Today Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Todd Young (R-IN), and Representatives Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Kenny Marchant (R-TX), Don Beyer (D-VA), and Jackie Walorski (R-IN), introduced the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA) of 2019 (S. 1703 and H.R. 3077), bipartisan legislation to strengthen the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit). The ACTION Campaign applauds these affordable housing Congressional champions for their leadership and support of the Housing Credit!
Both S. 1703 and H.R. 3077 include a 50 percent increase in Housing Credit authority, from which the ACTION Campaign estimates 384,500 additional affordable homes could be built over the next ten years. Both bills would also establish a minimum 4 percent Housing Credit rate, which would allow for an estimated 66,000 additional affordable homes to be built over the next ten years. In total, those two provisions alone in the AHCIA would provide for approximately 450,500 additional affordable homes over the next ten years.
The AHCIA also includes more than two dozen other provisions that would help preserve existing affordable housing, facilitate Housing Credit development for extremely low-income households and in hard-to-serve communities, provide state Housing Credit allocating agencies new tools to strengthen program oversight, and streamline rules to create efficiencies in program administration. New provisions in the AHCIA this Congress would help the Housing Credit better serve rural areas, encourage cost reasonableness, and maximize Private Activity Bond affordable housing resources, among other changes.
For more information on the bill, you can find the following resources at www.rentalhousingaction.org/advocacytoolkit:
- AHCIA one-page summary
- AHCIA detailed bill summary
- AHCIA differences between 116th and 115th Congress
You can download a California-specific fact sheet here.
Visit www.rentalhousingaction.org for more information about our efforts to expand, strengthen and protect the Housing Credit.
JOIN THE ACTION SIGN-ON LETTER!
The ACTION Campaign will be submitting a letter to Congress demonstrating our strong support for the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. Read the letter and sign on to support the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2019. The deadline for signing on to the letter is Tuesday, June 11.
All existing ACTION Campaign members will be included in the letter, so if you are already an ACTION Campaign member you do NOT need to sign on. However, we encourage you to share the letter with your networks to help us show broad support for the Housing Credit.
If you have any questions or wish to remove your organization from the letter, contact Sarah Brundage at sbrundage@enterprisecommunity.org by the June 11 deadline.
Follow the ACTION Campaign on Twitter and Facebook, and read our blog.
