House Financial Services Committee Completes Markup of Housing Trust Fund Bill; Action on Related Funding Bills Still Pending.

On Tuesday July 31^st Chair Barney Frank pushed through the Financial Services Committee, by a 45 to 23 vote, the Housing Trust Fund bill (H.R. 2895). This sets the stage for later consideration by the full House after the August recess. It appears that a Chairman’s amendment to the bill, designed to address objections raised during a prior hearing, was also adopted—it is not clear at this moment what additional amendments were offered and the Committee action on any of these additional amendments. The current summary of H.R. 2895 can be found in the press release section of the House Financial Services website, HERE.

Funding for the Housing Trust Fund depends on Congressional adoption and Presidential approval of two additional bills still pending:

1. The GSE Affordable Housing Fund (H.R. 1427) which passed the House in late May. NOTE—In this bill for the first year funding, 75% of the funds would go to the State of Louisiana and 25% to the State of Mississippi for the rebuilding and repair of housing affordable to very low and extremely low income families. Said differently, there would be no funds available from this source for the first year.

2. FHA savings that result from the enactment of the Expanding American Homeownership Act (H.R. 1852), which was passed by the Committee but has yet to be acted upon by the full House. (Funds generated from an expansion of the FHA Reverse Equity Loan program for seniors, AKA “the HECM program” would be the primary source of FHA funds for the Housing Trust fund).

OK, OK—How much for Oregon?

I have not been able to locate any estimate of how much of the annual funding from H.R. 2895 would flow to Oregon. The general formula in HR 2895 is that 40% of available funding would go to states and tribes, with 60% for local jurisdictions, with individual states guaranteed a minimum of 1% of the allocation made to the states. (If the FHA funding made available was $300 Million and 40% of that was allocated to states, this would mean the minimum allocation to all states would be $1.2 Million. The ADDITIONAL direct allocation to qualified local jurisdictions in Oregon is impossible to predict at this point). Note that there are a number of conditions that would result in local jurisdictions below a threshold receiving nothing, with the amounts below that threshold reverting to the states. Note also that states would be required to develop and submit an allocation plan to HUD for approval for the funding they receive.