Senate Democrats Press FHFA On Housing Trust Fund

FHFA U.S. Senate Affordable Housing

On January 24, Senators Warren (D-MA), Reed (D-RI), Boxer (D-CA), and 29 other Senate Democrats sent a letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt asking that he lift the suspension on funding for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) and the Capital Magnet Fund (CMF), in “a manner fully consistent with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations.” The Senators assert that the number of homes that are affordable to renters with incomes at or below 30 percent of area median income has decreased by more than one million units since passage of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act in 2008, resulting in a national shortage of nearly five million units affordable and available to extremely low-income renters, and that funding the NHTF and CMF cannot wait for Congress to agree on broader housing finance reform.