Legislative & Policy Update (Read Full Update)

Congress Works This Week to Stop Government Shutdown

After a two-week recess, Congress returns to Washington this week and will have until Friday night to pass spending legislation to keep the government running. At the end of last year, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until April 28 th. Now Congress must come up with a bipartisan solution to keep the government from shutting down before midnight on Friday.

The biggest hurdle to getting spending legislation passed is a demand from the Trump Administration to include funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall in the bill. The Office of Management and Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney said to the Associated Press in an interview,

“We know there are a lot of people on the Hill, especially in the Democratic Party, who don’t like the wall, but they lost the election. And the president should, I think, at least have the opportunity to fund one of his highest priorities in the first funding bill under his administration.”

It will be difficult to gain the Democrat’s support with a border wall demand as they are opposed to this spending if it means other domestic programs losing funding. There has also been no real incentive offered for the Democrats with the demand. Finding compromise will be necessary, however, in both the House and the Senate. The Republicans only have a 52-seat majority in the Senate and will need eight Democrats to join them in order to meet the 60 vote requirement to pass the legislation. In the House, some Democrat votes are needed as there are several conservative Republican members who will oppose any legislation that includes a spending increase.

The Mortgage Bankers Association Releases White Paper on GSE Reform

Last week the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released a white paper entitled, GSE Reform: Creating a Sustainable, More Vibrant, Secondary Mortgage Market. This paper is a follow up to MBA’s GSE Reform: Principles and Guardrails, released in January. The paper includes solutions to reforming and revitalizing the secondary mortgage market and what transition steps are needed to accomplish this reform.

Below is summary released by MBA of their approach to GSE Reform:

• Inject much higher levels of risk bearing private capital into the mortgage system, while dramatically reducing the system's reliance on government support.
• Enhance the stability of the mortgage system with multiple Guarantors that will operate as privately owned utilities.
• Protect taxpayers and consumers with a clear set of market conduct rules, prudential requirements, and a new federally backed Mortgage Insurance Fund (standing behind the mortgage backed securities, not the Guarantors themselves) financed with appropriately priced insurance premiums.
• Ensure that mortgage lenders of all sizes and business models have equal access to the secondary market.
• Improve service and performance in the secondary market with multiple Guarantors competing on operations and systems development, customer service, product parameters and innovation, and pricing and execution.
• Minimize disruption during the transition to the new system by preserving what works in the current system and utilizing the existing regulatory framework where appropriate.
• Meet the needs of the full continuum of households, from families requiring the most directly subsidized, affordable rental homes to those served by the completely private jumbo single family lending market.

To read the full paper, visit MBA’s website here.

HUD Updates

Understanding Recent IDIS Changes Based on the HOME Commitment Interim Rule

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is holding a two-part webinar on April 26 th and 27 th to explain the recent changes to the Integrated Disbursement and Information System (IDIS) that implements the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) interim final rule. The rule went into effect January 3, 2017 and requires Participating Jurisdictions’ compliance with the statutory 24-month commitment requirement to be on a grant-specific basis for FY 2015 and later HOME allocations.

Participants will learn how commitments are calculated under the interim final rule; how to properly track and report local receipt funds; how to track progress towards the 36-month deadline for project-specific commitments by state and subrecipients; and how to use several new HOME reports in IDIS to manage the HOME program. To learn more about this two-part webinar series or to register, click here. TOP

Register for the Multifamily Utility Benchmarking Webinar Series

HUD will be holding part three of the six-part webinar series on multifamily utility benchmarking, Collecting the Data for Utility Benchmarking of Multifamily Properties, on April 27, 2017. This webinar will guide participants through HUD’s new multifamily utility benchmarking guidance including the new HUD multifamily utility benchmarking website and toolkit. This webinar series will help attendees become familiar with the specific guidance and tools HUD has developed to help streamline the benchmarking of energy and water performance at multifamily properties. Attendees are encouraged to attend all six sessions and recordings will be made available for those who are not able to attend the live recording. Click here for more information or to register for this webinar series. TOP

HUD Publishes Instructions for Urban County Qualifications for Participation

HUD has published notice CPD 17-03; Instructions for Urban County Qualifications for Participation in the CDBG Program for FYs 2018-2020. This notice provides guidance for counties that wish to qualify or to requalify for entitlement status as urban counties, as well as for existing urban counties that wish to include previously nonparticipating communities. HUD Field Offices and urban counties are expected to obey the deadlines provided in this notice. To read the full notice, click here.

News & Notes

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Ocwen Financial asserting borrowers lost money, and in some cases, their homes because of the company’s years of “widespread errors, shortcuts, and runarounds.” Read more.
• Proposals from the Trump Administration have caught the attention of the municipal market world. President Trump’s request for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending threatens to swell the country’s municipal bond supply while the looming possibility of a corporate tax rate drop could reduce the demand from banks and insurers for muni bonds. Read more.
• The CFPB will focus more on fair lending in mortgages in 2017. After looking back at its fair lending priorities for 2016, mortgages are on the top of its list as one of the three areas the agency would like to increase its focus on this year. Read more.
• The National Fair Housing Alliance released a report last week that revealed the impacts segregation has had on fair housing, and current policies that continue to perpetuate segregation. The 108-page report is entitled “The Case for Fair Housing.” Click here for the full report.
• How much do public home building organization CEOs make? In 2016, twenty of the chief executives from United States-based organizations earned a collective compensation of just under $140 million. For a full list of what each chief executive earned in 2016, click here. TOP

NALHFA Celebrates National Community Development Week

NALHFA celebrated National Community Development Week last week by showcasing some outstanding NALHFA member projects. Success stories are a great way to get the attention of elected officials and they highlight the important role housing and community development programs play in our communities.

Last Friday NALHFA took these and other success stories to the hill and held meetings with staffers in the House of Representatives. The NALHFA government relations team visits with Congressional staff weekly, but National Community Development week is a great way connect with more offices and let them know how community and housing development programs are impacting their districts.

NALHFA is your voice on regulatory and legislative issues in Washington. We will continue to advocate on Capitol Hill and within the Administration to preserve federal funding for programs like HOME and CDBG that support local government-led affordable housing and community development initiatives.

Thank you to all who participated in CD week! The work doesn’t stop here, though. It’s important to keep the momentum going and continue to build relationships with your elected officials and your community throughout the year. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact NALHFA Policy Director, Heather Voorman at hvoorman@nalhfa.org or at 202-367-2405.

[Washington, DC- 3/17/17] The Office of Management and Budget's "blueprint" for 2018 came out this week showing more than $6 billion in cuts to HUD's funding. These funding levels closely match the preliminary numbers leaked to the Washington Post last week.

The budget blueprint calls for the elimination of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, stating that the program is "not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results." Additionally, the blueprint calls for the elimination of the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) program, the Choice Neighborhoods program, and the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program. Read More.