New actions will create tens of thousands of affordable homes, while promoting fairer and more transparent rental markets

President Biden believes that every American deserves access to a quality and affordable home. His Administration is pursuing an all-of-government approach to build more housing and lower housing costs. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of new actions that will:

Bolster federal programs with a proven track-record of producing affordable housing;
Boost the supply and affordability of manufactured homes; and
Promote fairer, more transparent rental markets.

These actions fulfill and build upon the dozens of commitments in the White House Housing Supply Action Plan and the Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights that span the federal government. But more action is needed: the Administration will continue to lay out additional actions we are taking to lower housing costs and call on Congress to make the investments necessary to ensure access to quality and affordable housing for all Americans.

Bolster federal programs with a proven track-record of producing affordable housing

The Biden-Harris Administration has taken dozens of executive actions to improve the federal programs to support the construction and preservation of affordable housing – which has contributed to record housing construction in 2023. Today’s announcements will build on that progress. Specific actions include:

Extending the Federal Financing Bank Risk Sharing program. Today, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Treasury are announcing that they are indefinitely extending the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) Risk Sharing program– providing an ongoing source of capital so that state and local housing finance agencies (HFAs) can continue to offer FHA insured multifamily loans at reduced interest rates to create and preserve high-quality, affordable rental homes. After the previous Administration suspended the program, the Biden-Harris Administration restarted the program in 2021. Since then, more than 12,000 affordable housing units have been created or preserved, supported by almost $2 billion in FHA-insured loans made through the program. This new extension will create an estimated 38,000 additional units over ten years, as well as bolster HFA participation in the program.

Making the HOME program easier to use. In the coming weeks, HUD expects to publish a proposed rule to streamline and modernize the regulations for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME program), the nation’s largest annual block grant to support housing supply. During the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD has allocated $4.35 billion in funding to build and preserve affordable rental homes and make homeownership a reality for thousands of families. In collaboration with states, cities, local elected officials, stakeholder organizations, and local community development partners, HOME has assisted over 45,000 households since 2021.

HUD is proposing improvements that would make HOME easier to use for individuals and families looking for a home to rent or buy, as well as for homeowners making upgrades to their homes such as accessibility improvements, new roofs, and replacement of outdated utilities with energy efficient ones. HUD’s proposals would also streamline requirements for grantees administering funding, community development organizations building new homes, and property owners renting to HUD-funded households. The proposed rule would also update requirements regarding property standards, small scale rental housing projects, community land trusts, homebuyer resale, allowable rents for units receiving rental assistance, and tenant protections.

Providing new funding to support housing for low-income seniors. Last week, HUD announced the availability of $115 million in grant funding to support the development preservation of supportive housing for an estimated 1,100 units for low-income seniors through the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program. $35 million of these funds will be set aside to create intergenerational housing units with features to meet the needs of households headed by seniors who are raising children under 18 years old. This builds off of over $161 million in Section 202 grant awards HUD announced in October 2023, which will support nearly 1,300 units for eligible households.
Unlocking affordable housing tax credits for states affected by recent disasters. Last month, the IRS released guidance clarifying that returned low-income housing tax credits that were allocated to disaster areas in 2021 and 2022 can be reallocated for any proposed LIHTC project.

In addition to funding housing production and preservation, the federal government continues to produce research to build knowledge about and promote innovations that can produce more housing. HUD recently awarded nearly $4 million in research funds to assess the potential of off-site construction and state and local land use and zoning reforms to increase housing supply and reduce housing costs, and to help local governments convert underutilized offices and commercial buildings to housing.

Boost the Supply and Affordability of Manufactured Homes:

Manufactured housing is a critical source of affordable housing, especially for low-income, rural, and Native American households and offers a potentially lower-cost pathway to homeownership. More than 20 million Americans currently live in manufactured housing, which is the largest form of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country. Manufactured housing provides an essential path to increasing overall housing supply and offers significant savings over site-built housing. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing steps to preserve and rehabilitate existing manufactured home communities and to make it easier to finance the purchase of manufactured homes, including by:

Releasing a first-of-its-kind $225 million funding opportunity to support manufactured housing communities. Today, HUD announced that the application for Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) grants is now open to support the preservation and revitalization of manufactured housing communities. These competitive grants can be used for the replacement of dilapidated homes, assistance for homeowners such as repairs and accessibility modifications, mitigation and resilience upgrades, improvement of infrastructure such as stormwater systems or utilities, housing services including eviction prevention, and planning activities. This marks the first time the federal government has made grant funding available specifically for investments in manufactured housing communities, including resident-owned communities. A portion of funds are dedicated to supporting Tribes and tribal nonprofit organizations.
Preserving the affordability of manufactured housing communities via expanded financing options. Corporate investors are purchasing manufactured housing communities and driving up rent and driving out longtime residents. Today, FHA is publishing a draft Mortgagee Letter that, once finalized, will create a new program to preserve affordability for existing residents of manufactured housing communities. Under the new program, resident cooperatives and other mission-oriented borrowers will be permitted to use FHA 223(f) multifamily loans to acquire or refinance communities. Designed to complement the PRICE grant program, a PRICE recipient could use this program to purchase the community from its current owner, preserving its long-term affordability and use PRICE funds for critical infrastructure improvements and home repairs. However, eligibility for this program will not be limited to PRICE awardees.
Increasing loan limits for Title I Manufactured Housing. This week, FHA published a final rule increasing loan limits for the Title I Manufactured Housing program, which insures loans to finance the purchase or refinancing of manufactured homes titled as personal property. Doing so will allow FHA to better serve low- and moderate-income and first-time buyers of manufactured housing whose financing needs have not been well-served by the private market. Historically, HUD’s Title I program has been an important source of financing for manufactured homes, but low loan limits have made the program dormant in recent years. The rule will increase loan limits to be in line with current market prices and enable HUD to regularly update the limits in the future. To support this action, Ginnie Mae revised eligibility requirements for Issuers of its Manufactured Housing Mortgage-Backed Securities program. These actions are intended to reduce barriers to entry for Issuers and increase participation in its securitization program for Title I loans.

These actions build on steps HUD took earlier this year to publish a proposed rule for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program that emphasized the importance of considering the needs of manufactured housing communities during their planning process. HUD also recently updated the CDBG in Support of Housing Activities notice to clarify that communities may use CDBG funds for acquisition of manufactured housing units, services to homeowners of manufactured housing units, and investments in infrastructure and resilience for manufactured housing communities.

Promote Fairer, More Transparent Rental Markets

The Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to promote housing stability for renters. In January 2023, the White House published a Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights, which contained dozens of agency commitments to create a fairer rental market. Today, the Administration is announcing several new actions:

Clarifying banned non-rent fees in HUD-assisted properties. Today, HUD is releasing new resources clarifying HUD policies and laws that prohibit certain non-rent fees in its Multifamily, Public Housing, and Housing Choice Vouchers/Project Based Vouchers programs. These new resources make clear that certain fees, such as application and screening fees in Public Housing and Multifamily subsidized programs, are prohibited, and help ensure that tenants are not charged or penalized for impermissible fees. Last year, President Biden announced new private sector commitments to call out junk fees in the rental housing market, HUD Secretary Fudge issued an open letter calling on housing providers to adopt policies that promote fairness and transparency for renters, and the FTC last fall proposed a new rule that would ban misleading and hidden fees across the economy, including in rental housing.
Ensuring tenants’ rights for military service members. The Department of Defense (DoD) announced all 200 of its bases will have adopted its Tenant Bill of Rights by the end of the calendar year. Once fully implemented, it will cover approximately 203,000 houses for Service members and their families.
Providing new resources to prevent unfair and preventable evictions. Today, HUD is publishing a fact sheet highlighting situations in which housing providers may not evict or threaten to evict someone. In addition, HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) published policies that local and state governments can adopt to reduce eviction filings, such as requiring good cause for evictions, increasing access to legal services, improving access to courtrooms, using data to identify at-risk households, sharing data across sectors, offering financial assistance, and providing housing navigators who can assist with connecting tenants to supportive services.
Promoting prospective renters’ rights during tenant screening process. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and HUD will soon jointly publish a fact sheet describing the rights prospective renters have when screened by housing providers. Together, the four agencies administer the Fair Credit Report Act (FTC and CFPB) and the Fair Housing Act (DOJ and HUD), and the fact sheet lays out protections under these two laws in one document.

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