by iwd Tina | Jun 21, 2011 | Housing News
Moving ahead without a completed budget agreement, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (T-HUD) approved its FY11 appropriations bill on July 1. The T-HUD Subcommittee bill would provide $46.579 billion in discretionary funds for HUD, over $1 billion more than the President’s request. The bill passed the Subcommittee by a voice vote.
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by iwd Tina | Jun 21, 2011 | Housing News
The number of foreclosures initiated in Massachusetts jumped 28.1 percent in 2009 to 27,928 from 21,804 in 2008 but was 5.5 percent below the level in 2007, according to the latest report from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
The number of completed foreclosures, meanwhile, declined 25.4 percent to 9,269 last year from 12,430 in 2008 but was still 21.1 percent ahead of the 7,653 foreclosures recorded two years earlier.
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by iwd Tina | Jun 21, 2011 | Housing News
From the Technical Assistance Collaborative:
Section 811 Reforms
The Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act makes long overdue improvements to the Section 811 program by:
* Modernizing and simplifying the capital advance program for non-profit sponsors;
* Integrating supportive housing for people with disabilities into larger multi-family affordable rental housing developments;
* Protecting an existing tenant-based program targeted to people with disabilities; and
* Creating an innovative subsidy approach that will allow states and localities leverage additional capital funds for the creation of new units of supportive housing.
This important legislation is named in honor of the late Frank Melville, the first Board Chair of the Melville Charitable Trust. Frank Melville and the entire Melville Charitable Trust family have been national leaders in promoting supportive housing as a highly successful and cost-effective best practice that can prevent and end unnecessary institutionalization and homelessness among people with the most significant and long-term disabilities.
Please click here to read the announcement from TAC.
by iwd Tina | Jun 21, 2011 | Housing News
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has issued a new analysis of the Obama Administration’s 2011 budget request for the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher program. The President’s budget requests $17.1 billion to renew vouchers in 2011, an increase of $875 million above the 2010 funding level. This amount is likely to be just enough to renew all vouchers in use this year, according to the Center’s preliminary estimates. In contrast, freezing voucher renewal funding at its 2010 level would cause approximately 100,000 low-income families to lose housing assistance.
The Administration’s budget would also set aside $85 million for 10,000 new vouchers for individuals and families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In addition, the budget proposes improvements in voucher funding policy — modeled on those in the pending Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA) — that would encourage the state and local housing agencies that administer the voucher program to use available funds more efficiently to serve more families.
While the Administration’s budget would strengthen the voucher program and modestly increase the number of families receiving assistance, housing affordability problems are likely to continue to grow among low-income renters. From 2000 to 2008, the number of low-income renters paying more than half of their income for housing increased by 2.3 million, or 38 percent, according to Census data. Over the same period, the number of families served by the three largest federal rental assistance programs increased by 300,000, or 7.5 percent.
To view the full report, see http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3145.
by iwd Tina | Jun 20, 2011 | Housing News
Please click here for National Housing Conference’s Policy Statement on the U.S. Housing Finance System.
