Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Housing & Economic Development 3-H Federal Role in Affordable and Workforce Housing Federal funding plays a critical role in aiding states and local governments in their efforts to maintain and increase affordable and workforce housing. Providing working families access to housing is an important piece to the economic vitality of the region. Metro Cities encourages the federal government to maintain and increase current levels of funding for affordable and workforce housing. Federal investment in affordable and workforce housing will maintain and increase the supply of affordable and life cycle housing as well as make housing more affordable through rental assistance programs such as the Section 8 housing choice voucher program. In July 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD)released a final rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) with an aim to provide communities that receive HUD funding with clear guidelines to meet their obligation under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to promote and reduce barriers to fair housing and equal opportunity. Metro Cities strongly encourages the following: • Preserving and increasing funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) and the federal HOME program,which are catalysts for creating more affordable housing; • Preserving and increasing resources and incentives to sustain existing public housing throughout the Metro Area; • Maintaining the federal tax credit program to help spur construction and secure additional private investment, including making the four percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit a fixed rate as was done with the nine percent credit in 2015; • Creating and implementing a more streamlined procedural method for local units of government to participate in and access federal funding and services dealing with grants, loans, and tax incentive programs for economic and community development efforts; • Additional resources to assist communities to meet obligations to reduce barriers to and promote fair housing and equal opportunity; • Maintaining and increasing resources to Section 8 funding and to support incentives for rental property owners to participate in the program; and • Federal funding to provide short-term assistance for HRAs in order to facilitate the sale of tax-exempt bonds. 2017 Legislative Policies 27