Federal / Agency News

The Internal Revenue Service published Notice 2019-19, which provides population figures to use in calculating 2019 volume limits for the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) and private activity bonds (PABs). The LIHTC cap is the greater of the population multiplied by $2.75625 or $3,166,875 and the PAB cap is the greater of the population multiplied […]

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and 17 other Members of Congress reintroduced the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act. The bill would invest about $475 billion in federal programs over a 10-year period to preserve or create more than 3 million housing units for low- and middle-income families. An independent analysis from Moody’s Analytics estimates that the investment would bring down rents by 10 percent and create 1.5 million new jobs. The bill would also change existing laws that protect discriminatory housing practices and lead to segregation.

HUD is inviting a second round of public housing agencies to join the Department’s expanding Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration program. MTW allows public housing agencies (PHAs) to practice greater program flexibility and encourages housing choice and self-sufficiency among low-income families. Currently, there are 39 MTW PHAs throughout the nation. In 2015, Congress allowed HUD to expand the MTW demonstration program to 100 additional PHAs over a seven-year period.

HUD released the updated Fair Market Rents (FMRs) for the FY 2019 Housing Choice Voucher Program and Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program for ten areas based on new survey data. The new FMS are effective as of April 15, 2019 and based on surveys conducted by the area public housing agencies and reflect the […]

The National Park Service (NPS) recently released it Federal Tax Incentives for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings annual report. In FY 2018, the Historic Tax Credit (HTC) helped rehabilitate 6,994 housing units, create 12,527 new housing units and create 6,152 low- and moderate-income housing units. NPS issued 1,013 certifications of completed work and has over 3,000 projects […]

The US Interagency Council on Homelessness released a new report, Aligning Affordable Housing Efforts with Actions to End Homelessness. The report recommends nine strategies for aligning action to prevent and end homelessness:

Tom Davis, Director of the Office of Recapitalization at HUD, sent a letter to Commitment to Enter into a Housing Assistance Payments Contract (CHAP) Awardees detailing the 2019 timeline for year-end closings of Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD).

The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Extension Act of 2019 was introduced in both the Senate (S.750) and House (H.R. 1680). The bill would permanently extend the NMTC and provide an annual inflation adjustment.

President Trump released his proposed FY 2020 ‘skinny’ budget, “A Budget for a Better America: Promises Kept. Taxpayers First.” Overall, the budget proposes to cut HUD by $9.6 billion or 18% below 2019 enacted levels. These cuts are similar in magnitude to the proposed cuts in the President’s FY-2019 budget request.

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service published final regulations that amend the compliance monitoring regulations concerning the low-income housing tax credit under section 42 of the Internal Revenue Code. These final regulations revise and clarify the requirement to conduct physical inspections and review low-income certifications and other documentation. The regulations are […]

The FY 18 Appropriations Act authorized the conversion of properties assisted by Section 202 Project Rental Assistance Contracts. HUD is in the process of revising the RAD Notice to include a new Section 4 that would provide implementation instructions for the conversion of Section 202 PRACs under RAD. HUD published a draft Section 4 to the Office of Multifamily Housing’s “Drafting Table” for feedback. Following consideration of public feedback received, the Office of Recap will proceed toward incorporation of the new Section 4 into a revised RAD Notice.

On Feb. 26, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved the nominations of Seth Appleton to be Assistant Secretary of HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, Dr. Mark Calabria to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Robert Kurtz to be Assistant Secretary of HUD’s Office of Public and […]