Join the ACTION Campaign Monthly Call on Friday, December 6

Join the ACTION Campaign Monthly Call on Friday, December 6

The ACTION Campaign’s monthly call will be held on Friday, December 6 at 2:00 pm EST. Call-in information:

• Phone number: 866-469-3239
• Access Code: 625 036 783 #

Guest Speaker: On the December 6 ACTION call, National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders (NAAHL) President and CEO Buzz Roberts will provide an update on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) modernization and what Housing Credit advocates need to know.

Call to ACTION to Advance the AHCIA

Senate and House leaders, including tax committee leaders, are currently negotiating what will likely become an end-of-year tax package intended to move alongside appropriations legislation. Now is the time to activate cosponsors and encourage them to go to their leadership to express that the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act is a top priority for them. We’ve all worked long and hard this year to build cosponsorship of the bill. Now we need to turn to those cosponsors and ask them to take this last important step. If tax committee and chamber leadership are not hearing from rank and file members that this is their priority, it will not be on the short list for those negotiations.

Specifically:

• Senate Republicans should speak to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA).
• Senate Democrats should speak to Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR).
• House Democrats should speak to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA).
• House Republicans should speak to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-TX).

We strongly encourage grassroots ACTION members to reach out to AHCIA cosponsors from your state and district and ask them to make member-to-member connections with their leadership, rather than reaching out directly to leadership. Click here to access the most recent list of AHCIA cosponsors and check out ACTION’s advocacy toolkit for additional support.

AHCIA Cosponsorship Update

Since ACTION’s last monthly update, an additional 16 Senators and 39 Representatives have signed-on in support of the AHCIA. The Senate now totals 36 cosponsors, including 46 percent of the Senate Finance Committee, while the House now totals 177 cosponsors, including 69 percent of the Ways and Means Committee. The AHCIA has gained strong momentum in the last month, and now more than one-third of the Senate and over 40 percent of the House have signed-on.

ACTION applauds these members of Congress for their leadership in supporting families who need affordable homes and thanks the many hard working advocates of the AHCIA for their efforts.

Other Policy News

President Signs Temporary Spending Bill, Congress Negotiating FY20 Appropriations

On November 21, the President signed a continuing resolution (CR) passed by Congress that will fund the government at current spending levels through December 20. There are no tax provisions included in the bill. Lawmakers now have four more weeks to reach a comprehensive Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 spending agreement. Sources are reporting that top appropriators in the Senate and the House have reached a deal on spending levels for the dozen yearly appropriations bills. Now that Congress has agreed to top-line spending numbers, known as 302(b)s, lawmakers will be able to begin determining spending levels for individual programs.

NPR for CRA Modernization Anticipated before the End of the Year

A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) for CRA modernization from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is anticipated before the end of the year. This NPR would follow the OCC’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) published in August of 2018, which garnered over 1,500 comments largely objecting to adopting a dollar value to determine CRA ratings. As of this writing, we expect the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to join the OCC in the NPR. However, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB)—the third banking regulator responsible for implementing and evaluating the CRA—may not. In the past, the three regulators have issued joint rulemakings, and so a rulemaking that does not include all three would be a significant break from past practice. The ACTION Campaign is closely monitoring the CRA modernization process, as CRA is an important motivator for financial institutes to invest in the Housing Credit.

Membership Update

We are pleased to welcome the following new ACTION members who joined this November:

• Barnes Realty, Oklahoma
• Clark Hill, National
• Hans Thomas & Associates, Missouri
• New York Affordable Housing (NYAH) Advisors, LLC, New York
• North Montgomery Citizens United for Prosperity (MCUP), Mississippi
• Raga Properties, Missouri
• Texas Low Income Housing Information Service (Texas Housers), Texas
• You’re Homes Solutions, LLC, Georgia

Help us continue to grow by inviting your state and local partners to join ACTION. The larger our membership base, the better we can show members of Congress that organizations and businesses in every community support strengthening and expanding the Housing Credit.

In the News

On November 7, North Carolina’s WLOS news report, “Asheville organization urges residents to call senators over housing bill,” highlights the Asheville area Habitat for Humanity’s advocacy work urging residents to call their senators in support of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act.

In a November 8 opinion piece from The Hill, “Congress must take action on affordable housing legislation,” Emily Cadik, executive director of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, notes the growing bipartisan support for the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act.

On November 8, Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released an “Economic Agenda for American Families,” a wide-ranging set of policy proposals that would include substantial investments into affordable housing. The plan calls for increasing the supply of affordable housing using billions of dollars of investments in a number of programs, including the Housing Credit.

On November 12, NPR’s Public Radio from UA Little Rock released a “Community Development Minute: Low-Income Housing Tax Credits,” which gives a brief synopsis of the history of the low-income housing tax credit and its role in constructing and rehabilitating millions of rental units across the country.

A November 19 article from JD Supra, “2019 Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act Gains Steam with Bipartisan Support” highlights the legislation’s growing momentum and discusses key provisions in the bill, including the minimum 4 percent credit rate for tax-exempt bond financed transactions and the increased housing credit volume cap by 50 percent over five years.