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A new bill seeks to expand the Housing Credit by 50 percent and provide new incentives that would allow affordable housing developers to better serve the lowest income families with the greatest needs, including those who are homeless.
Bill S.2962 would also prohibit states from requiring local approvals for Housing Credit projects.
“NLIHC’s just-released report The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes shows there is a shortage of 7.4 million affordable and available rental homes for America’s 11.4 million extremely low income renter households, those with incomes less than the poverty guideline or 30 percent of their area median income,” Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), said in a statement. “These families include seniors, people with disabilities, veterans and low-wage workers with children. Seventy-one percent of these households are severely cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on rent and utilities.”
Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sponsored the bill.
