Make plans to attend: NCSHA's Annual Conference & Showplace Learn more.

NCSHA Washington Report | July 18, 2025

Published on July 18, 2025

NCSHA Washington Report - 2025On Wednesday, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee in the House of Representatives responsible for housing issues, Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska, held a hearing on the HOME housing block grant, aimed at updating it to provide “modern solutions to the housing shortage.”

Flood, who for months has been studying the program, consulting with its stakeholders (including NCSHA), and working with his Democratic subcommittee counterpart, Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, was blunt about the purpose of his work:

We need to build more housing in this country; that’s the only solution that will move the needle…The underlying supply problem is what made me so interested in the HOME program to begin with. HOME is a program within our jurisdiction that specifically is geared towards building housing supply.

Flood understands the real-world experience of the companies that do the home building, whose national association said recently, “As higher construction costs, interest rates, labor costs and other factors make affordable housing deals less financially viable, adding HOME as the last layer of capital on the project is what pushes the deal to fruition.”

Unfortunately, not enough of Flood’s colleagues on the House committee that funds federal programs, Appropriations, seem to have his grasp of the country’s record-high housing shortage and HOME’s important role in addressing it. The committee on Thursday approved an annual budget for HUD that zeroes out the program.

The committee’s stated justification is that most of the money in a one-time HOME spinoff Congress created during Covid remained to be spent. But that “HOME-ARP” program is completely separate from the main block grant, with its own set of regulations. It serves a different, narrower purpose: housing and services for the homeless and other extremely low-income renters, which can take years to assemble. Congress fully expected the funds would be deployed gradually.

Regular HOME, on the other hand, is “the largest federal block grant program that provides funding dedicated exclusively to increasing the availability of adequate, affordable housing for low- and very low-income households,” per the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

It’s hardly a budget-buster at around $1.3 billion, accounting for less than two percent of HUD funding. But the program punches above its weight because states and localities are adept at leveraging that money many times over. According to CRS, 10 years ago “$4.87 in non-HOME funds was used for every dollar of HOME funds, but in FY2024, $9.08 in non-HOME funds was used for every dollar of HOME funds.”

Even in small amounts, HOME makes housing happen. Like construction and renovation of more than 400,000 for-sale homes, for well under $100,000, on average, per unit. The program is also a funding source in 15 – 20 percent of Housing Credit-financed apartment properties that come online every year, so it will be even more important in light of credit expansion in the Big Beautiful Bill.

In one fell swoop, House appropriators have undermined important work of an authorizing committee and undercut the housing supply centerpiece of President Trump’s signature domestic policy. The Senate will need to fix this bad mistake.

Stockton-Williams-Washington-ReportStockton Williams | Executive Director

Washington Report will return August 1.

In This Issue

House Appropriations Committee Passes FY26 THUD Funding Bill
Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee approved its FY26 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) funding bill, following subcommittee approval on July 14. The bill would provide $67.8 billion for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — almost $1 billion below the FY25 enacted level. It includes flat funding for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance ($35.3 billion) and Community Development Block Grant program formula grants ($3.3 billion), and a slight increase for Project-Based Rental Assistance to $17.1 billion and Homeless Assistance Grants to $4.2 billion. The bill would eliminate funding for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, Housing Counseling Assistance, and the PRO Housing Grants program designed to encourage communities to change local policies to help increase housing supply, aligning with the President’s Budget Request. It provides modest increases for the Section 202 housing for the elderly and Section 811 housing for persons with disabilities programs and includes $2.3 billion in earmarks. During its July 17 markup, the committee rejected a Democratic amendment to restore funding for HOME, Housing Counseling, NeighborWorks, and eviction prevention programs. For more information, see NCSHA’s blog and the committee bill summary.

ACTION Campaign Urges Senate Appropriators to Protect HOME Funding
In response to the elimination of HOME funding in the House Appropriations Committee’s FY26 THUD spending bill, The ACTION Campaign this week sent Senate Appropriations Committee leaders a letter urging them to protect HOME in the Senate’s THUD spending bill and to ensure the final bill negotiated with the House provides adequate funding for HOME. A coalition of more than 2,400 national, state, and local organizations and businesses chaired by NCSHA and Enterprise Community Partners, The ACTION Campaign advocates in support of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and typically does not work on appropriations issues. However, given the importance of HOME as a soft financing resource in many Housing Credit developments, ACTION took the unusual step of weighing in to support HOME at this critical juncture.

House Financial Services Housing Subcommittee Considers HOME Reform
As referenced earlier, the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to consider draft legislation proposed by Chairman Mike Flood (R-NE) to make significant reforms to the HOME Investment Partnerships Program. Witnesses testifying during the hearing represented developers that use HOME and state and local participating jurisdictions that administer the program.

Chairman Flood’s discussion draft contains a number of NCSHA recommendations from its earlier response to a request for stakeholder input issued by Chairman Flood and Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), including exempting HOME projects from Build America, Buy America domestic sourcing requirements; raising the threshold at which Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements apply to HOME projects, from 12 to 50 units; and substantially streamlining the environmental review process for many HOME projects.

Senate Passes Bill Authorizing VA Partial Claims Program; President Expected to Sign
The Senate on Tuesday night passed via unanimous consent the VA Home Loan Program Reform Act (H.R. 1815). The bill, first introduced by Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), authorizes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to offer partial claims to borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgage loans. Under the legislation, a partial claim may not exceed 25 percent of the unpaid principal balance of the loan on the date on which the partial claim is made, except in the case of a borrower who failed to make a payment on a loan between March 1, 2020, and May 1, 2025, in which case the amount of a partial claim may not exceed 30 percent. Through partial claims, which currently are available to Federal Housing Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture borrowers, a delinquent homeowner can receive a no-interest loan from the agency insuring their loan for the amount due on their mortgage, allowing them to become current on their payments. The homeowner then pays off the partial claim loan when they sell the home.

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 1815 in May. It will now be sent to President Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.

Financial Regulators Advance CRA Regulations Reinstating Previous Rules
On Wednesday, the three major federal banking regulators — the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — jointly issued a proposed rule to rescind their October 2023 rule overhauling their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. The regulators propose to reinstate the CRA regulations and enforcement framework that were in place before the October 2023 rule, with some adjustments made to the asset thresholds used to determine a bank’s CRA obligations. The regulators announced their intention to rescind the 2023 rule earlier this year, after a federal judge last April issued a preliminary injunction preventing the October 2023 rule from taking effect while the court considered a legal challenge of the rule filed by several organizations representing the financial services industry. In the proposed rule, the regulators argue that returning to the previous CRA framework will restore certainty, reduce banks’ regulatory burden, and ensure the CRA regulations focus on the CRA’s statutory mission.

The rule was published today in the Federal Register. Comments on it will be accepted until August 18. NCSHA plans to submit comments on behalf of HFAs and their partners. If you have input to inform NCSHA’s comments, please email Greg Zagorski by August 8.

NLIHC Warns of Deepening Affordable Housing Shortage in Annual Report
On July 17, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released Out of Reach 2025, a report underscoring a deepening affordability crisis. The report calculates a national “housing wage” of $33.63 per hour for a modest two-bedroom rental, over four times the federal minimum wage of $7.20. According to the report’s findings, nearly 50 percent of renters are cost burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, and 75 percent of extremely low-income renters (those at or below 30 percent of area median income) face severe cost burdens, allocating more than half their earnings to rent. While increases have pushed local and state wages above the federal minimum in many places, even these gains fall far short of affordability thresholds for a one- or two-bedroom dwelling. The report stresses that federal housing assistance programs, including Housing Choice Vouchers, HOME, and the National Housing Trust Fund, are essential to bridge this gap and prevent continued housing instability among the nation’s most vulnerable renters.

NCSHA in the News
Bipartisan Policy Center Blog, 7.11.25, Six Deregulatory Proposals to Improve Housing Affordability
The Washington Informer, 7.1.25, Harvard Housing Report Shows Black Homeownership Gains Have Halted Since 2023

Looking Ahead

Legislative and Regulatory Activities

NCSHA, State HFA, and Industry Events

Newsroom

HFA Communities

Connect with your HFA peers for best practices, advice, and solutions.

Join the Conversation

Upcoming Events

event

View Event

Membership

Login

Get NCSHA Updates

Stay informed about the issues, legislation, and regulations important to state HFAs.

Subscribe