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Statement from NLIHC President & CEO Diane Yentel on the Confirmation of Dr. Mark Calabria, Director of FHFA

On behalf of the National Low Income Coalition, I congratulate Dr. Mark Calabria on his confirmation to serve as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

When he served as Senate Banking Committee staff, Dr. Calabria and his colleagues drafted the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008, creating the FHFA he now directs and both the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) and the Capital Magnet Fund CMF). The national Housing Trust Fund is used to build and preserve rental homes affordable to America’s lowest-income renters - seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, people experiencing homelessness, veterans and other individuals most impacted by the nation’s growing affordable housing crisis. The HTF is woefully underfunded compared to the need; today, fewer than four homes are affordable and available to every 10 of our country’s lowest-income renters.

As Dr. Calabria and I wrote in a joint op-ed in 2017, “Scarce federal resources should be targeted to those who need them the most . . . through programs like the national Housing Trust Fund and rental assistance.” As FHFA director, Dr. Calabria is now in a prime position to make that happen. We look forward to working with him and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle to significantly expand the national Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund as part of a broader commitment to access and affordability in bipartisan legislation to reform our nation’s housing finance system.