Whitaker to Testify on Affordable Housing at Senate Finance Committee Hearing

Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., NCSHA President Grant Whitaker, who serves as president and chief executive officer of the Utah Housing Corporation, will testify on behalf of NCSHA before the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on America’s Affordable Housing Crisis: Challenges and Solutions. The hearing will be broadcast live on the Committee’s website, and will also be available there for streaming thereafter.

Whitaker’s testimony will address the nation’s critical need for affordable housing, the roles the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) and tax-exempt private activity Housing Bonds (Housing Bonds) play in responding to that need, and how Congress can seize the opportunity of tax reform to further strengthen these programs. Whitaker will endorse the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, S. 548, which Committee member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced earlier this year. Enactment of this legislation is one of NCSHA’s highest priorities.

Also testifying at the hearing will be Daniel Garcia-Diaz, Director, Financial Markets and Community Investment, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Katherine O’Regan, Professor of Public Policy and Planning and Faculty Director, Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University; Kirk McClure, Professor, Urban Planning Program, School of Public Policy and Administration, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Kansas; and Granger MacDonald, Chairman of the Board of Directors, National Association of Home Builders.