National Housing Trust Fund

The National Housing Trust Fund is working to create a national source of ongoing, dedicated, permanent and sufficient source of revenue for affordable housing. The goal of the National Housing Trust Fund is to produce, rehabilitate, and preserve 1,500,000 units of housing over the next 10 years.

Some of the guiding principles for the National Housing Trust Fund are included below. For complete information about the National Housing Trust Fund, go to www.nhtf.org.

The funds used to capitalize the National Housing Trust Fund shall not be those that are currently funding other federal housing programs. The establishment of a National Housing Trust Fund is intended to generate new, additional dollars for housing and all other housing and community development funding should be at least at a maintenance of effort level.

Eligible activities. The Trust Fund should be used for the production of new housing, preservation of existing federally assisted housing, and rehabilitation of existing private market affordable housing. The Trust Fund should be primarily used for rental housing. NHTF supports allowing up to 25% of funds to be used for homeownership activities, so long as low income people are served. Funds can be used for both grants and loans.

Income targeting. At least 45% of the Trust Fund dollars should be used for housing that is affordable for extremely low income households, that is, those with incomes under 30% of the higher of state or area median. In addition, at least 30% of total Trust Fund dollars should be used for housing that is affordable to households with incomes at the equivalent of full time prevailing minimum wage earnings or less. No more than 25% of Trust Fund dollars can be used for low income households with incomes up to 80% of the higher of state or area median provided these funds are restricted to housing production, preservation, or rehabilitation in low income neighborhoods. In all cases, no one should pay more than 30% of their income for housing.

For More information contact: 202-662-1530 or on their website at http://www.nlihc.org/about/contact.cfm