In response to a year long Washington Post investigation titled “Million Dollar Wasteland“ a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers is calling on Congress to probe the nation’s housing-construction program for the poor, citing years-long delays and other breakdowns that have thwarted the production of hundreds of affordable-housing projects. The leaders of the Senate Banking Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have indicated the program will be investigated.
The investigation criticize the HOME program noting that “The federal government’s largest housing construction program for the poor has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or the local housing agencies that funded them.” HUD has responded to the Washington Post investigation in a number of press releases and blog posts that defend the program as a Catalyst for Change.
The HOME program provides a critical financing resource for many NH&RA members, who use the program in conjunction with other affordable housing programs to develop multifamily rental properties. The article comes at a challenging time for affordable housing developers. Due to state and federal budget shortfalls, many critical affordable housing financing resources are being cut around the country. The HOME Program itself already faced significant cuts the FY-2011 and deeper cuts are proposed for FY-2012.
