witnesses were: Hilary O. Shelton, Washington Bureau Director and Senior Vice President for Policy and Advocacy, NAACP; Rick Judson, Chairman, National Association of Home Builders; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum; and Ethan Handelman, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy, National Housing Conference.
Sheila Crowley’s complete testimony is available at: http://bit.ly/17aZRez
More information on the hearing is available at: http://1.usa.gov/16RyScU