Housing News

On December 19, the Senate passed the Local Housing Authority (LHA) Board Member bill - S.2440, An Act relative to local housing authority board member elections, during an informal session. This bill ensures that housing authority tenants will participate in the governance of their homes. It helps LHAs in towns to operate more effectively by creating a process to appoint a resident to the tenant designated seat on housing authority boards.

The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) increased the administrative fee for all state funded voucher programs from $40 to $50 effective February 1, 2020. These voucher programs include the Mass. Rental Voucher Program (MRVP), Alternative Housing Voucher Program (AHVP) and the Dept. of Mental Health Rental Subsidy Program (DMH- RSP). Click here to read DHCD's announcement.

On December 20,  President Trump signed two spending bills for FY2020 to avoid a government shutdown. The bills provide increased funding for affordable housing and community development programs at HUD and USDA. Key highlights include $1.35 billion for the HOME Investment Partnership program; and $3.4 billion for the Community Development Block Grant program — both $100 million increases from FY2019 funding levels.

The U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service released final regulations for investments in opportunity zones. The regulations provide additional guidance for deferring gains invested in equity interests in qualified opportunity funds (QOFs); excluding additional gains from gross income after holding equity interests for at least 10 years; and for an entity to qualify as a QOF. For more information, click here for the Treasury's press release.

On December 17, Governor Baker signed most parts of the FY2019 supplemental budget to closeout fiscal year 2019. 

On December 12, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released a proposal for new Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. The proposal would overhaul: CRA assessment boundaries; criteria for eligible CRA activities; and how banks are scored overall for their performance. A notice of proposed rulemaking is expected to be published in the Federal Register soon with a 60-day public comment period.

The Legislature passed the final FY2019 supplemental budget H.4246 in the final hours of Dec 11 to spend the $1 billion budget surplus. The House-Senate Conference Committee agreed upon a $541 million spending bill with $587 million to be deposited into reserves for a "rainy day fund". The budget bill now moves to Gov. Charlie Baker's desk for his review.

​ Check out CHAPA's November 2019 Housing Briefs for state and federal housing updates as well as recent research and reports. This month features:

On October 31, 2019, The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) posted Revised Guidelines for Calculating General Land Area Minimum (GLAM). DHCD's proposed revisions to the GLAM Guidelines are relative to the Group Homes Acreage Calculation. The revisions are red-lined in the online document. For the revised Guidelines, click here. 

As the Legislature finalizes the FY2019 supplemental budget, please contact leaders in the House and Senate to ask them to include critical funding for down payment assistance for low- and moderate-income first time home buyers!