Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) sent a letter to his colleagues in Congress on June 13, highlighting NLIHC’s new Out of Reach report and inviting them to cosponsor the “Common Sense Housing Investment Act of 2017” (H.R. 948) as a policy solution to the growing affordable housing crisis.
The Out of Reach report found that there is no community in America where a person working full-time at minimum wage can afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment, and only 12 counties where they could afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment.
Mr. Ellison cited the report and called for rebalancing the federal government’s approach to housing policy. H.R. 948 would convert the mortgage interest deduction (MID) into a 15% tax credit and reduce the size of a mortgage eligible for the MID from $1 million to the first $500,000. This allows tax benefits to reach more low and moderate income homeowners and frees funds for reinvestment into more targeted rental housing programs, such as the national Housing Trust Fund, a renters’ tax credit, and other solutions.
Mr. Ellison also quoted NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel’s opinion piece in The Hill: The MID “favor[s] families who don’t need federal assistance to have a stable home.”
NLIHC urges advocates to ask their representatives to cosponsor H.R. 948. To date, the bill is cosponsored by Representatives Butterfield, Clarke, Conyers, DeSaulnier, Evans, Lee, and Scott.
Read the NLIHC’s Out of Reach report at: http://bit.ly/2sY6q5R
Read more on the “Common Sense Housing Investment Act of 2017” at: http://bit.ly/2saLj0C
Read more from Diane Yentel on the mortgage interest deduction at: http://bit.ly/2kK32KX