News

To plan for its upcoming 100 year anniversary, the National Park Service (NPS) has released a Call to Action that details updates to the agency’s strategy, vision, mission, and goals. Within the Call to Action, four major themes arise: connecting people to parks, advancing the NPS educational mission, preserving important and unique places, and enhancing professional and organizational excellence.

A new Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report finds that the recent House Appropriations vote to reduce funding for public housing in 2012 by $1.4 billion, or 20 percent below the 2011 level, would place a significant burden on the quality of public housing and would likely raise future federal costs of maintaining these properties.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released the newest version of the Multifamily Accelerated Processing (MAP) Guidebook.

Reznick Group’s Tax Credit Investment Services (TCIS) team has released the first in a series of periodic reports addressing the performance of properties financed with low-income housing tax credits. Given the scrutiny of all federal income tax expenditures and the recent market fluctuations, this is an appropriate time to examine whether these properties are meeting their financial obligations and the needs of the markets they serve.

The House of Representatives Appropriations Transportation – Housing & Urban Development Subcommittee has released a draft funding bill for FY-2012. It is scheduled to be marked up by the committee today, Thursday September 8. The measure calls for $55.15 billion in discretionary spending across the two agencies, $19.8 billion less than President Obama’s request and $217 million below current spending. The bill would provide $16.7 billion to the Transportation Department, a $3 billion increase over current spending, and $38.1 billion for the Housing and Urban Development Department, a $3 billion cut.

In a primetime speech before the US Congress on September 8, President Obama announced proposal called the “American Jobs Act”. The proposal includes a major new $15 billion initiative called “Project Rebuild” that is targeted towards Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities. The proposal builds on the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).

National Housing & Rehabilitation Association Executive Director Thom Amdur announced today the recipients of NH&RA’s 2011 Affordable Housing Vision Awards: Sandra Henriquez, Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; and Boston accountant and past NH&RA President John Mackey. The pair will be honored at a ceremony on Monday, November 14 at the Intercontinental Hotel in conjunction with NH&RA’s Fall Developers Forum.

Documenting the economic impact of a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation is an important component of determining the effectiveness that project might have on the low-income communities it intends to serve. Yet oftentimes Community Development Entities (CDEs) do not have the adequate resources to accurately measure the economic impact a project might have, thereby compromising the integrity of the project and future award opportunities. In a recent article, Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP addresses the importance of community impact assessments on NMTC deals.

The Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC) has released the draft 2012 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) and a summary of proposed changes to the plan.

The National Housing & Rehabilitation Association has announced eighteen finalists in seven categories for this year’s “Timmy Awards,” which will be presented at an awards luncheon and ceremony on November 15 in Boston, Massachusetts in conjunction with the association’s Annual Fall Developers Forum.

HUD’s Economic and Market Analysis Division has prepared Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis for the Tyler and El Paso, Texas market areas.

HUD recently announced Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle as the cities to receive the first grants under the new Choice Neighborhoods Initiative which aims to transform distressed neighborhoods into sustainable mixed-income communities. These grants are meant to build upon the successes of HOPE VI which provided support for the rehabilitation and preservation of public and HUD-assisted housing in order to better approach concentrated poverty.