Key Steps Include Streamlining Financing for Affordable Housing Creation, Offering Green Funding Opportunities, and Repairing and Expanding Affordable Housing Through RAD
Yesterday, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to its Housing Supply Action Plan to lower housing costs and boost housing supply that include opportunities for public housing authorities to participate. CLPHA is pleased to see that the Administration understands that PHAs play an important role in increasing housing supply. We have long maintained that creating more housing is a crucial component of expanding affordable housing opportunities for low-income families.
Specific steps cited in the announcement that the Administration is taking that are pertinent to PHAs include:
- Repairing and expanding affordable housing. HUD published new guidance for public housing authorities and multifamily housing owners participating in the Rental Assistance Demonstration, providing them with additional tools to repair and build deeply affordable housing. Yesterday HUD published RAD Supplemental Notice 4B, which offers several revisions to the RAD program – you can read CLPHA’s topline summary of that notice here.
- Streamlining financing for the creation of affordable housing. HUD announced that it will allow larger loans to participate in the agency’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Pilot Program, which increases the number of apartment sites eligible for a program that streamlines financing. HUD also updated guidelines to allow PHAs to more easily use housing vouchers and mixed-finance transactions to create or preserve housing.
- Providing new financing for affordable, energy efficient, climate resilient housing and clean energy investments. In the announcement the Administration restated its commitment to providing new financing for affordable, energy efficient, climate resilient housing and clean energy investments, including through EPA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and HUD’s $380 million Green and Resilient Retrofit Program. More information about green funding opportunities for PHAs can be found on CLPHA’s new Green Funding Clearinghouse.