President Signs Housing Assistance Reform Bill Into Law

On July 29, President Obama signed into law H.R. 3700, the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA), which will streamline and reform several federal housing assistance programs. NCSHA and a broad coalition of housing stakeholders have strongly advocated for this bipartisan legislation over the past year.

As previously reported, HOTMA will streamline Housing Choice Voucher program inspections, make project-basing vouchers more flexible, and provide public housing agencies (PHAs) greater flexibility to transfer funding between their operating and capital funds. HOTMA also makes several adjustments to federal single-family housing programs, including provisions designed to make it easier for condominium mortgages to be insured by the Federal Housing Administration and directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to adopt procedures allowing certain lenders to directly endorse loans through the Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that HOTMA will save the government $311 million over five years.

Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) and Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, who introduced H.R. 3700 in October of 2015, will be holding a press conference in Jefferson City, Missouri on Monday, August 8 to discuss the legislation.