The National Housing Conference (NHC) applauds Congress and the Trump administration for enacting a critical $2 trillion emergency spending package to provide relief for Americans who have been adversely impacted by COVID-19.
Praises HUD, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae move to halt evictions and foreclosures as a ‘critical first step’
NHC praises FDIC and OCC extension as an ‘important first step.’
“There is no question that CRA needs to be modernized, but the proposed approach is the wrong way to do it. After more than a year of consideration and 1,500 comment letters, the OCC and FDIC have come up with a formula-driven approach that almost nobody in the housing community supports and is rife with millions of dollars in hidden costs and enormous unintended consequences. This is a missed opportunity,” said Dworkin.
“The administration’s changes to the False Claims Act are an important step towards reversing a decade of unintended consequences that have forced many of the nation’s best capitalized and most regulated financial institutions out of the FHA market,” said David M. Dworkin, NHC president and CEO. “A law that was meant to protect Civil War troops from lame mules and shoddy uniforms has no place in the mortgage finance system. Our regulations must protect consumers from bad mortgages, not from getting a mortgage.”
NHC filed comments on the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard. In the NHC letter, David M. Dworkin, NHC’s president and CEO, stated that “The disparate impact standard is one of the most important tools for reversing discrimination outlawed by the Fair Housing Act. It is imperative that it is not watered down.”
“Today’s hearing made significant progress on the path to housing finance reform. While there was plenty of disagreement, there was also important alignment around essential issues of a bipartisan deal that has eluded Congress in the past. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin made clear that housing finance reform must maintain access to the 30-year fixed rate mortgage; ensure enough private capital is in place to protect taxpayers; seek to provide the stability and liquidity to withstand future financial crises; and improve transparency and standardization that ensures that community banks and credit unions will have equal access to the benefits of the secondary mortgage market. These principles have been explicitly embraced by both Chairwoman Waters and Chairman Crapo.”
The Trump administration’s housing finance reform plan “has many roads, but there is a viable path forward if Congress is engaged in true bipartisan change. If taken, we can finally move forward with a housing finance system that serves all Americans without putting taxpayers at risk of another bailout,” said David M. Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference (NHC).
The National Housing Conference has released a new white paper on housing finance reform that calls for bipartisan cooperation between Congress and the Trump administration to complete housing finance reform leading to the release of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from conservatorship.
