The National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) was created in 1974, ten years after the first state Housing Finance Agency (HFA) began issuing housing bonds to finance homes for first-time homebuyers. What began as a small group of executive directors meeting annually has grown into a powerful national association and advocate for HFAs and affordable housing in Washington.

NCSHA holds six national meetings a year that attract thousands of HFA staff and affordable housing partners. NCSHA has played a significant role in shaping nearly every piece of major housing legislation Congress has written in recent years. Among NCSHA's legislative successes are: 
 
  • Leading the many national campaigns over the past three decades to extend and expand the tax-exempt Housing Bond and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) programs, including the ones that won permanent status for both programs in 1993; increased volume caps and indexed them for inflation in 2000; won $11 billion in new Housing Bond authority, AMT repeal for Bond and Credit investments, a Housing Credit cap increase, and significant program improvements in 2008; and obtained $2.25 billion in Housing Credit gap-filling resources and Housing Credit exchange authority in 2009. 
     
  • Convincing Congress to modify the Administration’s tax proposals in 2003 to avoid any adverse effects on the Housing Bond and Credit programs.
     
  • Helping create the HOME program in the early 1990s, and fighting successfully ever since to increase HOME funding. 
     
  • Winning the right for HFAs to borrow from their Federal Home Loan Banks. (1992) 
     
  • Persuading Congress to establish the HFA-FHA multifamily mortgage insurance risk-sharing program. (1992) 
     
  • Convincing Congress to make it a priority for public entities to administer the Section 8 restructuring program on behalf of HUD. (1997)
     
  • Persuading HUD to make HFAs performance-based Section 8 contract administrators.  (2000)
  • Encouraging Congress to create a state-administered National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. (2000).
  • Promoting meaningful legislation to preserve affordable rental housing and reform the Section 8 voucher program.
  • Fighting for adequate funding for Housing Choice Vouchers and project-based Section 8 contracts.