NCSHA Washington Report | May 2, 2025
Bipartisanship is breaking out all over the place in the U.S. Senate on policies to help solve America’s housing affordability problems.
On Tuesday, 15 Senators from each party signed up as day-one cosponsors of legislation that would generate construction of 1.5 million affordable apartments through a long-overdue expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. The same day, Senators Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Cassidy (R-LA) introduced a bill to broaden the impact of tax-exempt bonds for affordable homeownership. On Wednesday, Senators Gallego (D-AZ) and McCormick (R-PA) rolled out a bill to increase the amount of per-project multifamily financing the Federal Housing Administration can insure.
A few weeks ago, Senators Tillis (R-NC), Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Fetterman (D-PA), and Crapo (R-ID) put forward a proposal to assist local communities in fixing zoning barriers to necessary new housing. That was just days after Senators Rounds (R-SD) and Smith (D-MN) reintroduced their bill to shore up subsidized housing in rural areas. The month prior, Senators Cramer (R-ND) and Coons (D-DE) had dropped their bill to reform rental housing vouchers.
Each one of these proposals is serious, substantive, and supported by a wide range of stakeholders.
You might wonder, at a time of intense political polarization and maximalist presidential power, whether bipartisan collaboration even matters much anymore. After all, while President Trump in his first term took pride in signing into law a number of bipartisan bills, he’s shown no real interest in doing the same so far this time around. And many leading Democrats see little incentive to try to cooperate with him.
But a brand-new poll from the Pew Research Center finds that “most Americans say it is at least somewhat important for Trump and Democratic officials to find common ground with each other.” And members of Congress, a generally self-interested bunch, tend to benefit from working with the other side. Two recent studies, one of which assessed more than 40 years of congressional data, found “legislating in a bipartisan manner can contribute to greater lawmaking effectiveness, which, in turn, can pay off electorally for incumbent members of Congress.”
Bipartisan collaboration is no guarantee of ultimate legislative success, of course, and today’s raw political realities dictate that some of the most consequential bills pass on purely party-line votes, whomever holds the power, as the “big beautiful” budget reconciliation bill in the works probably will.
But passing legislation in other areas will take Republicans and Democrats working together. That matters because, if the first 100 days of Trump 2.0 were “all about executive action,” as strategist Bruce Mehlman observes, “[T]he Next Hundred will require more collaboration with Congress, both to boost the economy (extend/expand tax cuts; increase debt ceiling) and potentially to address limitations on actions imposed by courts.”
Whatever plays out in the short term, with control of Congress both historically narrow and highly volatile — last year saw the sixth straight “change” election, in which either the White House or at least one chamber switched party control — many issues of national urgency, including housing affordability, need champions on Capitol Hill, lots of them, on both sides.
Stockton Williams | Executive Director
In This Issue
- Trump Administration Releases “Skinny” FY26 Budget Proposal
- NCSHA Sends Congress HOME Program Recommendations
- HOME Coalition Letter to Congress Requests a HOME Funding Increase
- AHCIA Introduced in Senate, Gaining Cosponsors in the House
- Affordable Housing Bond Enhancement Act Introduced in Senate
- House Committees Mark Up Reconciliation Provisions
- FHA Modifies REO Holding Period for Nonprofits, Governments
- Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Increase FHA Multifamily Loan Limits
- Looking Ahead
Trump Administration Releases “Skinny” FY26 Budget Proposal
The Trump Administration has released a preliminary version of the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request, proposing significant reductions or elimination of various federal resources supporting affordable housing. Information is limited until supplementary materials are released, but the budget request envisions replacing federal rental assistance programs such as Housing Choice Vouchers and project-based rental assistance with state-based formula block grants, eliminating Department of Housing and Urban Development block grant programs such as the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and eliminating U.S. Department of Agriculture single-family direct loans and rural housing vouchers. Read more in NCSHA’s blog post.
NCSHA Sends Congress HOME Program Recommendations
In response to the solicitation for stakeholder input issued by House Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Chair Michael Flood (R-NE) and Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (R-MO), on April 25 NCSHA submitted a series of recommendations for improving administration of the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, including relief from Buy America, Build America and Davis-Bacon requirements; streamlining environmental review and reporting requirements; and increasing program administration resources. Read NCSHA’s recommendations.
HOME Coalition Letter to Congress Requests a HOME Funding Increase
On April 30, the HOME Coalition, which is chaired by NCSHA and represents more than 800 national, state, and local groups that support increasing resources for the HOME program, submitted a request to congressional leadership and appropriators for at least $1.5 billion in funding for the HOME program for fiscal year 2026, citing ongoing shortages of affordable housing supply nationwide. Read the HOME Coalition’s request letter.
AHCIA Introduced in Senate, Gaining Cosponsors in the House
Senators Todd Young (R-IN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced Tuesday the Senate version of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA). The bill, which is identical to the version introduced in the House earlier in the month, has 30 original Senate cosponsors — 15 Republicans and 15 Democrats. The House version of AHCIA is also building additional cosponsors: As of this writing, 131 House members are on board.
It’s important to show as strong a cosponsorship count as possible for both bills, as the support of AHCIA signals support for including Housing Credit resources in the tax title of the reconciliation legislation the House Ways and Means Committee will mark up imminently. While the committee has not yet officially scheduled a mark-up, one could happen as early as the week of May 12. The more support we have by then, the better positioned we will be. Please ask your members in both chambers to support this legislation. More information about the bill and the full cosponsorship list can be found here.
Affordable Housing Bond Enhancement Act Introduced in Senate
Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Tuesday reintroduced the Affordable Housing Bond Enhancement Act (S.1511). This legislation, which NCSHA has worked on closely with the senators’ offices, would expand HFAs’ ability to provide affordable homeownership by strengthening the Mortgage Revenue Bond (MRB) and Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC) programs. The bill contains many of NCSHA’s long-standing priorities for improving housing bonds, including increasing the MRB home improvement loan limit, allowing MRBs to be used for refinancing loans, providing HFAs additional flexibility in how they use housing bond authority, and simplifying how a borrower’s MCC benefit is calculated. Senators Cortez Masto and Cassidy introduced a nearly identical bill last Congress. For more information, see NCSHA’s blog and a summary and section-by-section analysis of the bill.
House Committees Mark Up Reconciliation Provisions
On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee marked up legislation to meet its obligation to reduce the deficit by $1 billion under the reconciliation instructions in the concurrent budget resolution Congress recently passed. The committee-passed legislation would rescind any remaining unobligated balances of HUD’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, which was created to upgrade affordable housing energy efficiency and resiliency. It is unclear how much, if any, of that funding remains unobligated. The legislation also would reduce funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and fold the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board into the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Several other House committees also passed reconciliation legislation this week, and more plan to mark up legislation within their jurisdictions next week or the week after.
FHA Modifies REO Holding Period for Nonprofits, Governments
On Monday, HUD issued Mortgagee Letter (ML) 2025-13 to update the Claims Without Conveyance of Title (CWCOT) post-foreclosure sales period by removing the exclusive 30-day sales period for owner-occupants, HUD-approved nonprofits, and government entities. The ML also impacts the HUD Real Estate Owned (REO) Properties exclusive listing period by reverting the exclusive listing period on the HUD HomeStore website for REO properties from 30 days to the previous 15 days for these same groups. As rationale for making these changes, HUD provided data that showed few owner-occupants, government entities, or nonprofits purchased properties during the exclusive listing period. For example, during FY24, there were three exclusive listing period sales to government agencies and 15 to nonprofits, both representing less than one percent of total CWCOT post-foreclosure sales. The ML’s CWCOT provisions may be implemented immediately but must be implemented for all post-foreclosure sales associated with defaulted Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages scheduled to occur on or after May 30. The ML’s REO provisions must be implemented for all HUD REO properties listed for sale on or after May 30.
Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Increase FHA Multifamily Loan Limits
Senators Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) Wednesday introduced the Housing Affordability Act. This legislation seeks to increase the supply of affordable housing by increasing the loan limit for multifamily property mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The bill also would change the inflation index used for the FHA multifamily loan limits from the Consumer Price Index to the Price Deflator Index of Multifamily Residential Units Under Construction, which is published by the Census Bureau. The senators argue the new metric more accurately reflects the costs of building rental housing.
Legislative and Regulatory Activities
- May 2 | Comments Due to NCSHA | OMB Request for Information: Deregulation
- May 12 | Comments Due | OMB Request for Information: Deregulation
- May 14 | U.S. House Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Hearing on Expanding Choice and Increasing Supply: Housing Innovation in America
NCSHA, State HFA, and Industry Events
- May 4 – 7 | 2025 Women’s Affordable Housing Network Summit | Denver, CO
Jennifer Schwartz will speak at this event. - May 7, 11:59 pm ET | Entry Deadline | NCSHA’s 2025 Awards for Program Excellence
- May 8 – 9 | Novogradac 2025 Affordable Housing Conference | San Francisco, CA
Jennifer Schwartz will speak at this event. - May 12 – 15 | NALHFA Annual Conference | Minneapolis, MN
Robert Henson will speak at this event. - May 13 – 14 | Building Michigan Communities Conference | Lansing, MI
Jennifer Schwartz will speak at this event. - May 15 | American Institute of Servicing and Legal Executives Institute Meeting | Washington, DC
Garth Rieman will speak at this event. - May 22 | Early-Bird Registration Ends | NCSHA’s Housing Credit Connect & Marketplace | Chicago
