Weekly update from the National Housing Conference
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President's Message I
By David M. Dworkin
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Dear Friend,
June is Homeownership Month, so I’d like to offer some reflections on a subject I have spent most of my adult life promoting. Next week I’ll be moderating a panel for the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders on lending to underserved homebuyers. According to several well-regarded estimates, there are at least three million Americans – possibly twice as many – who are not homeowners today due to the housing crash that devastated our country ten years ago. These are people who would have been well-qualified for a responsible mortgage that was commonly available in the late 1990s but cannot buy a home today for a wide range of reasons, all of which should be solvable.
At a panel on the subject that I led last month during the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference in New York, several factors were identified: lack of inventory due to so many homes having been purchased for investment, higher origination and servicing costs due to the regulatory pendulum swinging too far in some cases, and undue risk aversion to homeownership in the wake of ten million families losing their homes to foreclosure.
Housing is not a zero-sum game where homeownership loses and renting wins. The reduction in the US homeownership rate from the norm of 67 percent to just over 64 percent today has coincided with record increases in rents and spiraling gaps in affordability in cities across the country. NHC’s
Paycheck to Paycheck database demonstrates how dire these gaps can be. Enter any job in any city and you can see for yourself how desperately we need to fix what’s broken in our housing finance system. Here in Washington, D.C., a teacher can not only not afford to buy a home, she can barely afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. NHC is committed to safe and affordable housing for all Americans, from working families struggling to buy their first home, to extremely low-income renters stuck on public housing waiting lists for decades, to our homeless neighbors who we have failed to aid on every level. These priorities have been central to our mission for 87 years and we will fight for them every month of the year.
You can be a part of this effort by
joining NHC. A basic membership is only $800, even less for individuals and retirees. We are a 501(c)3 organization with many opportunities for you to actively engage. Check us out
here and
join today.
Sincerely,
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David M. Dworkin
President and CEO
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News from Washington I
By Kaitlyn Snyder
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HUD announces Protect Our Kids! campaign, kicks off homeownership month
On Friday, June 1, HUD
announced its new Protect our Kids! campaign at a housing and health symposium at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The department-wide campaign is designed to review and ensure compliance with regulations that are intended to reduce the potential of lead poisoning in children, in both privately owned homes and those receiving federal assistance.
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BPC releases HUD, HHS partnership report
Yesterday, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released “
HUD-HHS Partnerships: A Prescription for Better Health.” The report identifies both process improvements and programmatic collaborations that could help the two departments jointly tackle their most pressing priorities with the most efficient use of the taxpayer’s dollar. The report was developed with input from housing and health experts, including NHC staff, stakeholders and HUD and HHS staff, both career and political appointees. BPC also convened a bipartisan advisory group of former HUD and HHS leaders. Jennifer Ho, who worked at HUD during the administration of Pres. Barack Obama, and Michael Liu, who worked at HUD during the administration of Pres. George W. Bush, both served on the advisory group.
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NHC webinar on LIIF's CDFI lending, childcare work
Join NHC for our June Restoring Neighborhoods Task Force webinar tomorrow, June 6 at 2 p.m. EDT. The webinar will feature a presentation from Sajan Philip, director of the Central Region and Washington, D.C. at the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), on LIIF's community development financial institution (CDFI) lending and early care and education work. Register
here.
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Senate appropriations committee marks up Transportation-HUD bill
This morning at 10 a.m. EDT the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee marked up the
FY 2019 funding bill. A recording of the audio is available
here. The Senate allocated HUD $44.5 billion, compared to $43.6 billion in the House.
On Thursday, June 7 at 10:30 a.m. EDT, the full Senate appropriations committee will mark up the bill. The markup will take place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 106 and the audio will be webcast
here.
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House Financial Services Committee hearing on homeless children
Tomorrow at 10 a.m. EDT the Housing and Insurance subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee will hold a
hearing on
H.R. 1511, the Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2017. The witnesses include Steve Berg of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Barbara Duffield of SchoolHouse Connection, Kat Lilley of Family Promise of Colorado Springs and Millie Rounsville of the Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency. The hearing will be the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2128, and webcast
here.
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HUD published FY 2018 HTF allocations, revises rent limits
HUD published the FY 2018 Housing Trust Fund (HTF) allocation amounts in the
Federal Register. A total of $266 million was allocated across the 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 24 states and D.C. received the minimum $3 million allocation, while the rest of the states received a higher allocation based on a formula.
HUD also issued a revision to the FY 2018 HTF
rent limits originally published on May 15, 2018. This revision only affects the rent limits for 6-bedroom units.
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"State of the Nation's Housing 2018" release event
On June 19, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University will hold a release event for “State of the Nation’s Housing 2018.” The 2018 report describes key trends in both national and metro-level homeownership and rental markets and reviews key economic and demographic trends that are shaping current and future demand in those markets.
The event will run from 4-6:30 p.m. EDT at the National Press Club and also be available via
webcast.
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Everyone in America should have equal opportunity to live in a quality, affordable home in a thriving community. The National Housing Conference educates decision makers and the public about housing policies and practices to move housing forward together. NHC convenes and collaborates with our diverse membership of housing stakeholders including tenant advocates, mortgage bankers, nonprofit and for-profit home builders, property managers, policy practitioners, real estate professionals, equity investors and more to advance our policy, research and communications initiatives to effect positive change at the federal, state and local levels. Founded in 1931, we are a nonpartisan, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
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Defending our American Home since 1931
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Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved.
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