HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization & Improvement Act
#5 Ask: We ask Congressman Guest and Senator Hyde-Smith (members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees) for their support for HOME funding in FY 2024 and we urge — Senator Hyde-Smith ranking member of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Subcommittee — to support $2.5 billion for HOME in FY 2025.
We ask all members of Congress, both on and off the Appropriations committees, to sign congressional sign-on letters in support of FY 2025 HOME funding that Senator Coons (D-DE) and Representative Beatty (D-OH) will soon circulate in their respective chambers.
We ask members to cosponsor the HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act (S. 3793 / H.R. 7075), legislation introduced by Senator Cortez Masto and Representative Beatty, to reauthorize the HOME program and increase flexibility, improve efficiency, and eliminate needless bureaucracy.
Key Points on HOME:
- HOME is the only federal program that provides the resources and flexibility to meet both the supply and demand challenges of the affordable housing crisis. HOME can be used to support both rental housing and homeownership. It can be used for new construction, rehabilitation, down payment assistance, and tenant-based rental assistance. HOME’s flexibility allows states and localities to tailor it to their unique needs.
- HOME is more critical than ever as we continue to navigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nation’s housing market. Rents are significantly higher than last year in most markets across the country and still rising in some, making it harder for unemployed and underemployed persons to stay in their homes or find stable housing. Furthermore, increased construction costs, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions will impact housing development in the near term. It is therefore critical that HOME funding be increased.
- To tackle housing inflation, we must add to the supply of affordable rental and for-sale housing for low-income people. HOME is key to both. Since 1992, HOME funds have helped to produce 1.37 million homes. HOME frequently provides critical gap financing to make feasible affordable rental housing funded with Housing Credits or other federal, state, and local housing programs and allows such housing to reach even lower-income populations.
- HOME is a critical source of soft funding to properties assisted by the Housing Credit and other programs. HOME often provides the early money necessary to get developments off the ground or the final critical gap financing while private lending, Housing Credit, other equity, and other resources come together.
- HOME supports local economies and creates jobs. For every $1 billion in HOME funding, nearly 19,000 jobs are created or preserved. Moreover, every HOME dollar leverages nearly $5 of additional investment in affordable housing. The HOME Coalition estimates this investment has supported more than two million jobs and generated $135 billion in local economic impact.
- Congress can increase the efficiency of the HOME program by supporting HOME reauthorization legislation. HOME was last reauthorized in the mid-1990s. In the decades since, we have learned much about the program and affordable housing development, and affordable housing needs and priorities have evolved. Senator Cortez Masto and Representative Beatty have introduced HOME reauthorization legislation that would increase program flexibility, improve efficiency, and eliminate needless bureaucracy.
- HOME is distinct from HOME-ARP. HOME-ARP is an entirely separate program from HOME, targeted narrowly to specific populations who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. Funding for HOME-ARP is not a substitute for HOME, which is the primary federal block grant dedicated to the production of new affordable housing.
- HUD has significantly strengthened the reporting and oversight requirements of the HOME program. Many years ago, media reports found instances of HOME funding going unspent. In response, HUD issued a rule that included numerous additional oversight and reporting requirements to ensure obligated HOME funding was committed to projects in a timely manner. These reports, which are available on HUD’s website, show HOME funding being used quickly and efficiently to support the production of new affordable housing.
