Congress

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government announced a FY-2012 spending bill this week that includes $183 million for the CDFI Fund, with $12 million set aside for the Native American CDFI initiative and $22.9 million set aside for administration.

An new report by The Real Estate Roundtable, the U.S. Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council finds that the Obama Administration’s Better Building Initiative would create more than 114,000 private-sector jobs, 77,000 of which would be in the construction industry.

Two federal lawmakers this week sent a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requesting detailed accounting of more than 1,000 affordable-housing construction projects funded by the Department’s HOME Program.

On June 3, the House Financial Services Committee held an oversight hearing on the performance of HUD’s HOME program in creating affordable homes and strengthening communities.

U.S Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund Director Donna Gambrell will testify before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on the President’s FY-2012 budget request for the CDFI Fund, and how CDFIs are creating jobs and transforming communities.

On May 12, House Financial Services Committee members John Campbell (R-CA) and Gary Peters (D-MI) introduced the “˜”˜Housing Finance Reform Act of 2011” (HFRA), H.R. 1859.

Last week, the House Committee on Appropriations released its draft 302b allocations, the amounts each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees will have available to spend on their respective FY-2012 funding bills.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced a bill last week to extend the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) for five years and provide $5 billion for the program annually.

House of Representatives Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Ill.) has released his FY-2012 Budget proposal.

NH&RA is pleased to make available the slides presented at the recent 2011 NCAHMA Spring Affordable Housing Policy & Underwriting Forum, April 27-28 in Washington, DC. Slides will be available to the public for a limited time only, and then only available to NH&RA members.

HUD’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program got an unexpected funding 33.5% cut from fiscal year 2010’s $75 million, to $50 million in the fiscal 2011 spending bill.

Last week, U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) introduced “The Preserving Homes and Communities Act of 2011″ (H.R. 1477).