Policy Archives

HAC Weighs In on The Federal Reserve’s CRA Plan

February 18, 2021/in Federal Register Comments Community Reinvestment Act

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is vitally important to communities across the nation. Through CRA, financial services have been made available to many neighborhoods that would otherwise be overlooked. In speaking of the importance of the CRA, Chairman Powell said, “The CRA plays a vital role in supporting economic opportunity in low-income and minority communities, in both rural and urban areas, and is a top priority for the Federal Reserve.”

The Housing Assistance Council responded to the Federal Reserve System’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Community Reinvestment Act to lend our voice to the process and help ensure rural community concerns are included in the discussion. HAC’s comments in response to the ANPR are focused on making sure CRA fulfills its yet unrealized potential in rural communities currently, and in any modernization effort.

HAC Urges Treasury Department to Provide Guidance on Emergency Rental Assistance Funds

January 25, 2021/in Policy Housing Affordability, Housing Problems

In December, Congress came together to pass a pandemic relief bill, which included $25 billion in emergency rental assistance. This emergency rental assistance (ERA) funding will run through the Coronavirus Relief Fund at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. To ensure that rural areas are equitably served, the Housing Assistance Council submitted comments to the Treasury Department calling for ERA guidance to include the needs of rural communities. HAC’s comments focused on highlighting several key areas:

The lack of rural-targeted housing assistance provided thus far in the pandemic, and the outsized impact COVID-19 has had in rural communities.
The importance of Treasury encouraging states to use their ERA funding proportionally in rural areas.
The need for Treasury to make clear in guidance that currently unassisted families living in USDA multifamily properties are eligible for ERA funds.
The need for Treasury to clarify that local governments do not have to incur costs up front before being able to use ERA funds.

Read the full comment letter to the Treasury Department here.

Final Funding Levels Set for FY 2021

December 21, 2020/in Policy Federal Funding, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

On December 27, 2020 President Trump signed into law an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2021, keeping most USDA rural housing programs at their FY20 dollar levels. The bill was rolled into a package that included a coronavirus relief measure to protect U.S. residents and the economy in the midst of a surge in COVID-19 cases and the expiration of provisions adopted in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March. The final amounts are shown in the table below for USDA’s housing programs and here for HUD. Early information on the coronavirus relief portion of the bill package is posted here.

USDA Rural Dev. Prog. (dollars in millions)	FY19 Final Approp.	FY20 Final Approp.	FY21 Admin. Budget	FY21 House Bill	FY21 Senate Bill	FY21 Final Approp.
502 Single Fam. Direct Self-Help setaside*	$1,000 5*	$1,000 5*	0 0	$1,000 5*	$1,000 5*	$1,000 5*
502 Single Family Guar.	24,000	24,000	24,000	24,000	24,000	24,000
504 VLI Repair Loans	28	28	0	28	28	28
504 VLI Repair Grants	30	30	30	30	30	30
515 Rental Hsg. Direct Lns.	40	40	0	40	40	40
514 Farm Labor Hsg. Lns.	27.5	28	0	28	28	28
516 Farm Labor Hsg. Grts.	10	10	0	10	10	10
521 Rental Assistance	1,331.4	1,375	1,410**	1,410**	1,410	1,410
523 Self-Help TA	30	31	0	31	31	31
533 Hsg. Prsrv. Grants	15	15	15	15	15	15
538 Rental Hsg. Guar.	230	230	230	230	230	230
Rental Prsrv. Demo. (MPR)	24.5	28	40	30	28	28
542 Rural Hsg. Vouchers	27	32	40**	40**	34	40
Rural Cmnty. Dev’t Init.	6	6	0	6	6	6
Rental Prsrv. TA	1	1	0	0	2	2

* For the self-help setaside in Section 502 direct, the figures in the table represent budget authority, not program levels.
** The budget and the FY21 House bill would separate vouchers from MPR and move them into the Rental Assistance account. The Senate bill, and the final version, do not.

Statement from the Housing Assistance Council on the Nomination of Secretary Tom Vilsack and Rep. Marcia Fudge to Lead USDA and HUD

December 11, 2020/in Policy

As the nation’s rural housing intermediary, the Housing Assistance Council congratulates former Secretary Tom Vilsack and Representative Marcia Fudge on their nominations to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, respectively. Their nominations come at a time of crisis in rural communities. The pandemic has laid bare market failures and capacity challenges that disproportionately affect rural communities. Rural homeowners and renters have been out of work for months. Federal mortgage forbearance and eviction moratoriums are set to expire at the end of the year. This is truly a time for strong, experienced leaders that can manage crisis-level responses. We are confident these two leaders will help families across the country – including in our nation’s most persistently poor places in rural America.

Rural housing markets and programs have suffered from neglect for decades. Decent, safe, and affordable housing leads to good health and wealth building. former Secretary Vilsack and Rep. Fudge know that. We look forward to working with them in their new roles to place a renewed focus on the needs of rural communities. They both bring the knowledge and experience necessary to take the helm at a difficult time in our nation’s history. We wish them well as they begin the confirmation process.

HAC’s 2021 Rural Housing Policy Priorities

December 3, 2020/in Policy

Federal policy has an important and lasting impact on rural places. For nearly 50 years, the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) has been the voice for the poorest of the poor in the most rural places. Our deeply rooted work in communities across the country informs our research and drives our policy positions. Our independent and non-partisan work with members of Congress, federal agencies, affordable housing and community development organizations, and other stakeholders ensures the most vulnerable rural populations – especially those in high-needs regions like the Mississippi Delta, rural Appalachia, farmworker communities, the Southwest border colonias and Indian Country – have improved access to safe and affordable housing opportunities.

Rural America is home to about 20 percent of the U.S. population and covers more than 90 percent of the U.S. landmass. Its small towns and rural regions are diverse demographically and economically, and face a wide array of local challenges and opportunities for developing their communities and housing. While each place is unique, HAC has documented several themes. Persistent poverty is a predominantly rural condition. Habitable rural housing is in severely short supply. The adequate housing that does exist is often unaffordable because rural incomes are low and run well below the national median. Rural housing lacks adequate plumbing and kitchen facilities at a rate above the national average. Overcrowding is not uncommon in some rural regions. Decades of stagnant rural house prices have denied owners the wealth and mobility so often associated with buying a home. And racial inequity is endemic as the result of housing policies and banking practices that excluded rural people of color. Complicating these challenges, a lack of reliable rural data obscures rural realities.

In addressing these issues, HAC’s policy priorities include:

Building the capacity of local affordable housing and community development organizations deeply rooted in rural places;
Expanding access to credit and safe, affordable lending in underserved rural communities;
Improving the overall quality, availability and affordability of housing to buy and rent in small towns and rural places; and
Preserving, increasing and tailoring resources for federal affordable housing programs serving rural populations.

We invite you to view our 2021 Policy Priorities and explore the various policy issues facing rural communities.

Senate agrees with most House funding levels for rural housing programs

November 10, 2020/in Policy

In a draft bill released on November 10, 2020, the Senate proposes to fund most rural housing programs in fiscal year 2021 at the same levels supported by the House. The fiscal year started on October 1 and the federal government has been operating under a continuing resolution that provides funding through December 11. The House passed appropriations bills in July but the Senate released all 12 of its proposed measures for the first time on November 10. The Senate is not expected to pursue the standard process of marking up and voting on its bills; instead, they establish starting positions for negotiations on a final omnibus bill that would fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

Like the House, the Senate rejected most of the Trump Administration’s budget proposals for the USDA rural housing programs and would maintain most of them at FY20 levels. There are differences, however, for Section 521 Rental Assistance (RA) and rental preservation efforts.

The House and Senate both provide $1.410 billion for RA, the amount requested by the Administration. The House adheres to the budget request and includes $40 million for Section 542 vouchers within the RA total. The Senate proposes to provide $34 million for vouchers separately, but still uses the $1.410 billion total for RA.

Both the House and Senate offer less than the $40 million requested by the Administration for the Multifamily Preservation and Revitalization (MPR) program. The House provides $30 million, the Senate $28 million. The Senate also includes $2 million for preservation-related technical assistance.

The House and Senate bills both continue the requirement for 10 percent of most USDA Rural Development programs to be directed to persistent poverty counties, those where the poverty rate has exceeded 20 percent for at least 30 years.

USDA Rural Dev. Prog. (dollars in millions)	FY19 Final Approp.	FY20 Final Approp.	FY21 Admin. Budget	FY21 House Bill	FY21 Senate Bill
502 Single Fam. Direct Self-Help setaside*	$1,000 5*	$1,000 5*	0 0	$1,000 5*	$1,000 5*
502 Single Family Guar.	24,000	24,000	24,000	24,000	24,000
504 VLI Repair Loans	28	28	0	28	28
504 VLI Repair Grants	30	30	30	30	30
515 Rental Hsg. Direct Lns.	40	40	0	40	40
514 Farm Labor Hsg. Lns.	27.5	28	0	28	28
516 Farm Labor Hsg. Grts.	10	10	0	10	10
521 Rental Assistance	1,331.4	1,375	1,410**	1,410**	1,410
523 Self-Help TA	30	31	0	31	31
533 Hsg. Prsrv. Grants	15	15	15	15	15
538 Rental Hsg. Guar.	230	230	230	230	230
Rental Prsrv. Demo. (MPR)	24.5	28	40	30	28
542 Rural Hsg. Vouchers	27	32	40**	40**	34
Rural Cmnty. Dev’t Init.	6	6	0	6	6
Rental Prsrv. TA	1	1	0	0	2

* For the self-help setaside in Section 502 direct, the figures in the table represent budget authority, not program levels.
** The budget and the FY21 House bill would separate vouchers from MPR and move them into the Rental Assistance account. The Senate bill would not.

In Response to the Senate Budget Committee Majority Staff’s Report on Housing Program Consolidation

October 28, 2020/in Policy

For millions of low-income rural Americans, the USDA rural housing programs have provided the only path to affordable homeownership and reliable rental options in our nation’s smallest towns and rural regions. In defense of these communities, the Housing Assistance Council stands firmly opposed to the call for housing program consolidation in the Senate Budget Committee’s Majority Staff Report entitled “Housing Programs: The Need for One Roof.” Released in October 2020, following a hearing earlier in the fall on the same topic, this report takes the admirable goal of program streamlining to a counterproductive extreme.

The Rural Housing Service (RHS) at USDA is the only federal agency that focuses solely on affordable housing in rural America. Nearly 30 percent of all rural households are cost burdened – meaning that they pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income towards either rent or a mortgage. And when looking just at rural renters, the percent of cost burdened households is nearly 50 percent. The RHS programs are laser-focused on these families. They are designed to fill in the gaps in rural housing and rental markets. For example, to be eligible for the USDA single family home loan programs, an applicant must be unable to obtain credit elsewhere at reasonable rates and terms. Applicants are also permitted to purchase a home with little to no down payment, with a reduced interest rate and a term of over 30 years. These unique and critical factors alone indicate that the RHS programs are not duplicative of other programs at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

The Budget Committee’s report notes that there is bipartisan agreement that the system of federal housing programs needs improvement. We agree. There is much work to be done to both streamline and fully fund our nation’s affordable housing system. Wholesale consolidation, however, is not the answer for our rural communities – as HAC has long maintained. Shoehorning rural places into urban models and programs has left a legacy of hollowing out in our most remote and underserved communities – and the recommendations in this report would inadvertently continue that trend.

HAC’s comments to the FHFA aim to improve Duty to Serve program

October 26, 2020/in Federal Register Comments Duty to Serve

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) offered comments on Duty to Serve as the Enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) react to the housing and economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and work to plan for the future of Duty to Serve. Our country is facing an unprecedented health and economic challenge, and Duty to Serve remains critically important to help rural areas weather the storm.

HAC’s comments covered all three Duty to Serve markets (rural housing, manufactured housing, and affordable housing preservation) and called for:

More transparent data availability so that stakeholders can better understand Duty to Serve progress and areas for improvement.
Continued investment in building partnerships with existing housing providers including local, regional and national nonprofits; tribes; and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) who already work in high-need communities,
More ambitious loan purchase goals in all three Duty to Serve markets.

HAC firmly sees Duty to Serve as a social justice issue. In an era in which racial and economic inequities are top-of-the-fold news stories, we can use Duty to Serve to go past minimum promised levels of loan purchase and try to fundamentally shift the lives of Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and persistently poor families.

Click here to read HAC’s full comment letter.

HAC asks HUD to protect transgender people

September 22, 2020/in Policy

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) submitted comments on September 22, 2020 opposing the proposed regulation titled “Making Admission or Placement Determinations Based on Sex,” issued recently by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD’s proposal would allow homeless shelters and some other facilities with HUD funding to discriminate against transgender or gender-nonconforming people by treating them according to the gender they were assigned at birth rather than the gender with which they identify. As HAC’s comments explain, this policy would allow a shelter – or every shelter – to refuse to admit people who do not fit stereotypes of male or female. Legitimizing discrimination is not acceptable at any time, and it is particularly cruel now when the U.S. housing and homelessness crisis has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. HAC urges HUD to reject the proposed rule.

HAC Condemns Weak Fair Housing Rule

August 7, 2020/in Policy

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) strongly opposes the dismantling of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. A new Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation, announced in July and published in the Federal Register on August 7, willfully overlooks the history of racist housing policies that has created deep and persistent segregation in our country – in rural places, cities and suburbs – and ignores our moral obligation to correct segregation and its harmful effects.

The 2015 AFFH rule required that communities receiving federal subsidies must analyze racial segregation in housing and submit plans to reverse such trends. Even before this latest move to entirely dismantle AFFH, HUD’s current leadership weakened that regulation. The newest version, however, is essentially a full rollback of AFFH, asking local governments merely to “take any action that is rationally related to promoting one or more attributes of fair housing.”

This change contravenes the Fair Housing Act of 1968 – and it is especially egregious at this point in history, when Americans are finally recognizing the damage caused by our society’s racial inequities. Every family deserves a safe, affordable home in an inclusive community. HAC calls on HUD and all Americans to work together to end the cycle of racially segregated and under-resourced communities, and to protect and advance the intent of the Fair Housing Act.

HAC has previously submitted comments supporting the creation of the 2015 AFFH rule and, later, opposing its rollback: