Washington, D.C. – The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published the official amounts of national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) funding to states for 2017 in the Federal Register today, June 23. This year, HUD will allocate over $219 million to provide housing for extremely low income (ELI) households, those with incomes at or below 30% of the area median income, or at or less than the federal poverty guideline. This HTF funding is a modest but important resource for alleviating the severe shortage of homes affordable to the lowest income people across U.S.
The HTF is the first new resource in a generation exclusively targeted to build, preserve, and rehabilitate housing for people with the lowest incomes. Funded through a small assessment on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s annual book of business, the HTF is administered as a block grant, giving each state the flexibility to decide how best to use HTF resources to address its most pressing housing needs. In 2016, the first $174 million in HTF funding was allocated to states.
For nearly two decades, NLIHC led the national campaign to create and fund the HTF. Now NLIHC is working closely with our national and state partners to ensure the funding is used as efficiently and effectively as possible to create safe, decent, accessible and affordable homes for those who need it most. We are committed to working with Congress to protect, preserve and expand this critical affordable housing funding source.
The Federal Register notice is at: http://bit.ly/2rJNYxx
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Established in 1974 by Cushing N. Dolbeare, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that assures people with the lowest incomes in the United States have affordable and decent homes.