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Last week, President Trump signed a two-week extension to the ongoing Continuing Resolution (CR), providing funding for HUD and other agencies whose fiscal year (FY) 2019 spending authority has yet to be finalized. The House and Senate both passed the CR by a unanimous vote. The CR, which pushed the expiration of government funding from December 7 to December 21, provides short-term funding for critical government agencies, including HUD, USDA and Treasury. Despite the extension of short-term funding, federal agencies operating under the CR will have to continue to make contingency plans for a potential shutdown later this month, as it is still unclear if lawmakers and the White House will be able to agree on a spending package due to controversial negotiations around funding for border security. Lawmakers have floated the idea of a year-long CR through September 30, 2019 instead of passing the remaining full-year spending bills that have largely been negotiated and agreed to. A CR carries forward funding levels from the previous year. Monarch Housing Associates joins Enterprise Community Partners and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) in urging lawmakers to work towards finalizing FY 2019 spending legislation over the next two weeks. The finalization of the FY 2019 spending legislation would ensure that the federal government’s housing and community development programs receive their full-year appropriations as soon as possible. December 3 Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF) Webinar on the Current Status and Outlook for FY19 and FY20 Funding Congress has failed to enact several federal spending bills for FY19, including those that fund affordable housing and community development programs. The main issue preventing lawmakers from reaching a year-long spending deal is President Donald Trump’s insistence that any agreement includes $5 billion for a southern border wall, which Democrats strongly oppose. A year-long CR would cause thousands of families to lose access to stable housing. For FY19, HUD needs approximately $1.3 billion more funding to maintain current program levels and renew existing housing assistance contracts. A year-long CR at FY18 levels would result in deep cuts to critical housing programs that could cause thousands of families and children to lose access to stable housing, putting them at increased risk of homelessness. A year-long CR would also put other vital investments in affordable housing at risk. Both the House and Senate proposed bills for HUD that would increase resources to help provide affordable, stable, and accessible housing for more seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, and people experiencing homelessness. Call New Jersey’s elected officials in Washington and urge them to enact clean, full-year FY19 spending bills for HUD. Click here for the phone numbers and staff contacts for the New Jersey U.S. Senate and U.S. House offices in Washington D.C. As further background, a December 3 Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF) webinar on the current status and outlook for FY19 and FY20 HUD funding for affordable housing and community development programs can be found here. CHCDF Webinar Slides NJ Congressional Contact Information Read the full article

In November, Novogradac projected that more than 65,000 additional rental homes could be financed from 2019 to 2028 if a provision is enacted to establish a minimum 4 percent floor for low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs) generated by tax-exempt private activity bonds issued for multifamily housing. The proposal to establish a permanent 4 percent floor was overshadowed when the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act was first introduced in 2016, as the proposed 50 percent increase in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) allocation authority received most of the attention. But the potential posed by a minimum 4 percent LIHTC floor, which would parallel the establishment of a 9 percent minimum rate that was enacted by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act in Dec. 2015, should not be overlooked. Read the full article

Time to Act is Now! Call Congress to Strengthen the Housing Credit as Part of Lame-Duck Tax Package Leadership in both the House and Senate have previously expressed interest in completing a lame-duck tax package to extend expired tax provisions, but the prospects for a tax package remain uncertain because of the limited legislative time remaining this year. It is also unclear if Republicans and Democrats will have the appetite to negotiate given the upcoming shift in power resulting from the midterm elections, particularly if Democrats decide to postpone legislative action until they assume control of the House in January. Changes in leadership on House and Senate tax-writing committees next year may also impact Congress’s appetite for finalizing a tax package during the lame-duck session. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced he will take over as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee following current Chairman Orrin Hatch’s (R-UT) retirement, and current Ways and Means Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-MA) will become Chairman of the House tax-writing committee. If a lame-duck tax package does come together in the remaining weeks of 2018, Enterprise and Monarch Housing urges Congress to include provisions to strengthen and expand the Housing Credit, as well as permanently extend NMTC before it expires at the end of 2019. To support advocacy efforts in the lame-duck session and in the next Congress, the ACTION Campaign has released updated district fact sheets to show the Housing Credit’s impact in each congressional district and the affordable housing needs that still remain in every state. ACTION also updated its state fact sheets last month. New Jersey state fact sheet NJ-1  NJ-2 NJ-3  NJ-4  NJ-5  NJ-6  NJ-7  NJ-8  NJ-9  NJ-10  NJ-11  NJ-12New Jersey's ACTION Campaign Members And last week, Reps. Steve Stivers (R-OH) and Jose Serrano (D-NY) sent a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 34 House members to Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) in support of the permanent extension of NMTC. In the Senate, Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have signaled their support for an NMTC extension to the Finance Committee. Updated District Fact Sheets Updated State Fact Sheets Read the full article

Piecing it Together: Elevating the Issue, Explaining Disparities, Making the Case for Community Development Organizations & Highlighting Solutions Enterprise Community Partners has published “Piecing it Together: A Framing Playbook for Affordable Housing Advocates.” This Piecing it Together playbook distills and illustrates a set of practical recommendations to achieve four important communications goals: Elevate the issue. Build broader understanding of why affordable housing and community development are matters of public concern. Explain disparities. Help people understand what restricts access to quality affordable housing and how racial discrimination contributes to problems. Make the case for community development organizations. Specify how they help to ensure equitable development. Highlight solutions. Emphasize that more effective approaches are within our reach. These Piecing it Together recommendations emerge from an extensive investigation by the FrameWorks Institute in partnership with Enterprise Community Partners. An effective framing strategy is needed to build public understanding of affordable housing and community development and generate support for change. The right framing will help combat consumerist thinking, generate a more structural understanding of problems with housing and solutions to address them, and inoculate against NIMBYism and skepticism of public intervention in housing. The Finding a Frame for Affordable Housing report outlines the findings from a series of interrelated investigations aimed at finding effective frames. Its purpose is to outline and explain the evidence base behind the recommendations emerging from this project. The authors hope that a transparent approach to the research, and its methods and findings, will enable advocates to trust and share the recommended re-framing techniques. This report is accompanied by a companion playbook for advocates, which translates the findings reported here into a “how to” framing guide and clear set of “do’s and don’ts” for communications practice. More detail on the studies can be found in a companion research report, Finding a Frame for Affordable Housing. Enterprise Community Partners works with the mission is to create opportunity for low- and moderate-income people through affordable housing in diverse, thriving communities. The FrameWorks Institute is an interdisciplinary team of social scientists and communications practitioners who work with advocates, policymakers, educators, and funders from around the country and abroad to reframe social and scientific issues. The FrameWorks Institute works to advance the nonprofit sector's communications capacity by identifying, translating, and modeling relevant scholarly research to frame the public discourse on social problems. Read the full article

Opportunity Zones Targeted for Some of NJ’s Urban Areas that Most Need Relief from Affordable Housing Crisis The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published proposed regulations for the Opportunity Zones tax incentive that was enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The proposed regulations offer investors and fund managers technical guidance on structuring Opportunity Funds, including clarification that: investors may only receive the tax benefit on capital gains; land value is not included in calculating minimum project costs, providing a more flexible threshold for projects such as affordable housing preservation; and 70 percent of a business' tangible property must be within the designated Opportunity Zone to qualify for the tax benefit. The proposed rule notes that the Treasury Department and IRS are working on additional published guidance, to be released in the “near future,” that will include information-reporting requirements. New Jersey already has 169 Opportunity Zones designated by Governor Phil Murphy. The Opportunity Zones are located in 75 municipalities spread over each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. The Opportunity Zones include parts of almost all of New Jersey’s major cities. New Jersey faces an affordable housing crisis and Opportunity Zones are targeted to some of the areas that most need relief. Earlier this year, Enterprise CEO Terri Ludwig testified before Congress on “The Promise of Opportunity Zones” and made two vital recommendations: regulations should be designed to promote the transparency of Opportunity Fund activities, and to ensure accountability and prevent abuse. This should include collecting transaction-level data from Opportunity Funds so that the public and Congress can evaluate the efficacy of the Opportunity Zones tax incentive. Congress and the Treasury Department should also enact federal guidelines to explicitly prevent Opportunity Fund investments that would disproportionately harm low-income residents and local businesses. An analysis by Real Capital Analytics found that sales of development sites in Opportunity Zones nationwide have increased 80 percent in the first three quarters of 2018, and owners in some Opportunity Zones have doubled their asking prices, expecting higher demand. Enterprise Communities encourages the submission of comments to the IRS by the December 28 deadline to identify ways to improve the regulations and prevent abuse of this economic development tool. Enterprise plans to continue playing a central role in the implementation of Opportunity Zones. Its next step is to work with state and local governments to foster inclusive economic growth that results in a direct and sustained community benefit to those we seek to serve. The Promise of Opportunity Zones Opportunity Zones Website More on Opportunity Zones Follow us on Apple News Subscribe to Our Newsletter for News You Can Use Every Day Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter Delivered on Friday Read the full article