On August 23rd, 45 national organizations, including the National Housing Conference, sent a letter to the Administration requesting that $10 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund be included in the President’s jobs-creation plan.
Affordable rental housing for extremely low income households continues to be a serious problem nationwide. There are 10 million extremely low income renter households in our country and only 6.5 million housing units they can afford. The Trust Fund, which was authorized in 2008 but has yet to be funded, will produce, rehabilitate, preserve and operate rental housing that is affordable to extremely low income households across the country while also advancing the Administration’s priority of ending homelessness for veterans and families with children.
The letter affirms that the Trust Fund would also be a strong job creator, observing that every $10 billion spent through the Trust Fund would create 122,000 new jobs in the construction industry and 30,000 new, ongoing jobs in the operation of the rental housing.
The full letter can be viewed on the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s website.