HAC Supports Rural Provisions in Capital Magnet Fund Interim Rule
The CDFI Fund has released for comment an interim rule for the Capital Magnet Fund (CMF) program. The Capital Magnet Fund offers competitively awarded grants to CDFIs and nonprofit affordable housing organizations to finance affordable housing solutions and community revitalization efforts that benefit individuals and families with low-incomes and low-income communities nationwide. HAC has received several CMF awards, most of which have been used for the preservation of USDA’s Section 515 multifamily properties amid the maturing mortgage crisis. HAC is broadly supportive of the CMF interim rule, and submitted comments on several rural elements, including:
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Support for the addition of a national Rural Service Area. This change will make it easier to use CMF in rural areas, and will all organizations who serve rural areas across the country to be nimble and flexible with their CMF funds.
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Support for aligning CMF income targeting with other federal programs, with the caveat that the application competition should prioritize applications that propose deeper income targeting. Not all CMF deals include LIHTCs, especially in rural places. We encourage the CDFI Fund to consider how to continue to encourage this deeper income targeting in the CMF application scoring process, since raising the Very Low-Income threshold could result in fewer households under 50 percent AMI being served.
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Support for the use of the Duty to Serve definition for rural areas. HAC has done extensive research on the myriad of rural definitions, and feels that the Duty to Serve definition is the most precise rural definition available.