Enterprise: Community Developments: The White House Released a Proposal to Overhaul the Federal Government

Posted By: Ahmad Abu-Khalaf

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• The White House has unveiled a new proposal to overhaul the federal government, which includes several provisions that would impact affordable housing and community development programs. These proposals include: moving the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rural housing loan guarantee and rental assistance programs to HUD; consolidating Community Development Block Grants into a new “Bureau of Economic Growth” within the Department of Commerce; and establishing a permanent Council on Public Assistance, which would be composed of HUD and other agencies that administer public benefit programs and would be able to set statutory cross-program policies like uniform work requirements. The proposal also includes plans to reform the federal housing finance system, including ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs), providing an explicit federal backstop and focusing the GSEs on secondary market liquidity for mortgage loans to qualified borrowers. (POLITICO, June 2018)

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• Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted down “The Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act,” a bill that would have rescinded $15 billion in previously approved funding. The bill, which passed the House on June 7, includes cuts of $40 million in funds that support residents of public housing, $40 million from rural rental assistance and $141 million from the Capital Magnet Fund. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the recession bill specifically targeted funding for: the Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) program, leading to cuts that would have damaged efforts to hire service coordinators to help public housing residents access resources in their communities; the rural rental assistance program, which would have prevented USDA from fully renewing all existing contracts; and the Capital Magnet Fund, leading to reduced private-sector investments in affordable housing and community development. (NLIHC, June 20)

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Courtesy of Enterprise