NCSHA Washington Report | February 6, 2026

A housing wonk’s who’s who gathered in New York City this week to recognize the 30th anniversary of a quintessentially local organization with a national impact: New York University’s Furman Center. The center, a joint project of NYU’s School of Law and its Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and named for real estate investor Jay Furman, has been from its inception a force in city and state policymaking through its deep-data analyses and regular convenings of researchers, activists, government officials, and political candidates.

The Furman Center has long been an important voice on national housing issues, too, producing influential work that shaped the federal government’s response to mass foreclosures during the global financial crisis, informed new approaches to emergency rental assistance during Covid, and provides to this day some of the sharpest analysis of proposals for reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Across the country, at the end of the last year, another university-based housing think tank celebrated a milestone of its own when the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley marked its first decade of existence.

The Terner Center was founded in 2015 to honor and continue the work of Don Terner, the visionary scholar, public official, and founder of the nonprofit housing development organization BRIDGE Housing, who died in the 1996 U.S. military plane crash in Croatia that also claimed the lives of U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 33 others travelling on a trade mission.

Like the Furman Center, the Terner Center has had a strong focus and significant impact on its home state. California’s recent progress expanding development of accessory dwelling units, encouraging new housing construction, and streamlining development approvals has been shaped by the center’s work.

Terner, like Furman, is also impacting policy and practice around the country. Five years ago, it established Terner Labs as an independent entity “to scale housing innovation across the industry and advance systems-level change.” The lab has provided seed funding and other support to dozens of organizations testing new ways of solving housing challenges and created an interactive online tool that 37 cities are in process of using to estimate the effects of different policies on the financial feasibility of new housing development.

Both the NYU Furman Center and Cal’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation are led by people who have held senior positions in federal, state, and local government and bring an actionable pragmatism to their research and recommendations. Each leverages a network of scholars from within their vibrant university networks, ensuring an eclectic range of ideas. Perhaps most importantly, both these vital centers are committed to training and inspiring the next generation of leaders, from all kinds of backgrounds, who will determine the future of housing policy in New York, California, and the nation.

Stockton Williams | Executive Director

In This Issue

• Trump Signs Consolidated FY26 Appropriations Bill with HUD Funding
• House of Representatives Poised to Consider Omnibus Housing Bill Next Monday
• FHFA Repeals GSE Fair Housing, Fair Lending, and Equitable Housing Finance Plan Requirements
• Looking Ahead

Trump Signs Consolidated FY26 Appropriations Bill with HUD Funding
President Trump Tuesday signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 after the House approved the Senate-altered bill 217 – 215 earlier in the day, ending a partial government shutdown that began Saturday. The legislation provides full Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) funding for the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, State, Transportation, and Treasury, accounting for more than 75 percent of discretionary spending across the federal government. The HUD portion of the package provides $77.3 billion for housing programs, an increase of more than $8 billion from FY25 enacted funding levels. See NCSHA’s blog and funding chart for specific HUD program funding levels.

Congress has now passed 11 of the 12 traditional appropriations bills for FY26 and still is negotiating full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); funding for DHS is set to lapse on February 13.

House of Representatives Poised to Consider Omnibus Housing Bill Next Monday
The House of Representatives plans to vote Monday evening on comprehensive affordable housing legislation that includes more than 20 different housing-related bills. The legislation, titled the Housing for the 21st Century Act, contains several NCSHA-supported bills, most notably the HOME Reform Act of 2025 (H.R. 5798), which would improve the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and the Community Investment and Prosperity Act, which would raise the cap on banks’ public welfare investments — a category that includes investments in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program. The House Financial Services Committee passed the Housing for the 21st Century Act in December by a nearly unanimous vote. NCSHA has endorsed the legislation, and our top priorities within it are outlined in this advocacy piece. For details on the bill, see the section-by-section analysis and summary prepared by the Financial Services Committee.

The version of the bill the House is expected to consider is largely similar to the committee-passed version but does include one notable change to the HOME Reform Act language: The committee-passed legislation exempted HOME-funded projects from Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements. To address strong objections from Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) and other Democrats, the updated language removes this exemption and instead instructs HUD to review BABA implementation and issue new guidance clarifying its application to the HOME program. In addition, the new bill includes 12 community banking-related bills that also passed the Financial Services Committee with strong bipartisan support.

The House will consider the bill under suspension of the rules, which is designed to expedite consideration of bills with strong support. Under this procedure, debate on the House floor is limited to no more than 40 minutes, amendments to the bill cannot be offered on the floor, and two-thirds of voting House members must vote in support for the bill to pass.

The Senate is reportedly planning to consider its own comprehensive housing legislation, the ROAD to Housing Act, in the coming weeks as a prelude to what is hoped will be negotiations on a final agreement between the House and Senate that both chambers could pass later this year.

FHFA Repeals GSE Fair Housing, Fair Lending, and Equitable Housing Finance Plan Requirements
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) this morning published a final rule that fully repeals its May 2024 Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans regulation. The May 2024 rule required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to publish and maintain equitable housing finance plans outlining the activities each firm would undertake to support equitable access to affordable and sustainable housing and enhanced FHFA’s ability to supervise Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks for potential fair housing violations.

FHFA had previously directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to stop publishing equitable housing finance plans. In the final rule, FHFA argues the May 2024 regulations are unnecessary because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are already subject to fair housing laws and the equitable housing finance plans violated Trump Administration policies against race-based preferences.

In our comments on the proposed rule, NCSHA urged FHFA to instruct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue pursuing efforts to expand housing financing in underserved markets, as required by their charters.

Looking Ahead

Legislative and Regulatory Activities

• February 10 | House Financial Services Committee Hearing: Priced Out of the American Dream: Understanding the Policies Behind Rising Costs of Housing and Borrowing
• February 10 | House Financial Services Committee Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Hearing: Building a Solid Foundation: Restoring Trust and Transparency in Public Housing Agencies
• February 11 | House Financial Services Committee Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Hearing: Homeownership and the Role of the Secondary Mortgage Market
• February 13 | Comments Due | HUD Proposed Rule Repealing Its Discriminatory Effects Standard

NCSHA, State HFA, and Industry Events

• February 12 | Raymond James Affordable Housing Investments Summit | Virtual
  Jim Tassos will speak at this event.
• March 9 – 11 | NAHRO Washington Conference | Washington, DC
  Jennifer Schwartz will speak at this event.
• March 16 | ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing: “Let’s Build” Policy Forum | Baltimore, MD
  Stockton Williams will participate in this event.
• March 18 | National Housing Supply Summit | Washington, DC, and Virtual
• March 18 – 19 | Yardi Forum: Affordable Housing and PHA | Boston, MA
  Jennifer Schwartz will speak at this event.
• March 20 | Early-Bird Registration Ends | NCSHA’s 2026 Legislative Conference | Washington, DC
• April 21 – 23 | NCSHA’s 2026 Legislative Conference | Washington, DC
• April 21 – 23 | Affordable Housing Investors Council Spring Meeting | Scottsdale, AZ
  Jim Tassos will speak at this event.