Department of Housing and Urban Development News Briefs - August 2019

August 6, 2019                                                  By: Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits Volume 10 Issue 8

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a notice June 12 announcing the monthly per-unit fee rates used to determine administrative fees for each public housing agency that administers certain HUD programs. The fees involve the Housing Choice Voucher and Moderate Rehabilitation programs for calendar year 2019 (CY 2019). HUD provided two charts: one for the first 7,200 voucher units leased in CY 2019, the second for the remainder of the units. The notice is available at www.hudresourcecenter.com.

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order June 25 to establish a White House Council on eliminating Barriers to Affordable Housing Development. The group will consist of members from eight federal agencies and the chairman will be Ben Carson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The council is tasked with measuring how federal, state and local regulations affect affordable housing, with the goal of reducing regulatory barriers.

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The percentage of cost-burdened renters dropped slightly, but there remains a significant gap in affordable housing, according to the State of the Nation’s Housing 2019 report issued June 27 by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The annual report says that 1.5 million units of housing should be built each year, which is 260,000 units more than were built in 2018. According to the report, 31.5 percent of American households spend more than 30 percent of their income for housing, the standard for being cost-burdened. It was the seventh-straight year that figure declined, but the share of renters who are cost-burned is 47.4 percent. The report highlights that the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) remains the primary provider of assisted rental affordable housing in the United States, having produced 2.5 million homes since 1987.

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HUD awarded $63 million to 85 Native American communities throughout the country June 18 to improve housing conditions and stimulate community development for residents. Funding was provided through HUD’s Indian Community Development Block Grant program to support a wide range of community development and affordable housing activities. Award amounts ranged from $400,000 to $2 million.................Read More

City looks to boost affordable housing by changing how it doles out $60M in tax credits

August 6, 2019                                 By: Fran Spielman

The new “Qualified Application Plan” targets the greatest areas of need in the city while giving developers clear ground rules, officials said.

Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara talks to a housing advocate after Novara's confirmation hearing in June.

 | Fran Spielman for the Sun-Times

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is changing the rules for how the city allocates federal low-income housing tax credits to confront an affordable housing crisis that has left Chicago 120,000 units short.

Homeless advocates and their City Council allies have been pressuring Lightfoot to deliver on her campaign promise to raise Chicago’s real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales by a whopping 160% to reduce homelessness and bankroll affordable housing.

Instead, Lightfoot wants to reserve that potential windfall — as high as $150 million — for reducing Chicago’s massive budget shortfall.

The new “Qualified Application Plan” for up to $60 million in low-income-housing tax credits does not include any additional revenue to solve an affordable housing crisis that has contributed to Chicago’s shrinking population.

The rules target the money to the greatest areas of need and income while giving developers clear ground rules for the awarding of tax credits that represent roughly two-thirds of city spending on affordable housing...................Read More

How much affordable housing is too much?

August 2, 2019                                      By: Greg Hinz

It's a tough question to answer, but it's one City Hall must get right as it weighs proposals that could either make Chicago more livable for many or stifle residential construction altogether.

Getty Images

Nervous Chicago business folks won a modicum of reassurance last month when a compromise work-notice ordinance finally was crafted. The deal admittedly had some aspects of a shotgun marriage, but business groups pulled enough concessions out of Mayor Lori Lightfoot that they ended up signing off on the new law.

Now, a much bigger test of business's relationship with the new mayor has begun. At stake literally is the health of the city's entire residential market, both rental and homeowner-occupied.

My reference is to a series of pending proposals to expand the city's stock of affordable housing—or at least to prevent it from shrinking amid a central-area economic boom that's sparking a gentrification wave. Get it right and lower-income people will get new options to stay in town without having to starve their kids. Get it wrong and both new and renovated residential construction will dry up.....................Read More