Supportive Housing - Blog Post

The Interim Rule for the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program and Consolidated Plan conforming amendments was published in the December 5 Federal Register. The Final Rule for defining homeless was also published on December 5.

On July 15, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the availability of approximately $2.1 million in competitive funds to be awarded to state Medicaid agencies for use in conjunction with state housing agencies to produce affordable rental housing for persons with disabilities receiving Medicaid services.

On July 18, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a plan, Back in Black, which he says would achieve $9 trillion in savings over the next ten years. According to a summary of the savings, $1 trillion would come from reforming tax expenditures; $4 trillion would be cut from discretionary spending, including $1 trillion from the Department of Defense; over $2.6 trillion would come from entitlement program savings; and $1.4 trillion in savings would come through interest payment reduction.

On June 14, HUD released its 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHAR), a yearly study designed to measure the scope of homelessness across the country. The 2010 AHAR measures homelessness from October 2009 through September 2010 and finds that, in spite of the recession, the number of homeless individuals increased by less than 1 percent, from 2009 to 2010. According to the report, more than 1.59 million people spent at least one night in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program during 2010, a 2.2 percent increase from 2009.

On May 31, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced Green Refinance Plus, a joint Federal Housing Administration (FHA)/Fannie Mae program for owners of existing rental housing properties to refinance into new mortgages that include funding for energy- and water-saving upgrades, along with other needed property renovations.

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises held a hearing May 25 which included testimony from a federal regulator and industry and academic housing experts, and was marked by heated congressional debate over a legislative proposal to abolish the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

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, which would wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and set up a system that allows new entities, called housing finance guaranty associations (HFGAs), to replace them. The bill authorizes HFGAs to issue federally guaranteed securities backed by mortgages that meet defined underwriting standards. The HFGAs themselves would not be federally guaranteed.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center is accepting entries and nominations for their new workforce housing competition, The Robert C. Larson Workforce Housing Public Policy Awards. The new awards program aims to recognize exemplary state and local programs, policies, and practices that support the production, rehabilitation, or preservation of workforce housing through innovation in these areas that will impact the future of workforce housing, as well as current efforts to provide ongoing and sustainable workforce housing.