NLIHC and the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) released a joint report, “Improving Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Data for Preservation,” on October 6. The report examines the extent to which housing finance agencies (HFAs) provide data on Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties at the state and local levels and analyzes the catalysts and challenges impacting their ability to collect, maintain, and report LIHTC property data to HUD and the wider public. The report concludes that additional investments from Congress and state legislatures are needed to help HFAs streamline, automate, centralize, and ultimately improve the quality and availability of property-level LIHTC data for preservation. HUD and HFAs would also benefit from stronger enforcement powers to support their LIHTC data collection efforts.
HUD’s LIHTC Database is an essential public resource for data on LIHTC properties. However, HUD faces challenges incorporating key data into its database for assessing LIHTC preservation risks, such as data on restriction end dates, qualified contract (QC) waivers, and information on ownership changes. HFAs play a central role in collecting these data. To better understand the challenges HUD faces in collecting key preservation data, NLIHC and PAHRC examined HFAs’ LIHTC data practices in two phases. In the first phase, HFA websites were scanned to determine the availability of property-level LIHTC data on agency websites. In the second phase, staff from 25 HFAs were interviewed about their experience managing LIHTC data. NLIHC and PAHRC found that:
- Ninety-three percent of HFAs post some form of property-level LIHTC data on their websites.
- The property-level data publicly posted by HFAs are largely limited to what these agencies already report to HUD’s LIHTC Database. Key preservation indicators, such as restriction end dates, the presence of QC waivers, and up-to-date information on property ownership, are largely absent from HFA websites.
- LIHTC data are often siloed across various teams and systems within HFAs, creating challenges for them when it comes to providing comprehensive information to stakeholders about specific LIHTC properties. The fact that data are siloed can also complicate the construction of centralized, property-level databases.
- Many HFAs appear to face limitations in their staffing capacity and technology that inhibit their ability to streamline or automate the collection and reporting of LIHTC data and develop centralized, property-level databases that include key preservation indicators concerning their LIHTC stock.
- Limited oversight and enforcement power impede the ability of both HFAs and HUD to collect more timely and robust property-level LIHTC data that can better inform preservation efforts.
These findings illustrate the need to improve both the quality of property-level LIHTC data for preservation and public access to these data. Greater state and federal investments in staffing and technology are needed to facilitate efficient data collection and reporting on restriction end dates, QC waivers, and current ownership. These investments could improve the capacity of many HFAs to respond to public data requests, plan for preservation needs, and report more useful property-level data to HUD. At the same time, HFAs and HUD likely need stronger enforcement mechanisms for their data collection efforts. These improvements would greatly aid efforts to preserve the long-term affordability of the LIHTC stock and the housing stability of tenants in LIHTC properties.
Read the new report at: https://bit.ly/3edeUDe