Community Housing Act of 2024
A BILL
To address the housing crisis through bold investments to increase and preserve the national affordable housing supply, paths to homeownership, and perpetual affordability through shared equity housing and community land trust models, investigating landlord price fixing, and providing relief for rural renters, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Congressional findings
The Congress finds that—
the cost of housing for all Americans has increased dramatically and wages have not kept pace with these increases over the last 50 years;
average rent in the United States has increased 24 percent between 2020 and 2023;
more than half of low- and moderate-income borrowers now spend between 30 and 50 percent of their income on mortgage payments;
rental housing subsidized by the Rural Housing Service (RHS) of the Department of Agriculture is often the only affordable option in rural communities;
more than half of extremely low-income rural renters experience housing insecurity;
the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) provides a dedicated, permanent source of funding for affordable housing;
the HTF is an important source of gap financing for State housing finance agencies, used along with tax credits and the HOME Investment Partnership program (HOME);
the Capital Magnet Fund (CMF) provides funding to nonprofits and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to expand financing for the development, rehabilitation, and purchase of affordable housing and other related economic development projects in distressed communities;
the HTF and CMF are funded through contributions from the Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
the GSEs are required to annually set aside an amount equal to 4.2 basis points for each dollar of the unpaid principal balance of their total new business purchases to support the affordable housing programs;
in 2023, receipts from the GSE set aside dropped significantly due to shifting market conditions;
the HOME program is used, in combination with housing tax credits, by State housing finance agencies to build affordable rental housing;
the HOME program is also the primary Federal resource for the construction of affordable family homes;
despite its importance and effectiveness, the HOME program has not been adequately funded in relation to increasing costs associated with single family and multifamily housing construction;
restrictive land use regulations disproportionately affect low- and moderate-income families by limiting the availability of quality affordable housing and driving up the costs of existing housing;
President Biden has proposed the Unlocking Possibilities program, a competitive grant program to help States and localities eliminate needless barriers to affordable housing production, including permitting for manufactured housing communities;
almost 2 million people in the United States live in public housing;
public housing agencies are unnecessarily prohibited from increasing their number of public housing units above the total they had in 1992 under a provision of law commonly referred to as the “Faircloth limit”;
community land trust or shared equity programs are crucial for ensuring perpetual housing affordability;
community land trusts or related shared equity housing programs have established legal frameworks to keep homes affordable for more than 30 years;
there are over 300 community land trust entities in the United States encompassing 43,931 housing units;
44 percent of all shared equity dwelling units are rental units;
a reported 45 percent of shared equity homeowners are people of color;
many shared equity housing organizations include a commitment to racial and ethnic diversity in their organizational and operational practices;
the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), established during the COVID–19 pandemic, provided rental and utility assistance to more than 5 million households;
these funds protected renters and landlords and have demonstrated the need for a permanent emergency rental assistance program;
analysis shows that daily eviction rates fell dramatically due to the ERAP;
State and local public developers are innovating new ways to finance and cross-subsidize the creation of affordable mixed income public housing without depending on the use of scarce low-income housing tax credits; and
State and Federal antitrust enforcers would benefit from greater visibility into use of real estate and property management software to stem anti-competitive price fixing in the rental housing markets.
Sec. 3 Severability
If any provision of this Act, any amendment made by this Act, or the application of any such provision or amendment to any person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act and of the amendments made by this Act, and the application of the remaining provisions of this Act and amendments to any person or circumstance shall not be affected.