PRESS RELEASE: Sheila Crowley, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Testifies on Need for National Housing Trust Fund

July 19, 2007
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 19, 2007
Contact: Nicole Letourneau 202-662-1530 x227

Sheila Crowley, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Testifies on Need for National Housing Trust Fund

WASHINGTON, DC – Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, testified before the House Financial Services Committee today on the great need for a national housing trust fund to provide housing that is affordable to people with the most serious housing problems.

The committee is considering H.R. 2895, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2007, which will establish a national housing trust fund with dedicated sources of funding for the production, preservation and rehabilitation of 1.5 million affordable homes in 10 years. At least 75% of the funds will be for housing for households that are extremely low income, earning less than 30% of an area’s median income.

H.R. 2895 was introduced by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, on June 28 with strong bipartisan support from 16 original cosponsors, including Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA), chair of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). To date, the bill now includes a total of 29 cosponsors.

“This is a great moment for the millions of American families and single elderly or disabled people whose physical, emotional, financial and social well-being are compromised and damaged every day because they cannot afford even modest safe and healthy homes,” Crowley said. “In the United States of America, we should not tolerate a housing shortage of the magnitude we now face. H.R. 2895 asserts that this housing shortage is unacceptable and that we as a nation intend to correct this failing at long last.”

The acute lack of affordable housing is well documented. Nationwide, there are only 6.2 million homes renting at prices affordable to the 9 million extremely low income renter households - a shortage of 2.8 million homes. Housing is considered affordable if it costs no more than 30% of household income.

Not a single Congressional district has enough rental housing affordable and available to extremely low income families. Nationally, there are only 38 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 extremely low income renter households. This is the only income group for whom there is an absolute shortage, and the income group whose housing needs are addressed in H.R. 2895.

Crowley explained that low income households are people who work at the low wage jobs that the rest of us rely on to be able to do our jobs, such as child care providers, nursing homes aides, hotel housekeepers, office cleaners, retail clerks and receptionists. They are also elderly and disabled people on fixed incomes.

With a scarcity of affordable housing, households end up having to spend a precariously high percentage of their income for housing; 71% of extremely low income renters spent more than half of their incomes for their homes. Or they pay the price in other ways by working multiple jobs often at the expense of time for their children, doubling or tripling up creating overcrowding, or living in substandard housing that threatens their health. Under these conditions, those who have the fewest coping skills and weakest social networks are the ones who have the highest risk of becoming homeless.

Crowley said there is no current federal housing production program that is specifically targeted to extremely low income people, but H.R. 2895 will make capital resources available to developers to build and operate housing that this income population can afford. Rather than being the sole source of capital for any project, trust fund dollars will add enough to bring the cost down for a percentage of units such that they become affordable for extremely low income renter households.

“The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund will fill a longstanding void in the housing production tool box,” Crowley said.

Crowley noted that while some may criticize the trust fund by claiming that existing programs will suffice, “the stark reality is that the federal budget is in a deep deficit and anything other than small improvements to the funding levels of existing programs are not likely in the foreseeable future. The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund will not depend on regular appropriations nor will it reduce funding to existing programs.”

NLIHC’s sole mission is to end the affordable housing crisis in America. Establishment of a national housing trust fund is NLIHC’s top priority. NLIHC and more than 5,600 supporters around the country have coordinated the National Housing Trust Fund Campaign with the goal of passage of national housing trust fund legislation. More information about the campaign can be found here: www.nhtf.org.

Crowley’s full testimony can be found here: www.nlihc.org/detail/article.cfm?article_id=4411&id=61