CARH’S BROADCAST E-MAIL – Legislative Update

December 1, 2015

Affordable Rental Housing ACTION (A Call To Invest in Our Neighborhoods) is a national, grassroots coalition of over 1,000 national, state, and local organizations focused on ensuring that low-income working families throughout the nation have access to decent, safe, affordable rental housing. The mission of the ACTION Campaign is to protect, strengthen and expand the Housing Credit and preserve Housing Bonds. CARH is part of the ACTION Steering Committee.

The ACTION Campaign has sent out the following Call to Action:

Tax extenders negotiations have progressed from the congressional staff level to the member and leadership level. The Senate Finance Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, congressional leaders and the White House are finalizing the details of the legislation now, and this may be our last chance to influence the bill in support of permanent minimum 9 and 4 percent Housing Credit rates. The debate over tax extenders legislation is moving quickly, and the bill could be finalized in the next week or two.

Contact your members of Congress today – especially those who already have committed to supporting minimum Housing Credit rates by cosponsoring either H.R. 1142 (sponsors) or S. 1193 (sponsors). See a state-by-state list of minimum Housing Credit rate legislation cosponsors.

Ask your members of Congress to reach out to House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee and House and Senate leadership, and tell them that permanent minimum 9 and 4 percent Housing Credit rates must be included in the tax extenders package.

Key messages:

• Minimum 9 and 4 percent Housing Credit rates should be extended permanently. Minimum Housing Credit rates must be extended for at least two years in order to have any practical benefit. A retroactive extension of minimum credit rates for 2015 only would not benefit developments for which the credits have already been awarded.
• Minimum Housing Credit rates make the development of affordable housing more predictable and financially feasible. With the ‘floating rate’ in effect, there is 15 – 20 percent less Housing Credit equity available for any given affordable housing development, creating financing gaps that are increasingly difficult to fill. Use our new Housing Credit rate fact sheet to help explain the need for minimum Housing Credit rates.
• Minimum Housing Credit rates provide significant benefit for minimal cost. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the minimum 9 and 4 percent rate extensions included in the Senate Finance Committee-passed tax extenders legislation would cost only $5 million over 10 years.
• Minimum Housing Credit rates have strong bipartisan support. The minimum Housing Credit rate legislation in the Senate, S. 1193, has 29 co-sponsors, including 7 members of the Senate Finance Committee. The companion legislation in the House, H.R. 1142, has 77 co-sponsors, including 28 members of the Ways and Means Committee. The Senate Finance Committee also approved its extension of minimum 9 and 4 percent rates with bipartisan support.
• Permanently extending minimum credit rates will ultimately benefit low-income families. The White House maintains that if any tax extenders are made permanent, some of them must benefit lower- and middle-income families.
• The Housing Credit benefits urban, suburban and rural communities in every state. Use our state and district fact sheets to show the impact of the Housing Credit locally.

We encourage all CARH members to contact your members of Congress today and tell them to include permanent minimum 9 and 4 percent Housing Credit rates in the tax extenders package!

If you have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact CARH at 703-837-9001 or carh@carh.org.