July 28, 2010
Congress Seal.jpg

On July 27, the House passed, without amendment, the Senate-passed FY 2010 Supplemental Funding Bill, H.R. 4899, by a vote of 308 to 114. NCSHA reported on the Senate-passed version in a June 2 blog.

The bill includes language NCSHA supports allowing the Section 502 Single-Family Rural Housing Guaranteed Loan Program to continue this year by increasing the annual commitment authority for the program by as much as necessary to meet FY 2010 loan demand. The program ran out of funds in May due to the high demand caused by the tight credit market.

H.R. 4899 allows for an increase of the current 2 percent upfront fee to up to 3.5 percent and an annual fee of up to 0.5 percent to make the program self-funding. USDA has said that they would need to raise the fee to approximately 3.5 percent to make the program self-sustaining. The bill would also allow the Secretary of Agriculture to waive fees for very low- and low-income borrowers, not to exceed $697 million in loan guarantees.

The bill does not retain the provision included in the House-passed version that would increase the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) multifamily loan guarantee commitment authority from $15 billion to $20 billion. Without the increase, FHA expects its authority to be exhausted by August or September. NCSHA is continuing to advocate for increased authority.

The bill includes $100 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for disaster relief for federally declared disaster areas affected by storms from March 2010 through May 2010.

The President is expected to sign the bill soon.