The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a legislative brief, “A Bold, Bipartisan Response to the Housing Affordability Crisis: The American Housing Act of 2023,” on October 4. The brief supports key NLIHC-endorsed housing policies, including an extremely low-income (ELI) basis boost for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program (see Memo, 9/26), the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” (see Memo, 6/14/21), and the “Eviction Crisis Act” (see Memo, 5/23).
An expanded basis boost is needed to ensure LIHTC better serves people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. LIHTC is the primary source of financing for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. While it is an important resource, LIHTC, on its own, rarely builds or preserves homes affordable to households with the lowest incomes, who have the greatest and clearest needs. By expanding the current basis boost from 30% to 50%, as endorsed by BPC, Congress would allow LIHTC to better target extremely low-income tenants at rents that are affordable to them. This reform would also facilitate the development of more affordable housing for populations with special needs, such as formerly homeless individuals and people with disabilities.
Among other necessary LIHTC reforms, NLIHC also supports setting aside 8% of tax credits to help offset the cost of building ELI developments, in which at least 20% of units are reserved for households with extremely low incomes or those experiencing homelessness. To facilitate more investments in tribal and rural communities, NLIHC supports designating these areas as “Difficult to Develop Areas” (DDAs) to make any development in these areas automatically eligible for a 30% basis boost and make building affordable homes in these communities more financially feasible for developers.
To ensure families can afford and access housing, BPC supports funding 500,000 new targeted mobility housing vouchers, as proposed in the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Todd Young (R-IN). Along with housing counseling, these vouchers would help ELI families with young children relocate to neighborhoods with access to good schools, public transit, and well-paying jobs. If enacted, the bill would largely eliminate homelessness among families with young children and substantially reduce the number of children growing up in areas of concentrated poverty.
BPC also supports the “Eviction Crisis Act” (S.2182), introduced by Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rob Portman (R-OH), which would establish a permanent emergency rental assistance and housing stability program to provide assistance to families with low-incomes facing a sudden economic shock that puts them at-risk of eviction. The concept for the Eviction Crisis Act’s emergency rental assistance program originated in the BPC’s 2013 Housing Commission report.
Read the Bipartisan Policy Center’s legislative brief on the housing affordability crisis here.